Judge declines request for probation, sentences thief to 20 years
After a Villa Rica man asked a judge for a sentence of probation, the judge said he should have stolen from another county if he wanted that kind of leniency.
Justin Owenby between 2014 and 2015 stole more than $120,000 in aluminum, lead, steel and other materials from ALUM-A-LIFT, a business that employed Owenby, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
After stealing the materials from the company, Owenby sold them as scrap metal and profited about $30,000, officials said in the release.
He was caught when deputies saw him coming out of a wood line near I-20 with a large amount of aluminum.
Owenby gave conflicting accounts of why he had the metal and deputies arrested him, the release said.
During sentencing in Douglas County’s superior count, Judge William H. “Beau” McClain said he didn’t give light sentences.
“I don’t give probation to people who steal thousands and thousands of dollars,” McClain said. “If you wanted to steal thousands and thousands of dollars and get probation, you should have done it in Fulton County.”
Owenby was sentenced to 20 years with five to serve in prison.
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