Man gets time served for charges involving stolen property incident

By Peggy Revell on December 13, 2017.

prevell@medicinehatnews.com @MHNprevell

It was a sentence of time served Tuesday for a man being held in custody since September after being arrested on stolen property charges.

Travis Seitz, 26, entered guilty pleas to possession of stolen property over $5,000, possessing of stolen property under $5,000, and four counts of breaching his release conditions, with Crown and defence counsel putting forward a joint submission for his sentence.

Seitz and another man were arrested by Medicine Hat police Sept. 18 when MHPS received a tip about a stolen cargo trailer being stored at a rural property near the Medicine Hat landfill. Police located the trailer and arrested two men who were transferring property from the trailer to a vehicle.

A search revealed stolen property from other break and enters reported to police.

The investigation was tied into MHPS’s “Operation Suppression” initiative in September that targeted both street-level drug dealers and property-related crimes.

While there isn’t enough evidence to say the stolen items were part of a commercial enterprise, Crown stated, “It was an awful lot of items that didn’t belong to Mr. Seitz, that he and (the other accused) were moving around.”

Addiction has been a problem Seitz has to deal with, said defence counsel, with the accused’s family having lined up a residential treatment program he will enter immediately upon his release.

Seitz also has a trial set for the new year on kidnapping, robbery and assault charges, which stem back to a Nov. 15, 2016 incident where a man was confronted and assaulted in his home, then taken to a rural location and assaulted, then returned to his residence and robbed. Seitz’s co-accused also has a trial set to take place in the new year.