2016 CLOSING SENTENCES BERRIEN COUNTY COURT

It was a busy year in area courts once again in 2016 with people sentenced for a variety of offenses ranging from embezzlement and fraud to reckless driving, robbery and murder.
January saw the sentencing of a Buchanan woman who embezzled money from the Berrien County Sheriff’s Department where she worked as the jail population manager.
JoAnn Roberts, 66, of Buchanan pleaded guilty to a felony count of embezzlement over $20,000 and less than $50,000 and was sentenced in Berrien County Trial Court to five years probation, 270 days in jail and 500 hours of community service. The last 90 days of the jail term can be served on tether.
Roberts must pay $1,858 in fines and costs as well as $79,000 in restitution. Roberts was ordered not to enter any casino during her term of probation. She embezzled the money from the sheriff’s department after losing money gambling at area casinos. The embezzlement occurred over a period of more than a year starting in August, 2014.
Roberts had been employed at the sheriff’s department since 1998 as a jail population manager. She resigned from that job in November, 2015. In her job, she would prepare tether collections for deposit with the county treasurer. She removed cash from the tether collection envelopes and deposited the money to her own account.
A Dowagiac area developer was sentenced in February in Cass Circuit Court for defrauding the city of Dowagiac. City officials estimated their loss from having to pay back a state blight elimination grant to be over $160,000.
Kenneth Mack Allen, 73, of Leach Road in Dowagiac, pleaded guilty to attempted larceny in a building and was sentenced in Cass Circuit Court to five years probation, $1,858 in fines and costs and $80,000 in restitution. He has credit for one day in jail already served.
The incident occurred over several months in 2014 during which time Allen promised to transform an abandoned storefront, the former Mr. K’s Wearhouse at 115 S. Front St., in downtown Dowagiac into a single-screen movie theater with apartments on the upper floor.
An area couple who robbed two area convenience stores were sentenced to prison in the spring and early summer.
Ralph David Fink II, 39, of U.S. 12 in Niles, pleaded guilty to 13 robbery and assault related charges as a third time habitual offender and was sentenced in June to a prison term of 23 years to 50 years. Fink’s past record included prior convictions for aggravated robbery and in Ohio in 2002 and for home invasion in Cass County in 2000.
The armed robberies in Cass County occurred between Sept. 29 and Oct. 20, 2015 at Sunrise Liquor on Huntly Road in Howard Township and at Lenny’s Marathon Station in Milton Township. Fink was armed with a knife in one instance and with a gun in another.
His co-defendant, April Marie Dawson, 30, of Long Lake Road in Berrien Springs, was sentenced in May to two concurrent prison terms of three to 20 years for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. She served as the getaway driver during the robberies.
A Dowagiac man who killed his wife after an argument in 2015 was sentenced to prison in late July.
Terry Stineback, 45, of Flanders Street in Dowagiac, was convicted June 10 of second-degree murder, assault with intent to commit murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He shot and killed his wife, Laura, May 12, 2015 inside their Dowagiac area home with their young daughter a short distance away.
Stineback was sentenced to prison terms of 20 to 40 years for second-degree murder, five to 20 years for assault with intent to murder and two years for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The two murder sentences are concurrent, while the felony firearm sentence is consecutive.
Fall brought the sentencing of a Granger man who drove recklessly in February and caused the death of a Galien woman, LuAnne Woodrick.
Jeffrey Norman, 51, of County Road 10 in Granger, pleaded no contest to reckless driving causing death and was sentenced in October to a prison term of 23 months to 15 years. He was ordered to pay over $12,400 in restitution to Woodrick’s family for the cost of her funeral and other expenses.
The accident occurred Feb. 11 on U.S. 12 east of Galien in Bertrand Township. Norman was driving west on the highway near Sage Road and crossed the center line and hit Woodrick head on.
Woodrick, 55, was a Galien resident and a clinical assistant professor in the School of Nursing at Indiana University at South Bend at the time of her death. She was conscious right after the crash but died on route to the hospital from blunt force trauma.
At year end, a suspect in a 2006 cold case was sentenced in Cass Circuit Court as was the man who tried to burn down his girlfriend’s home.
Wisconsin resident Trevin Deshon Safford, 28, pleaded no contest to four counts associated with the Dec. 18, 2006 armed robbery of the Family Dollar store in Edwardsburg; one count of safe breaking, one count of armed robbery, one count of conspiracy to commit safe breaking and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Safford received four concurrent terms of five years in prison. He has credit for 493 days served and must pay $962 in fines and costs.
The Family Dollar armed robbery occurred Dec. 18, 2006 in Edwardsburg with more than $1,000 taken from the store safe. Two men wearing bandanas and masks forced their way into the store at closing time. They tied up the two clerks and fled with money from the safe.
Daniel Eugene Thornton, 40, of Huntly Road, pleaded guilty to six felony charges and was sentenced in Cass Circuit Court to six concurrent prison terms including two terms of 10 years in prison for second degree arson and unlawful imprisonment.
He was also sentenced to one term of five years in prison for assault by strangulation and three terms of two years in prison for two counts assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of resisting police causing injury. All terms are concurrent.
The incident occurred March 1 at a home on Huntly Road in Howard Township near Niles when Thornton got into an argument with his girlfriend, assaulted her and then barricaded her and two other people in a bedroom while he set fires in and around the house. He later got into an altercation with a police officer and chipped the officer’s tooth.