Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 9, 1994 TAG: 9404120021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Lewis Eldridge Sumler, 46, entered an Alford plea in Montgomery County Circuit Court after deciding against a jury trial. Under a 1970 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Alford vs. North Carolina, defendants are allowed to plead guilty when they believe they are innocent but acknowledge that prosecutors have evidence that would likely lead a jury to convict them.
An Alford plea puts one's punishment in the hands of a judge rather than giving a jury the chance to set a possibly harsher penalty.
Friday, Judge Ray Grubbs found Sumler guilty, gave him a five-year suspended prison sentence and placed him on probation for the same period. A condition of the suspended sentence and probation is that Sumler repay the oil company's insurance company $9,273.
Sumler will make $150 monthly payments toward that restitution.
Sumler was charged last August with embezzling oil and kerosene from CJ&S Petroleum Co. on Roanoke Street between November 1992 and March 1993. Sumler was a truck driver with the company.
The company notified police of the loss last June. The charge was entered after an investigation of discrepancies between company and driver records of the amount of oil and kerosene entrusted to Sumler, police said.
by CNB