Key West man has been sentenced to 24 months

Key West man has been sentenced to 24 months

A Key West man with a history of arrests for petit theft has been sentenced to 24 months in state prison after pleading guilty to violating his probation in a 2017 felony petit theft case.

Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Mark Jones handed down the sentence October 24 to John Sadutto, 66. He also was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, to be served concurrently, after pleading no contest to felony retail theft and battery, the offenses that led to the violation-of-probation charge.

The underlying charge occurred on July 22, 2017, when Sadutto was arrested for petit theft-third or subsequent offense for taking $62.36 worth of fried chicken and cigarettes from Dion’s Quik Mart, 3700 N. Roosevelt Blvd.

Key West Police Officer Jeremy Tellier wrote in his arrest report that he was dispatched to the convenience store because a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy had a shoplifter in custody. The deputy was about to get off work and had pulled into Dion’s to gas up his patrol car when the cashier flagged him down and pointed Sadutto out. The deputy took him into custody and waited for Tellier to arrive before leaving.

The cashier told Tellier that Sadutto had ordered the chicken and cigarettes but had no money to pay and told her he was waiting for his girlfriend to arrive. She set the chicken and cigarettes under the counter “over an arm’s reach away from where a customer could touch them,” Tellier wrote, and turned her back to help another customer. When she turned back around, she saw Sadutto walking out the door with the chicken and cigarettes.

She caught up to him outside and took the carton of cigarettes but Sadutto tried to get away with the chicken still in hand. That’s when the deputy drove up. He took Sadutto into custody and the chicken was returned to the store.

Tellier arrested Sadutto, noting in his report that Sadutto was convicted of petit theft on September 14, 2009; December 9, 2010; October 10, 2012; and September 18, 2014.

On September 28, 2017, Sadutto pleaded no contest and was given 364 days in jail and 24 months of probation, plus ordered to complete a “changing faulty thinking” course.

A state Department of Corrections officer wrote in a May 11 affidavit this year that Sadutto violated probation by getting arrested for felony petit theft and battery, and failing to report to his probation officer as directed.

On May 6, Key West police officers were called to Publix, 3316 N. Roosevelt Blvd. The manager told Police Officer Brian Leahy that Sadutto approached the counter and asked for a pack of 305’s cigarettes. She rung up the sale for $4.47 and Sadutto, she said, patted his clothes as if feeling around for money. He then took the cigarettes, placed them down his shirt and walked outside past all points of sale. The manager followed him outside and saw the cigarettes fall from his clothes to the ground, Leahy wrote in his report.

The manager bent down to pick up the cigarettes and as she was doing so, Sadutto “became upset, swung and struck her right hand with his hand.” A witness confirmed the manager’s story of what happened outside the store and Leahy arrested Sadutto.

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