Oakland man gets 21 mos. in prison

Published 8:58 am Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Freeborn County District Court Judge Steve Schwab on Monday sentenced a 26-year-old Oakland man to 21 months in prison for the burglary of a Glenville residence in July.

Thomas Eugene Vaale in November pleaded guilty to third-degree burglary as part of a plea agreement in the case. He had initially been charged with one count of first-degree burglary.

Thomas Vaale

The plea was classified as an Alford plea, in which a defendant maintains innocence but admits the prosecution has enough evidence to convict.

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He had previously been convicted of second-degree burglary in 2006 in Freeborn County and was also convicted in September of one count of attempted third-degree burglary and one count of third-degree burglary of an unoccupied vehicle in Worth County, Iowa.

Schwab said Vaale will be required to serve at least two-thirds of his sentence — or 14 months — and will be able to serve the remaining one-third — or seven months — on supervised release if he does not have any further disciplinary problems.

He will get credit for 156 days already spent in jail, including time in both the Freeborn County Jail and at a jail in Iowa since his arrest July 29. Vaale was inadvertently released from the Freeborn County jail to answer to the burglary charges in Worth County, though his Freeborn County charges had not yet been resolved. He was in Iowa for a little more than a month.

According to court documents, Vaale walked into a home uninvited on 755th Avenue in Glenville on July 20 where two girls were there alone.

The girls later identified Vaale as the man who entered their house in a police photo lineup.

Vaale declined to speak at his sentencing hearing Monday.