A Manawa man will spend two years behind bars for breaking into the Fox River Mall at midnight last February in an attempt to steal weapons.
Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis on Aug. 21 sentenced Robert L. Clark II to two years in prison for one count each of burglary and attempted theft.
Clark, 21, will serve his prison terms concurrently.
McGinnis also ordered four years of extended supervision.
Charges of escaping arrest, obstructing an officer, criminal damage to property and a second count of theft were dismissed but read into the record.
Clark cannot possess firearms or return to the Fox River Mall or Scheels as conditions of his extended supervision.
Clark pleaded no contest to the charges on June 22. He faced up to 18 1/2 years in prison for burglary and theft.
According to the criminal complaint:
At 12:05 a.m. on Feb. 25, Grand Chute police officer Joe Teigen was dispatched to Scheels, 4301 W. Wisconsin Ave., to respond to a burglar alarm. The doors appeared untampered and the security gate was still down.
Teigen discovered a 1997 Ford Escort parked behind storage containers near Younkers and JC Penney. Because it was snowing at that moment, he could tell the car had been parked there for less than a half hour.
Teigen and other police officers entered Scheels. Teigen noticed on the second floor that a window above a shooting arcade had been broken out. There was a pink duffle bag and a folding ladder on top of the shooting arcade.
Investigators determined Clark broke through the window and entered by stepping onto a coin machine.
Grand Chute Police Sgt. Patrick Griesbach would later find broken glass and Clark’s shoe impressions on top of the machine.
Lt. Russ Blahnik and a store manager reviewed security video, which showed a man, identified as Clark, roaming the store prior to the officers’ arrival.
He was wearing a full-body white spandex suit with a dark jacket on top, a white face mask and gloves.
Officer Ted Vandenberg located Clark in the archery area hiding behind boxes on a shelf. Vandenberg handcuffed Clark.
Clark did not have any weapons on him. He told Vandenberg he had set aside a duffle bag containing a handgun in a storage area.
As police were running LiveScan software to identify Clark, he fled. Outagamie County Sheriff’s Sgt. William Tedlie took him down.
While examining the top of the arcade machine, Griesbach learned the pink duffle bag still had a Scheels price tag on it. Inside were rifle shells and 15 boxes of ammunition for 9-millimeter guns.
Griesbach went to the storage area that Clark had mentioned to Vandenberg and examined two more bags.
There was a Louisville Slugger baseball bag with its price tag intact containing two rifles. A second bag next to it contained two benzomatic propane tanks and a benzomatic propane torch.