An 18-year-old Walton resident accused of burglarizing the State Theater in downtown Logansport last year was sentenced on Thursday to jail time, in-home detention and probation.

Cass Circuit Court Judge Leo Burns found Robert Blake Ropes guilty of burglary, a class C felony. The judge sentenced him to six months on work release from the Cass County Jail, one year on in-home detention and four and a half years on probation.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Lisa Swaim called the deal an appropriate punishment for the crime. It gives Ropes, who is still in high school, leniency, she said.

Ropes’ attorney, Jim Brugh, said if this crime had been videotaped, it would have looked like the Keystone Cops, which was a series of silent film comedies from the early 1900s. The only difference is that what Ropes and two teenage juveniles did was not funny because it was a crime, he said. Brugh called the act foolish, and he described his client’s actions as an indication of his immaturity.

Ropes was arrested in August 2007 after running from Logansport police, who interrupted the theater burglary. Police reportedly captured Ropes in a foot pursuit and found movie passes in his pocket.

While loading Ropes into a squad car to take him to the station for questioning, an officer spotted another subject, who also fled. Two 17-year-old males, also from Walton, were caught in the area soon afterward.

The theater sustained extensive damage as a result of efforts to move a large safe down the stairs. An upstairs office was also ransacked in search of money.

The theater was closed for nearly a week to repair the damage.

Brugh said that Ropes had already learned from his mistake.

“What I did was bad,” Ropes admitted in court.

He told the judge he intended to put good marks on his record, which is now tarnished with a felony conviction.

Brugh told the judge that Ropes graduates from high school on June 1. The next day at 7 a.m. he is to report to the Cass County Jail.

“That’s a good lesson,” Brugh said of Ropes missing the “golden” summer many graduates spend in freedom.

Burns, who can see the movie theater from the bench, accepted the terms of a plea agreement worked out between the prosecution and defense.

Before the sentence was handed down, Swaim addressed the judge and Ropes.

She said the defendant had a lot of making up to do. On the night Ropes found out his girlfriend was pregnant, he went to the movies with his friend. That’s when he saw the cash box at the ticket counter and got the idea to break in.

Swaim said Ropes talked his friends into committing the crime. She called his actions a series of “unbelievably poor choices.”

The crime hurt a local business, one that has been around for many years, Swaim said. Ropes and co-defendants sent a large safe crashing down the stairs, doing extensive damage to a business the victim had invested his life into. Ropes had no consideration about others, she said.

Swaim spoke directly to Ropes, who recently became a father. She pointed out that everything he does now reflects on that child. She challenged him to make a new record.

After the sentencing, Burns told Ropes, “This is a hard way to grow up, and it’s only going to get harder.”

Ropes was ordered to pay $6,709 in restitution to the owner of the theater. He is also to have no contact with the co-defendants and to stay at least a block away from the theater. If his in-home detention is completed, Ropes will pay about $4,000.

Ropes, who has been out on bond since his arrest, was credited with one day served. The state dismissed a theft charge.

Kevin Lilly can be reached at (574) 732-5117, or via e-mail at kevin.lilly@pharostribune.com