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Last updated on Monday, June 1, 2015
(BEDFORD) - A Mitchell man who pleaded guilty to felony arson, auto theft and burglary was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Lawrence Superior Court I Judge Michael Robbins sentenced 18-year-old Dalton Burton to eight years in prison for the arson charge with two years suspended, eight years for the burglary charge with two years suspended. Those sentences will be served concurrently. He received a total of 20 days of credit time for those two cases.
Burton also received credit for 182 days served which ended his sentence on the auto theft sentence.
The following charges were dropped in the plea agreement: three counts of felony auto theft, two counts of felony theft and three misdemeanor counts of unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle.
In November, Lawrence County Police arrested Burton who was a suspect in several auto thefts and thefts from vehicle in the Mitchell area.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the vehicles, belonging to three different people, were stolen during early morning hours of October 20.
A minivan, which was taken from the area of Warren Street in Mitchell, was found abandoned at Compton Apartments in Mitchell. A Chevrolet Blazer taken from Easy Street in Mitchell and was found abandoned on a roadway and out of gas at 4:37 a.m. on October 20.
A GMC truck was stolen from the Rabbitsville Road area and was later found, also abandoned, in the Emerson gym parking lot in Mitchell.
Lawrence County Police Det. Tyler Phillips, after receiving information about possible suspects, talked with Jason T. Jones, who admitted to stealing the three vehicles along with Burton and 16-year-old Clint Ferguson.
19-year-old Jason T. Jones of Mitchell was arrested on October 22 on two counts of auto theft and two counts of unauthorized entry of a vehicle.
Ferguson was arrested and is facing three counts of auto theft and unauthorized entry of a vehicle.
Jones told police the minivan was taken first.
The teenagers drove it to Easy Street where they took the Blazer. They then drove the minivan and the Blazer until the sport-utility vehicle ran out of gas.
Jones then picked up Burton and the third boy in the minivan. They drove around Mitchell and Bedford until they abandoned the minivan.
They then stole the GMC truck. Jones dropped the other two off at their homes and abandoned the truck at Emerson gym.
Burton was also arrested in May 2012. He was 15-years-old and was suspected of burglarizing two businesses, stealing at least one vehicle and committing a rash of vehicle break-ins. He was taken to the Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center.
According to court records, on October 19, Burton set fire to a kitchen at a residence in Mitchell.
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