Thursday, February 18, 2010

Former comm. Edmonds to enter plea, trial averted

by Kenneth Lassiter

The trial of former county commissioner Don Edmonds was canceled Tuesday, as County Attorney Caleb Stegall reported a plea agreement was in the works and a March sentencing was set.

Edmonds’ charges were amended Jan. 26 to leave one count of felony theft by deception of over $100,000 from King’s Construction of Oskaloosa, which is a level 5 felony on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being most severe. An attempted theft by deception charge, a level 7 felony, remained but two counts of the theft by deception of between $25,000 and $100,000 were added. Those are level 7 felonies.

At Edmonds’ preliminary hearing Nov. 2, two King’s officials testified that the business payed Edmonds in advance for more than $200,000 worth of fuel in 2007 while Edmonds was owner and operator of a McLouth gas station. The testimony continued that Edmonds asked the business to buy another 100,000 gallons of fuel in March 2008, but King’s officials declined.

Kent King, co-owner of the business, testified Nov. 2 that Edmonds confessed on March 31, 2008, to lying about having the fuel on hand that King’s had paid for. At a meeting the next day, Edmonds agreed to pay the money back through promissory notes using his salary as a county commissioner. King testified those payments stopped when Edmonds resigned as commissioner in January.

District Court Judge Michael Ireland bound Edmonds over for trial Nov. 2 and set the trial to begin Jan. 19 and go for two days. Edmonds pleaded innocent to both charges and the trial was later pushed back to begin Feb. 16.

Edmonds faces a possible sentence of 31 to 136 months in jail for the level 5 theft by deception charge and a sentence of between 11 and 34 months for the attempted theft by deception and other theft by deception charges. Non-prison sentences may be possible for all charges.

Stegall declined to go into details of the agreement with Edmonds, as he said it hadn’t been finalized Tuesday morning. His only comment was that he was pleased with the results. A plea and sentencing hearing is set for 10 a.m. March 16.