Aug. 26—One of the defendants in a Longmont paving scheme found guilty of theft earlier this month was ordered to pay restitution and do community service.
Charles King, 55, was found guilty of theft on Aug. 6 following a four-day trial, though the jury could not come to a finding as to the matter of the value of the theft.
At a sentencing hearing Tuesday, Boulder County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Shannon Carbone said a judge ordered King to pay restitution and do 24 hours of community service.
The amount of restitution will be determined at a separate hearing on Nov. 29.
According to an affidavit, Longmont signed a $300,000 contract with Precise Striping LLC of Frederick to clean and seal road cracks. But according to police, Precise Striping did not fill the cracks and instead only put a thin rubber seal over the crack and then turned around and sold the leftover sealing material to another company owned by King, K3 Industries of Longmont.
"This defendant defiantly claimed he never stole anything, and 12 jurors concluded he actually did," Boulder Deputy District Attorney Jason Kramer said in a statement. "The moral injury is deep. We appreciate the jury's service.
"No matter what the outcome and conviction is, the important principle of prosecuting people that steal and buy stolen goods from thieves was meted out here. Everyone pays in to drive on decent roads, and theft undermines a municipality's effort to make the roads better for everyone."
But King has maintained throughout the case that he did not know about the scam and was not involved, and said he only bought discounted materials from Precise. King argued that the scam allowed Precise to underbid companies like his, which meant he had no motive to participate in the scam.
"Several small contractors testified at trial that they too had purchased asphalt crack fill sealant from Precise Striping at greatly discounted prices," King's defense attorney Steve Louth wrote in an email. "But for some reason only Mr. King was charged with committing theft against the city of Longmont. Mr. King stated at his sentencing that he would have immediately reported Precise Striping to the police had he known of the scam that they were committing against the city."
The other defendant in the case, Steven Cook Johnson, who worked at Precise, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of theft in February and was sentenced to 18 months of probation.