Lance Armstrong Bike Thief goes to jail

The man who pleaded no contest to stealing Lance Armstrong's bike in Sacramento was sentenced to three years in prison for burglary and theft.

Another man, 33-year-old Dung Hoang Le of Elk Grove, pleaded no contest June 1 to receiving stolen property. He has been sentenced to 90 days in jail, to be served on the sheriff's work project.

Man, I would love to see some local bike thieves thrown in jail. [So far this year, there have been 267 reported bike thefts in DC].

Comments

[Eric]

"Theif"

I before E except after C... ;-)

Intresting news item and +1 on the local bike thieves... I say that as someone who officially reported a bike theft to MPD a few years ago,(my bike having been stolen after thieves made a forced entry into a locked garage in Brookland).

[Eric_W.]

Seriously. Three years!?

What do you think had happened if someone had stolen a bike from you or me and they had actually apprehended the thief? I am pretty sure the sentence would have been a lot less than three years.

Three years seems a lot for a bike theft (even if the bike was expensive). The guy obviously is a career criminal so he might have had it coming.

Let's hope for good work on the part of our local PDs on actually catching some bike thieves!

[Eric]

Yeah three years did seem a little stiff, and I doubt that any thief of my less-than-$500 bike would get anything close to three years.

I think you're dead on with the career criminal part. In fact, sounds like he may have actually gotten off easy, though I doubt the max senetence is doled out too often. California code says:

461. Previous conviction — Punishment. — A defendant found guilty of burglary in the second degree, and a previous conviction of grand larceny, may be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a term of ten years. People v. Brooks, 65 Cal. 300.
(Gotta love Google)

It would be interesting to see a study on bias in the sentencing/conviction rate for bike thieves vis-a-vis car thieves. Naturally the sentences would probably be generally stiffer for car thieves b/c cars are generally worth more than cars, but trying to control for that...

In any case, there certainly seems to be a bias towards cars and against bikes when it comes to police willingness or ability to track down the perps.

[SJE]

I suspect that a big factor in the sentence is that he stole LANCE ARMSTRONG's bike.

[Washcycle]

Spellcheck doesn't work on the title for some reason...also they aren't teaching i before e anymore.

[Washcycle]

The bike was worth $10,000 so that may have bumped it up from larceny to grand larceny or something.

[Nancy]

But if you happen to kill a cyclist while driving your car, you usually just get a fine under $1000 and no time.

[Washcycle]

Same is true if you kill a guy on a motorcycle or a passenger in your car.