
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 12, 1995                   TAG: 9509120048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JEWEL THIEF'S SENTENCE SHORTENED BY 15 YEARS AGAINST JURY'S ADVICE

A Roanoke judge has trimmed 15 years off a long prison sentence given to a man prosecutors called a professional jewelry thief.

After convicting Michael A. McDaniel last week of breaking and entering and grand larceny for the Feb. 10 burglary of Fink's Jewelers, a Roanoke Circuit Court jury recommended he receive a 35-year sentence.

But at a hearing Monday, Judge Robert P. Doherty ordered that the jury's 15-year sentence for grand larceny run concurrently with a 20-year sentence for breaking and entering. The jury had recommended that the two terms run consecutively.

Doherty reduced McDaniel's sentence to 20 years after reviewing computations made under Virginia's sentencing guidelines.

The voluntary guidelines, which are based on average sentences given statewide for particular crimes over the past five years, had set the maximum sentence for McDaniel's crime at seven years and 10 months.

Although juries do not consider the guidelines under state law, judges can review them when deciding whether to reduce a sentence.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Phillips had asked Doherty not to cut McDaniel's sentence.

"I just think it's a shame that we asked 12 jurors to agonize all day long and make a decision, and then to reduce it just because it doesn't jibe with the state guidelines," Phillips said.

McDaniel was convicted last week of breaking into Fink's Valley View Mall store and stealing about $60,000 worth of gold rings and chains, then sending the stolen goods out of town via express mail.

He was arrested after postal officials became suspicious - all three packages had different return address, none from Roanoke, in the same handwriting - and received permission to open the parcels from the person to whom they were addressed.

McDaniel has been charged with a similar jewelry store heist in Savannah, Ga., Phillips said, and is a suspect in as many as 60 others. McDaniel also has four previous burglary convictions.

by CNB