The person who drove the getaway automobile throughout the 2018 shotgun theft of a 7-Eleven retailer in East Hartford obtained a sentence with out speedy jail time final month, regardless of having been arrested on a weapons cost days after plea bargaining the theft case in early March.
Decide Kevin C. Doyle cited the following conduct of defendant Thomas A. Ross, 39, of Hartford — who has been working six days every week and staying out of hassle for the reason that March arrest — as the rationale for the suspended sentence, in response to an audio recording of the Oct. 5 sentencing.
Prosecutor Emily Dewey Trudeau had requested the choose to impose the total 18-month jail time period permitted by Ross’ plea cut price based mostly on using the gun within the Nov. 27, 2018, theft of the 7-Eleven retailer at 393 Burnside Ave.
Ross pleaded responsible March 2 to conspiracy to commit first-degree theft. His plea cut price referred to as for sentence as much as three years, suspended after 18 months in jail, adopted by three years of probation. But it surely gave protection lawyer Stephen F. Cashman the precise to argue for a lesser sentence.
4 days later, state police arrested Ross on a cost of carrying a harmful weapon, a Taser stun gun.
Underneath a state Supreme Courtroom determination, a defendant who’s arrested after coming into a plea cut price can obtain any sentence as much as the utmost for the crime he pleaded responsible to. For Ross, that would have meant 20 years in jail for conspiring within the 7-Eleven theft.
However, when Ross pleaded responsible Might 3 to the cost of carrying a harmful weapon, the legal professionals renegotiated the plea cut price.
The brand new deal referred to as for a sentence as much as 5 years, suspended after 18 months in jail, and as much as 5 years of probation, Trudeau mentioned. Once more, Cashman obtained the precise to argue for a lesser sentence.
The choose mentioned the sentencing was delayed to provide Ross the chance to “develop a monitor file.”
Cashman argued that Ross had earned a completely suspended sentence by working six days every week at a restaurant and doing effectively underneath the supervision of the probation workplace. When Ross had “a difficulty,” he went to a clinician and requested for assist, the protection lawyer mentioned.
As to Ross’ position within the theft, Cashman mentioned, “he has all the time maintained that he was handed out within the automobile.”
After the robbers returned to the automobile, nevertheless, Ross drove away, and when a police automobile obtained behind them, he sped away.
He led East Hartford police Officer Tracy P. O’Connell on a chase on Interstate 84 into Hartford, then off the Foremost Road exit, operating a pink gentle, the officer reported. As Ross was making an attempt to get again onto the freeway, the automobile crashed right into a wall. All three occupants fled on foot, however police apprehended them.
Though Ross has a felony file, together with failures to look in court docket, drug crimes, and use of automobiles with out the house owners’ permission, the prosecutor referred to as the file “not problematic.” She acknowledged that Ross was “much less culpable” than the opposite two individuals within the 7-Eleven theft, together with his brother, Quinnshawn Ross, now 35, of East Hartford.
Quinnshawn Ross, who has 4 earlier theft convictions, pleaded responsible in 2019 within the 7-Eleven theft and obtained a 10-year jail sentence.
Fees stay pending towards the third defendant, Dorian A.J. McGhee, 32, of New Britain, who’s being held on greater than $350,000 bond within the theft and different circumstances.
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