A career criminal looking to turn his life around got that chance in Niagara County Court on Thursday.
Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza told Kenneth Longmire she would personally supervise his rehabilitation efforts.
“I’m going to make you my pet project,” she told Longmire.
The judge rejected a recommendation that Longmire do jail time for his guilty plea to a single count of petit larceny. The guilty plea was part of a plea deal for Longmire who had been charged with third-degree burglary in connection with a break-in at the Wintergarden on Aug. 3, 2006.
Instead, Sperrazza granted Longmire a conditional discharge based on his assistance to prosecutors in a Falls murder case, his efforts to undergo drug and alcohol abuse treatment and his employment with a local hotel.
Longmire will return to court on Dec. 21 for a judicial compliance hearing. Sperrazza told him that will be her chance to make sure he is getting help and has a job.
“Staying in treatment and staying employed, those are key,” the judge said. “Otherwise you violate the terms of the conditional discharge and I can sentence you to jail.”
Longmire told the judge he was spending his available time working and in treatment and admitted helping prosecutors had not won him any friends on the streets of the Falls.
“My name was in the paper,” he said. “I was kind of like an outcast with people I knew, but that’s OK.”
Assistant District Attorney Lisa Baehre told Sperrazza before the sentencing that Longmire had testified in the recently concluded murder trial of Robert Johnson. Johnson was convicted on Oct. 5 on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the slaying of his wife Ahkenya.
Longmire testified that Johnson had solicited him to “cut up his wife’s face” and “assault her and make it look like a robbery.”
Longmire’s attorney said Johnson’s defense counsel told him, “Mr. Longmire’s testimony swung the case for the people.”
Courts
COURTS: Career criminal gets a chance
Kenneth Longmire given conditional discharge in burglary case
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