Man sentenced to prison for receiving stolen property
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WAYNESBURG – An Allegheny County man found guilty by a Greene County jury of receiving stolen property for possessing a stolen vehicle was sentenced Monday to 1 to 2 year in prison.
Randy Richard Plecha, 39, of 1331 Main St., Crescent, was sentenced by Judge William Nalitz who also ordered Plecha to pay a $300 fine, gave him credit for time served and found him eligible for consideration in the Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive program, which would reduce his minimum sentence to nine months.
Plecha had been convicted by a jury on Sept. 18 of one count of receiving stolen property. He was arrested in November and found to be in possession of car stolen a month earlier in Beaver County.
According to the criminal complaint, state police were asked on Nov. 11 to run a license plate on a Chevrolet Cobalt that had been parked for about a month in a gravel lot next to the Graysville Store.
The Ohio plate on the car was found to be registered to a 2007 Volkswagen sedan. When police ran the vehicle’s identification number, they learned the Cobalt had been reported stolen by its owner, Jean Endler, from Beaver County on Sept. 23, 2012.
A witness, Peggy L. Pettit, told police Plecha was the person she knew to be in possession of the car. Another witness, Amber Sue Pikula told police Plecha had come to her home the last week of September 2012 to stay for a few days.
Pikula said Plecha told her he had borrowed the car from a girlfriend. When Pikula questioned him further about the vehicle he left, she said.
Plecha then went to stay at the residence of Frank Pikula. Frank Pikula said Plecha told him he had traded two pickup trucks for the car.
Frank Pikula said he found it odd Plecha had asked to park the car behind Pikula’s garage instead of in the front and that the registration on the vehicle was for Ohio but the inspection sticker was for Pennsylvania. At one point, Plecha left Frank Pikula’s residence and returned without the car. He told Frank Pikula he had lost the keys and someone helped him push the car into the gravel lot next to the Graysville Store.
Police said the actual registration plate for the Cobalt was found at Frank Pikula’s residence among Plecha’s belongings.