Lincoln safe burglars to serve two years

BANGOR – The two men who admitted stealing a man’s life savings from a Mattawamkeag garage have been sentenced in Penobscot County Superior Court to seven years in prison with all but two suspended.

Joshua M. Solomon, 20, and Steven W. Springer, 18, both of Lincoln, also were sentenced to four years probation and ordered to pay more than $52,000 in restitution to the victim.

Solomon also was sentenced to serve the remaining 17 months of his sentence for a previous theft conviction. He was on probation for that crime when the burglary occurred.

The two were indicted in November on charges of burglary and theft.

Joshua M. Thompson, 19, of Prentiss Plantation has pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property, a Class D misdemeanor. Ernest H. Norwood Jr., 23, of Lincoln pleaded no contest Thursday to the same charge. Each faces up to a year in jail for his role in the aftermath of the burglary.

The four men were arrested Sept. 11 at a Virginia motel by the Richmond, Va., Police Department where authorities recovered about $98,000 of the $150,000 police say was stolen from an iron safe in a Mattawamkeag garage.

What police recovered from the suspects had been stolen on Sept. 7 from the Markie Garage in Mattawamkeag. The burglars broke in through a door, then used acetylene torches to get into the safe where Leon Markie, 68, kept his savings.

At Solomon’s sentencing Wednesday and Springer’s sentencing Thursday, both men maintained that there was $109,000 rather than $150,000 in Markie’s safe. Their attorneys argued for a lower amount of restitution.

Maine Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead said that he would leave the amount of restitution to be paid to the discretion of probation officers, but ordered Solomon and Springer to pay 20 percent of their income while on probation toward restitution.

“This crime was not committed out of desperation,” Penobscot County Deputy District Attorney Michael Roberts said Wednesday at Solomon’s sentencing. “They took the money and went on a shopping and party spree from here to Virginia. They bought nice clothes, stayed in expensive hotels and had a grand time until they were arrested.”

At Springer’s sentencing on Thursday, Roberts added that the young men also spent some of the money to hire female strippers.

Thompson and Norwood are scheduled to be sentenced March 18.