Sentencing decision following appellate substitution of a conviction for theft over $5000 arising from a lottery retailer scheme involving the theft of a winning $12.5 million ticket.
The court held that denunciation, general deterrence, breach of trust, and the massive scale of the theft were dominant sentencing considerations, while also recognizing the offender’s first-offender status, good character, collateral consequences, and strong prospects for community supervision.
A conditional sentence remained legally available because of the offence date, but was refused as inconsistent with parity, denunciation, and the previously upheld custodial sentence on a related theft conviction.
The court imposed a fit sentence of two years’ imprisonment, reduced by ten months already imposed, for a net consecutive sentence of fourteen months.
