Case settled with plea agreement

Special to the Press
By Doug Thompson

The trial of a Floyd County woman charged with stripping her foreclosed home of light fixtures, appliances, a bathroom vanity and a claw-footed bathtub ended behind closed doors Tuesday with a mid-trial plea agreement.

Elizabeth Ann Ledger entered a no contest plea on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with the rights of a property owner after Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Shortt dropped the more serious grand theft felony charges.

The agreement came in a closed door session with Circuit Judge Ray Grubbs, who was hearing the case without a jury, after two hours of testimony stalled in a dispute between Shortt and defense attorney Daniel P. Frankl on how to determine the value of items taken from the home.

Ledger lost the home in foreclosure in 2007, and the house was sold at public auction. When the new owner, Glen Tolbert Jr. of Floyd arrived on Nov. 9 to take possession of the property, he found the house on Little River Road stripped of light fixtures, a built-in oven, a refrigerator, a claw-footed bathtub, a bathroom vanity and other items.

Tolbert also testified that he found a lot of trash in the house.

Floyd County Sheriff’s Department Chief Investigator Jeff Dalton testified that he was unable to locate Ledger after she moved but said a Virginia State Trooper later stopped her and brought her in on a warrant.

Dalton said Ledger was charged with stealing items which he determined would normally be in a home sold on the open market.  Frankl challenged that assessment, saying no written contract existed to say what fixtures might or might not be included in the home sale.

When Shortt asked Tolbert how much it cost to replace the missing items, Frankl objected, saying Virginia Case Law based value of items on their value at the time of theft, not at replacement value. That set off a debate between Shortt and Frankl that moved into the judge’s chambers.

After more than 30 minutes of consultation with Dalton and other scheduled witnesses to the trial, Shortt and Frankl emerged with a plea agreement.

Ledger stipulated in her no contest plea that the Commonwealth had enough evidence for conviction, and Grubbs ordered her to pay $1,731.32 in restitution to the new owner within 45 days.

The aborted bench trial ended a day of court session dominated by appointments of court-appointed attorneys for several defendants and the setting of future hearing and trial dates.