A 17-year-old convicted of being involved with numerous church burglaries and ordered to prison after being caught doing similar crimes was bound over for trial Thursday.
Seven hours after being released from jail in the earlier case, Joshua Hickey allegedly broke into a local grocery store and two churches. That included burglaries of Dillon’s 1319 North Main, Trinity United Methodist church, 1602 N. Main and the First Church of Christ Scientist, located at 1400 N. Main.
He’s charged with 3-counts of burglary, 1-count of arson, 2-counts of criminal damage, 1-count of felony criminal damage, 3-counts of misdemeanor theft, 3-counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct or deprivation, 1-count of unlawful possession of a prescription, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Church officials testified Thursday over the damage and losses at the churches and apparently items taken from Dillon’s were found by detectives at an old ball field in the south part of the city. That included an empty cigarette carton that allegedly had the defendant’s fingerprints on it. He and another 17-year-old are also accused of stealing food items from the store as well as a Kendall Fire I-Pad valued at 300-dollarsand another old I-Pad from Trinity United Methodist Church. There were also damage to windows at both churches and the grocery store.
You may recall that Hickey had been granted 24-months community corrections on a 32-month sentence in the earlier case. He then violated his corrections and was given a 30-day sanction by Judge Tim Chambers. That didn’t work so well resulting in the new charges after he did the burglaries and thefts in January. Judge Chambers ordered the sentence be served saying he didn’t really have any other choice.
With Hickey being bound over on the new charges, he’ll be arraigned next month.