A Rochester man arrested for theft four days after being released from jail for stealing a TV from a local church has been sentenced to five years of probation.
Kyle Evan Bass, 26, was also sentenced to five days in jail, with credit for five days already served, and ordered to undergo chemical dependency and mental health evaluations/treatment. Olmsted County District Court Judge Joseph Chase also ordered him to complete 100 hours of community work service.
Bass pleaded guilty in March to one count each of felony third-degree burglary and gross misdemeanor theft. All other charges were dismissed at Wednesday's sentencing.
Bass first appeared in court Jan. 31, when he was charged in the church case with two counts of second-degree burglary and one count of third-degree burglary, all felonies, and one count of receiving stolen property, a misdemeanor. He was released on his own recognizance that day.
Early in the morning of Feb. 5, a Rochester police officer watched as a man — later identified as Bass — ran from a store, jumped into a car and sped out of the parking lot, wheels squealing, the complaint says. Though the officer didn't think Bass had seen him, Bass still drove away from the store quickly, then headed north on Broadway Avenue at speeds estimated to be 70 mph to 80 mph, the report says.
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The vehicle began to straddle both lanes of traffic and slowed to about 45 mph as it approached 20th Street Southeast; the officer stopped the car in the 1900 block of South Broadway.
Bass was in the driver's seat, court documents say; several game console controllers were in plain view in the car, and more were later discovered in his jacket pockets. The officer told Bass he believed he'd stolen the controllers and a Bluetooth speaker that was also in his jacket pocket.
Bass initially denied the thefts, then admitted to it when the officer said they'd review the store's surveillance footage.
According to the complaint, Bass said he's addicted to heroin, and stole the items so he could resell them. He was charged with felony possession of theft tools for a razor blade he was carrying, as well as gross misdemeanor theft for the $650 worth of stolen merchandise.
The investigation into the church burglary began June 7 with a call from someone at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, reporting the crime.
Employees noticed pry marks on a door that led into the main office of the church, then realized someone had been in the treasurer's office. They found a screwdriver on the floor of the office, investigated further and discovered a 40-inch TV was missing from the youth room.
On June 9, the associate pastor of the church told authorities that someone had logged into the Netflix account that had been set up on the TV. The IP address used to log in was registered to a customer in Rochester; the profile name was set to "Kyle."
Bass reportedly lived at that residence.
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A partial major DNA sample taken from the screwdriver found in the office matched Bass' known DNA, the complaint says, with the probability that it belongs to someone else of 1 in 200,000.
