Burglar accepts plea deal
Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 6 years, 11 months AGO
A plethora of burglaries attributed to a 29-year-old Hayden man were parsed to six Wednesday in First District Court, including one count of grand theft and one count of petit theft.
And Christian D. Saganski pleaded guilty to the lot of them.
Dressed in a red jumper and speaking quietly, Saganski told District Judge Richard Christensen that he had committed the six burglaries and the grand theft, and the small theft, too.
The dates for each crime, however, were part of a larger gray area that the court, police and Saganski couldn’t pinpoint, but it didn’t matter.
Saganski, who is in jail on a $50,000 bond, will be back in court for an April 4 hearing in Coeur d’Alene in which he could be sentenced to a maximum 14 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
According to a plea arrangement, prosecutors would not be bound to having the sentences run concurrently, but defense attorneys will ask for concurrent sentences on all the charges. That means each sentence will run at the same time as the other sentences.
Burglary carries a maximum 10 years behind bars and a $50,000 fine, while grand theft carries a maximum 14 years in prison. Petit theft carries no more than a year and a $1,000 fine.
Saganski was arrested in November and accused of break-ins at six homes in Coeur d’Alene, as well as burglaries in Hayden harkening back to last summer, police said.
He was arrested after being captured on a video surveillance system while leaving a residence on West Pescador Drive carrying items he allegedly stole from the home. He was arrested near his parents’ Hayden home. During a police interview Saganski reportedly admitted to six break-ins in the Hawks Nest, The Landings, and Coeur d’Alene Place subdivisions, as well as several burglaries in Hayden, police said.
Saganski is accused of stealing several hundred dollars from homes he entered by breaking in the back door, usually in the morning or after dark.
In one case, a neighbor who saw him enter a house confronted him with a firearm and Saganski ran away without looking back. In another case, a couple at work said their children heard noises in the house and saw him leaving a bedroom. In other cases he left his footprints behind, according to police.
Saganski, a heroin addict, is also charged with a probation violation for a previous heroin conviction. He was observed on a Walmart surveillance camera turning the coins he stole in last year’s burglaries into bills at a vending machine, according to police.
Christensen also set April 4 as the time for a hearing for probation violations resulting from the latest charges.
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