Two Marrero men who admitted they used pellet pistols to shoot out windows of more than 200 vehicles in West Jefferson neighborhoods will repay their victims more than $31,700, according to their plea agreements with the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office.
Christopher Flanagan and Dacotah Hamilton, both 22, pleaded guilty on Feb. 4 to eight felony counts of simple criminal damage to property and 209 misdemeanor counts of simple criminal damage to property.
Judge Stephen Enright of the 24th Judicial District Court, who accepted the plea agreements, ordered Flanagan and Hamilton to serve five years of active probation for the felonies and two years of inactive probation for the misdemeanors.
Enright also ordered them to pay restitution totaling $31,716.94, in addition to court costs and fines, court records show. Of that amount, $5,032.66 involves the felony counts and the balance involves the misdemeanors. Enright also ordered that they make monthly restitution payments.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, which was investigating scores of vandalism complaints filed by vehicle owners in the days leading up to Christmas Eve 2013, used license plate recognition cameras to link Flanagan’s 2001 Ford Escape to the vandalism spree.
That led to the two arrests, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Flanagan and Hamilton provided videotaped confessions, admitting that on three separate days they drove into West Jefferson neighborhoods in Flanagan’s car and used pellet pistols to shoot out windows of parked vehicles.
Deputies found pellets and empty CO2 cartridges in Flanagan’s car, according to the arrest report.
Flanagan and Hamilton also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor marijuana possession charges, for which they received two years of inactive probation. They were arrested separately in those cases in July 2013, records show. Their punishments will run concurrently with the criminal damage sentences.
Assistant District Attorney Angad Ghai prosecuted the cases.
