FARMINGTON – Two Lewiston men pleaded guilty Friday to theft of a safe in January from a burned-out house in Avon.
The state reached plea agreements with both men.
Justice Joseph Jabar sentenced Scott Baitler, 30, to a three-year sentence in the Department of Corrections with all but six months suspended and two years probation.
Jabar sentenced David Lakin, 22, to nine months in the Franklin County jail.
Baitler and Lakin are two of four co-defendants in the case. The others are a 14-year-old boy and Norman Child Jr., 22, both of Lewiston. Child has opted to take his charge to trial.
The four are accused of taking two safes from the home of Lakin’s uncle, Frank Lakin, on Jan. 23.
The safes contained more than $1,000 and were found in and near a 1989 blue Buick that had broken down on the side of the road not far from Frank Lakin’s home.
One of the safes, according to state prosecutor James Andrews, had been broken into, and money was missing.
In a separate case, Lakin and a co-defendant, Shaun Tuttle, 21, of Lewiston have been charged with the murder of James McManus of Lewiston, who was found dead in the trunk of his 1989 blue Buick in March in Lewiston.
He had been beaten, strangled and run over with his own car.
Police said the car is the same one used to transport the safes in the Avon case.
The two suspects in the murder case pleaded innocent to the charge.
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