FARMINGTON — A Vienna man was sentenced Wednesday to serve nine months of a five-year jail term and four years probation for a daytime burglary on Red School House Road on April 14.

Justin Meyer, 18, pleaded guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor assault charges in October.

Justice Valerie Stanfill also ordered Meyer to do 80 hours of community service, prohibited him from possessing or using alcohol and illegal drugs, and banned him from going near the Red School House Road. She also sentenced him to nine months in jail on the assault charge to run concurrent with the burglary sentence, and a $300 fine.

Meyer and a 17-year-old Wilton boy had gone into a house and were in a bedroom when the owner arrived and caught them going through drawers. The homeowner told both of them to sit on a bed while he called police. Meyer charged at the homeowner and struck him several times in the head and face as he tried to get out of the room, according to Assistant District Attorney James Andrews.

The pair ran out of the house and police tracked them with a dog about 5 miles  in the woods and arrested them. Meyer told police he was looking for marijuana and struggled with the homeowner and struck him.

This is not just a burglary where property is taken, Andrews said, it is a situation where you not only have a burglary but it is accompanied by an assault.

Meyer had two chances to stop his criminal actions and take responsibility for what he had done, Andrews said. He could have stopped it when homeowner came home and yelled upstairs, and he could have stopped it when the homeowner told him to sit on the bed while he called police.

Instead Meyer charged at the homeowner and struck him several times in the head before running from the house into the woods, Andrews said. He didn’t stop until the police dog located him, he said.

Andrews recommended a six-year sentence with all but 18 months suspended and four years probation.

The homeowner told the court that he and his wife lost something that day.

“We lost a sense of security and safety in our home,” the owner said.

To minimize this with a slap on his hand would be an affront to him and his wife and the whole law enforcement community, he said.

Defense attorney Wood Hanstein said the couple did not deserve what happened.

If Meyer is sentenced to serve more than nine months in jail, he would do that time in a state prison, Hanstein said, where more hardened people, more violent people are sent.

He said the court needed to differentiate between someone who has been in state prison before and someone who has never been in jail, Hanstein said.

Meyer has virtually no experience with the system, he said. He suggested a sentence of no more than nine months in jail and said his client would get more out of helping to winterize homes for poor people or the elderly.

Meyer stood up and faced the victims.

“I’m very sorry,” he said, as he struggled to maintain his composure. He said he never pictured himself in this type of situation.

“I should have listened to (him) when he said sit on the bed. I never should have got into a fight with him. That was very wrong,” Meyer said.

Justice Stanfill said after weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors, she said the base sentence would be five years.

“A suspended sentence serves as a reminder and deterrent and gives Mr. Meyer a chance to redeem himself,” she said. He would also realize the words spoken here are real, she said.

The homeowners now have a lack of peace and security that they felt in their home and it can last a very, very long time, she said.

After the hearing, Andrews said the co-defendant was sentenced in juvenile court to an indeterminate time in a juvenile correction facility until he was 18, with all of it suspended. He also was sentenced to serve 30 days in a juvenile facility on the burglary charge, he said.

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