A 22-year-old Green Bay man was sentenced May 30 in Lunenburg Circuit Court for stealing a trailer loaded with logs from a Victoria parking lot in the middle of the night.

According to a press release, Samuel Lee Hall was sentenced to serve one year in jail. The release cited an additional nine years were imposed and suspended upon conditions of good behavior, restitution of $1,692, no contact with the victim, supervised probation and warrantless searches.

According to Lunenburg County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Clement, the incident occurred in the early morning hours on Dec. 16.

“The driver of a tractor truck went to pick up the trailer where it had been parked and found that it was missing,” officials said in the release. “Victoria Police Sgt. Daniel Medlin investigated and learned that a similar incident occurred in Blackstone at Cox Lumber Yard on the same morning.”

The release cited that after talking with Nottoway County deputies at the lumber yard, Medlin was leaving to return to Victoria when he noticed an empty trailer on the lot that belonged to the Victoria victim, Austin and Sons Logging.

“Medlin proceeded to contact Westpoint Westrock

Chipmill, which stays open 24 hours (a) day.  The company found that one truck from this area had come that early morning, and provided the identifying information and photos, which revealed it was Hall’s truck,” Clement said in the release. “The Nottoway investigation found that two loaded trailers had been stolen there with Hall admitting the theft and being charged with grand larceny.”

His trial date in Nottoway Circuit Court is July 5, , where he faces charges of possession of a controlled substance.
According to the release, Hall was convicted on one count of grand larceny of timber and a trailer in Brunswick County, for which he received a suspended prison sentence.

According to the release, Hall had no prior criminal record, and sentencing guidelines recommended probation and no incarceration, but Clement said he pushed for incarceration and negotiated a one year sentence because of the audacity of the crime and the impact it had on the victim.

“I found it to be despicable that he took such advantage of someone else doing all of the work cutting and loading the timber with their own expensive machinery and then the defendant just driving off with it,” Clement said in the release.