(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Bethany man has been given an eight-year prison term for a pattern of criminal offenses by possessing debit and credit cards stolen from vehicles at Stillwater homes, using or attempting to use them at stores in Stillwater and Guthrie, selling a stolen I-pad in Oklahoma City, and possessing the stolen cards.
Five additional counts were dropped against Phillip William Finch, 35, as part of a plea bargain approved in court Friday by Payne County Associate District Judge Stephen Kistler, who also ordered him to pay $4,810 restitution and $200 in fines and assessments.
Under the judge’s order, Finch’s Payne County sentence runs at the same time as two concurrent seven-year terms Finch is already serving in prison for methamphetamine possession after a former felony conviction and using a computer network to fraudulent obtain property, both in 2014 in Oklahoma County.
After the judge told Finch that he must report to the Payne County Court Clerk’s Office after his release from prison, Finch said in court Friday, “I’m losing my eyesight. I’m not going to be able to drive anymore because of my diabetes.”
On the morning of Sept. 7, 2013, three Stillwater residents of Parkview Estates near Perkins Road and Richmond Road “discovered windows on their vehicles had been broken out and their vehicles had been burglarized overnight,” a Stillwater police affidavit said.
“Among the approximately $4,756 worth of property stolen from the vehicles were several debit and credit cards and an I-pad,” the affidavit said.
Two victims “discovered fraudulent activity on their debit and credit cards that had occurred after the thefts,” the affidavit said.
Finch worked with a group as they traveled from Payne County to Logan County using various stolen debit and credit cards, the affidavit said.
According to the state Department of Corrections, Finch had previously been sent to prison in 2004 to serve five years, followed by 10 years of probation, for delivery of methamphetamine in Cleveland County. He served only about two years, DOC records show.
A year after his release from prison, Finch was convicted of burglary in Oklahoma County, for which he was given a six-year prison term of which he served about two years, DOC records show.
Five years after he got out of prison, Finch was convicted of methamphetamine possession after a former felony conviction and using a computer to obtain property by fraud in 2014 in Oklahoma County, DOC records show. Since March, he has been in prison to serve two concurrent seven-year sentences in those cases, DOC records show.
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