Bonners Ferry teen gets
a chance after burglary
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September 13, 2011 |
 Caleb U. Perez, 19, Bonners Ferry, has five
years to prove he deserves a second chance, with
the threat of up to six years in the Idaho State
Prison hanging over his head after he pled
guilty to burglary.
According to the court record, sometime between
May 12 and 13, Perez stopped by Sharon's Country
Store and The Bread Basket just north of Three
Mile, found an unlocked door, and entered the
side-by-side businesses. He went to the cash
registers, broke into both of them, and took
what they contained.
For that, he was initially charged with two
felony counts of burglary and two misdemeanor
counts of malicious injury to property for
breaking the cash registers. The record gives no
indication of how he was identified as the
culprit, but Perez confessed to a sheriff's
investigator that he'd committed the crime, and
admitted to taking around $1,500 from the
businesses.
In a plea deal that spares him prison time but
requires that he gain treatment for the drug and
alcohol addictions that he said led him to
commit the crimes, he pled guilty to one count
of burglary and one count of malicious injury to
property.
Last week, Judge Steven Verby accepted that plea
deal, sentencing Perez to two years in prison
fixed, four years indeterminate on the burglary
charge, suspended, and 90 days in the county
jail, which he must serve. In addition, he must
pay both business owners a total of $4,160.74 in
restitution, $525.50 in court costs and a $62.50
fine.
On the misdemeanor, he will have to serve two
years' unsupervised probation, on the felony,
five, but supervised, and not beginning until
after he completes a specific and demanding drug
and alcohol rehabilitation program.
If he fails either, he'll spend considerable
time return addressing letters home from an
Idaho prison cell. |
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