Former custodian pleads guilty to urinating on chair

Clark County

Discussion

February 22, 2010

Former custodian pleads guilty to urinating on chair

Woman tied to bank robbery string sentenced

By MATT THACKER The News and Tribune Mon Feb 22, 2010, 11:24 PM EST

A former Clark County Government Building custodian pleaded guilty Monday to urinating on a court clerk’s chair, but he will avoid jail time.

Stephen L. Thompson, 59, was arrested in July after video surveillance cameras caught him in the act July 15.

A Clark County Circuit Court employee had reported discovering a “wet substance” on her chair five times in a nine-week period. After the fourth incident, Jeff-Clark Building Authority Director Mark Vangilder purchased and installed a hidden security camera in the court office that was programmed to record after regular working hours.

Thompson pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court No. 1 to class D felony attempted battery by bodily waste.

Judge Vicki Carmichael sentenced Thompson to one year of supervised probation and ordered a psychological evaluation. The sentencing range for a class D felony is six months to three years.

Because a court clerk is considered a correctional officer, the charge was a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor.

Both sides agreed that Thompson’s lack of any criminal history should be considered a mitigating factor in sentencing.

“On the other side, there was a victim who suffered much humiliation and anguish by this incident,” Clark County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said, as he asked for an 18-month jail sentence.

Thompson’s attorney, William Gray, argued for six months of probation.

“Steve stepped up to the plate early on, admitted his guilty and accepted responsibility,” Gray said.

He said after the hearing that his client was pleased with the sentence and is ready to get past this episode in his life.

“I’m happy to see the matter come to a close, and hopefully, the victim can move on and continue her good service to the county,” Mull said.

The court clerk has filed a small claims lawsuit in Superior Court No. 3 seeking $4,000 in compensatory damages because of the incident.

Vangilder said he had heard complaints of Thompson being “overly friendly,” but no formal complaints were ever filed.

Thompson, who is no longer employed with the county, was reportedly hired by the county after working as a private security guard in the courthouse.

Woman sentenced in

Jeffersonville bank robbery

A woman linked to at least half a dozen bank robberies was sentenced Monday to three years in jail for a class D felony charge of assisting a criminal related to a 2008 Jeffersonville robbery.

Penny Sue Johnson, 45, of Louisville, pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court No. 1 to assisting Steven Raphael Bond in the Jan. 10, 2008, robbery at First Savings Bank along Court Avenue.

Bond, 39, allegedly entered the bank in the early afternoon and demanded tellers fill his backpack with money. Mull said the only evidence they had connecting Johnson to the robbery was witness statements that a woman was in the getaway vehicle.

Bond and Johnson were charged in six robberies, five of them in Kentucky.

Johnson’s three-year sentence in Clark County will run concurrently with a 12-year sentence she is serving in Kentucky after pleading guilty to complicity to first-degree robbery in Hardin County.

Bond and Johnson were indicted last year on four counts of complicity to first-degree robbery in Louisville. Those cases are pending.

According to the News-Enterprise in Elizabethtown, the pair were caught Feb. 20, 2008, after a bank robbery in Hardin County, when Johnson’s rented Toyota sedan crashed at a congested intersection.

Detectives reportedly found masks, $97,000 in cash and a toy pistol in the vehicle.

“[Johnson’s] involvement in the Clark County robbery was minimal, so I feel the sentence was appropriate,” said Gray, who is her attorney.

Bond is serving a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to the Elizabethtown bank robbery. He has not yet been extradited to Clark County to face class B felony robbery charges.

Man pleads guilty for convenience store robbery

Aaron Stone, 23, of Louisville, pleaded guilty Monday in Superior Court No. 1 to class C felony robbery.

Stone and Jeremy Pieratt, 27, robbed the Save-A-Step Food Mart at 109 S. Clark Blvd. in Clarksville.

A plea agreement calls for a sentence of five years in prison and three years of probation. Pieratt already pleaded guilty and was sentenced to the same jail and probation time.

Stone is scheduled to be formally sentenced March 8.