16 months in prison for a 19-year-old who stole money, fruit and vegetables from the market in Dobrich with friends

A panel of the District Court in Dobrich confirmed the sentence of the Dobrich District Court, by which the defendant V.H. was found guilty of the fact that during the period from June 5 to 9, 2021, in the city of Dobrich, under the conditions of a continuing crime and repetition , after a preliminary collusion with three other defendants, by damaging barriers made to protect property, and by using technical means – keys, took foreign movable property with a total value of BGN 1,006 from the possession of various persons, without their consent and with the intention to unlawfully appropriate what was taken, and the case is not unimportant. For the committed act, the defendant will suffer imprisonment for a period of 1 year and 4 months, under an initial strict regime.

The four defendants were friends and often met. On June 4, 2021 were in the home of the then 19-year-old V.H., where they agreed to steal money and things from the commercial stands of the cooperative market in Dobrich. For this purpose, they prepared various keys with which to overcome the padlocks and locks. In fulfillment of the plan, after midnight, already on June 5, they entered the territory of the market, began to select keys for the padlocks and managed to open the cabinet on one table, from where they took the discovered 50 BGN and 35 kg of strawberries. The defendants repeated the same act in the early hours of June 9, when they managed to open 10 more of the cabinets of the trading tables and took working capital, fruits, vegetables, seedlings and other small items from the possession of the tenants of the premises. The defendants divided the acquired sums and items among themselves.

The case before the first instance took place according to the order of summary trial, after all the defendants fully admitted the facts set forth in the indictment. Subsequently, the sentence was appealed only by V.H. with a request to reduce the punishment imposed on him and to replace the prescribed strict regime with a general one. The remaining defendants, who were sentenced to 6 months of imprisonment – conditionally, with the same sentence, did not join the appeal.

After a comprehensive review of the contested legal act, the District Court found the filed appeal unfounded. The act committed by the appellant is legally classified as a crime, the appeals court states. The complicity between four persons, three of whom were minors, the amount of damages, incl. the damage caused by the damaged padlocks and the deformed doors of the commercial stands, as well as the criminal persistence shown, preclude the possibility of the case being defined as unimportant. It should be taken into account that the crime affected the rights of many injured persons, adds the court panel.

In its decision, the court explained that the initial regime for serving the imposed punishment should unconditionally be of the “severe” type, since the crime was committed during the probationary period of the defendant’s conditional sentence and the sum of the sanctions to be served separately exceeds two years, which is the legal requirement to set strict regime. In this case, the sanctions to be served are two years and four months.

The decision by which the District Court confirms the verdict of the first instance is final and not subject to appeal.