Forty-six-year-old Christopher Allen Haddick was sentenced Monday to six months in jail for breaking into his former employer’s store and stealing money.
Haddick was found guilty of breaking and entering and theft by a 12-person jury in a trial that lasted more than five hours June 13 in the Fayette County Court of Common Pleas.
Haddick was named as a suspect to a breaking and entering and theft at Cheap Tobacco in Washington Court House Oct. 9, 2016. Haddick had been employed at Cheap Tobacco for more than a year when the incident occurred, according to reports.
Haddick worked his normally scheduled shift Oct. 9, 2016, and closed the store at 5 p.m.
According to incident reports filed in the case, a person wearing a mask and dark clothes returned to the store at 10 p.m. and used an employee code to gain access inside the store. Once inside the person reportedly stole a store safe containing $650.
Upon reviewing the full-color, high definition video surveillance inside the store, law enforcement officials and store employees identified Haddick as a suspect and said he was wearing the same pants and shoes during the break-in as he had worn earlier that same day to work. Haddick denied this fact during the trial and also denied that the store employee code used in the break-in was assigned to him.
Haddick testified that he was innocent and provided an alibi to the jury. Haddick said on the night of Oct. 9, 2016, he was at his father’s house in Huber Heights.
The jury deliberated for about 30 minutes June 13 before coming back with a guilty verdict to theft, a first-degree misdemeanor, and breaking and entering, a fifth-degree felony. After the jury was released from their duty, Judge Steven Beathard revoked Haddick’s bond and sent him to jail to await sentencing.
In addition to serving six months in the Fayette County Jail, Haddick was sentenced Monday to be on supervised probation for two years and to pay $650 restitution to the Cheap Tobacco store. He was also ordered to pay costs of prosecution in the matter and may face a one-year prison sentence for failing to abide by the terms of the sentencing order. The record reflected Haddick had no prior felonies.
