The last of three Orangeburg County youths charged with breaking a dozen windows earlier this year during a rock-throwing spree pleaded guilty Friday in Orangeburg city court.
The 17-year-old Elloree youth was the last of three county youths charged in April with 11 counts of malicious injury to personal property after nearly a dozen car and business windows were smashed with rocks.
“I don’t see where I can give you any more or any less than I gave them,” Orangeburg City Judge Barney Houser said.
No more and no less meant the youth was sentenced on one count to a $673 fine and 30 days in jail, suspended to 11 days in jail, the fine suspended.
On the remaining 10 counts, the youth was sentenced to 50 hours of community service for each count, to be served consecutively, with the fine suspended upon successful completion of the community service.
Like the others, the Elloree youth was ordered to pay $703 in restitution.
Representing the youth, defense attorney Brad Hutto described his client as simply someone who got mixed up in the wrong crowd. The youth accepted his responsibility and punishment, Hutto said.
On June 3, an Orangeburg and a Cordova youth, both 17, pleaded guilty to the same charges. Police said the trio went about several centralized streets within the city limits, throwing pieces of concrete and rocks through car windows.
Houser lowered the boom on the initial two defendants when they pleaded during the June 3 hearing.
“You didn’t think about your consequences, did you?” Houser said at that hearing. “Sometimes, you’ve got to learn a hard lesson. And you’re about to learn a hard lesson. This is beyond a teenage prank.”
The community service is to be served on Saturdays, as the judge pointed out “for the next year, year and a half.”
Investigators say Orangeburg residents began waking up to broken windows on their vehicles around March 25. Police received at least five calls over the next five days.
The following weekend, at least that many more vehicle windows and a local business’s window were reported shattered with rocks, taking the total to 11.
One woman who attended Friday’s hearing said she was in the hospital when a rock shattered her vehicle’s window. The woman’s daughter asked the Elloree youth why he would be so hateful.
The youth offered an apology.
Each of the youths, the two on June 3 and the Elloree youth on Friday, were warned their original sentence of 30 days in jail for each count could be reinstated if they do not satisfy the community service order.
T&D Staff Writer Richard Walker can be reached by e-mail at rwalker@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5516.