photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Quentin Raymond Sowers

A Topeka man who pleaded guilty to charges of felony theft and criminal damage in a case involving stolen cable box batteries was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County District Court to two years and eight months in prison.

The judge sentenced Quentin Raymond Sowers, 50, to 14 months in prison for one count of felony theft, Cheryl Wright Kunard, assistant to the district attorney, told the Journal-World via email.

Sowers also pleaded guilty to two additional counts of felony theft and one count of felony criminal damage. He was sentenced to six months in prison for each of those, Wright Kunard said. He must also pay restitution of $3,261.

Sowers was initially charged with 30 counts of theft, burglary and property damage, including three counts of theft of batteries and power units valued at more than $1,500 apiece, the Journal-World reported in April. Authorities alleged that he was prying open Midco cable boxes all over Lawrence and stealing the backup batteries that enable the boxes to function during an outage.

photo by: Sara Shepherd

Metal utility boxes at West 21st and Carolina streets are pictured on Friday, April 12, 2019.

A Midco spokeswoman previously told the Journal-World that missing cable box batteries could allow an outage with serious consequences for public safety or other functions that rely on the infrastructure.

The court also ordered his sentence to run consecutively to a Shawnee County case. Online records from Shawnee County District Court indicate Sowers pleaded guilty to low-level felony burglary in that case and had a few misdemeanor charges dismissed. He was granted probation in that case on Nov. 7, 2018, with an underlying sentence of 12 months in prison should his probation be revoked.