SKOWHEGAN — A Harmony man has been ordered to serve at least 18 months in prison for a string of thefts across rural Somerset County.

Jason J. Cunningham, 50, was sentenced Tuesday at a hearing in Somerset County Superior Court in Skowhegan.

The hearing began as a routine proceeding for a plea agreement, but lasted nearly two hours, after one of the victims objected to the deal and the presiding judge heard arguments on the amount of restitution owed based on a detailed list of stolen items.

Jason J. Cunningham Somerset County Sheriff’s Office photo

As part of a plea agreement, Cunningham was sentenced to four years in prison, with all but 18 months suspended, and two years of probation. He was also ordered to pay a total of more than $12,000 in restitution to three different victims.

Cunningham pleaded guilty Oct. 16 to several charges as part of the agreement. The highest level charge, one count of Class B burglary July 15 in Ripley, carried the four-year, partially suspended sentence.

Cunningham also pleaded guilty to one Class E count of violation of condition of release in the Ripley case; one Class C count of receiving stolen property; one Class E count of violation of condition of release, in Harmony, between April 19 and May 28; and one Class C count of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer in Athens April 17.

Prison sentences for those charges were ordered to be served concurrently with the burglary sentence.

According to the negotiated agreement, prosecutors dismissed one Class D count of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer in the Ripley case, and one Class E count of theft by unauthorized taking or transfer in the Athens case.

Cunningham was arrested July 15, just hours after the Ripley burglary and theft. Detective Michael Lyman of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at Cunningham’s residence later that day, and recovered much of the stolen property, the Sheriff’s Office said at the time.

At the time, the Sheriff’s Office said Cunningham was out of jail on bail for the offenses in Harmony in May. He also has prior convictions for theft in Somerset and Penobscot counties, according to court records. Since his arrest, Cunningham has been held at the Somerset County Jail in Madison.

Following the plea agreement, prosecutors and lawyers for Cunningham agreed he would be ordered to pay $8,900 in restitution to the victim in the Harmony case, Dong Ming Liao. Cunningham was also ordered to pay $39.98 in restitution to the victim in the Athens case, the Athens Corner Store.

The two sides disagreed on the amount to be paid to the victim in the Ripley case, Regan McPhetres, who was in the courtroom Tuesday.

Superior Court Justice William Stokes, who approved of the deal, ruled Cunningham owed $3,100 in restitution to McPhetres, who had requested about $5,000.

On the witness stand during a hearing to determine restitution, McPhetres said Cunningham stole many items, including several tools and a trailer, from his wife’s childhood home and farm in Ripley.

McPhetres said he and his wife, Brandi Alton, live in the Lincoln area and were working on the property after Alton’s father died two years ago.

After discovering the break-in and thefts, a neighbor reported seeing a suspicious vehicle early that morning, which was also caught on McPhetres’ cameras, he said.

When Lyman, the detective, responded, he recognized the vehicle as Cunningham’s, and soon found Cunningham with the stolen items and other items believed to have been stolen from other properties, McPhetres said.

The recovered items were returned to McPhetres, who, with his wife, compiled a list of missing items and determined price estimates based on internet research, according to testimony.

During cross-examination, Cunningham’s lawyer, Triston Peters, showed McPhetres several photographs of items and compared them to McPhetres’ itemized list. McPhetres said some of the items were not his, some were his and were returned to him and some were his, but he had yet to get them back.

McPhetres said all of the items on the list he provided the court were items he has not recovered.

Lyman, the detective, later testified that the Sheriff’s Office had returned all of the property it recovered to those who identified items as theirs.

Stokes, the presiding justice, called the evidence presented to him “confusing.”

“I’m as perplexed as I was when I came out here,” he said.

Peters said his goal was to determine the accuracy of McPhetres’ list.

“The purpose of this restitution hearing is for Mr. Cunningham to make Mr. McPhetres whole, not to overcompensate,” Peters said.

Timothy Snyder, the first assistant district attorney for Somerset County, said Cunningham is the one responsible for the confusion, not McPhetres.

“He’s the one who committed a series of thefts and burglaries,” Snyder said of Cunningham. “He’s the one who disorganized all the property and stored it in his location. The fact that some of it maybe got lost — he shouldn’t be able to capitalize on that set of circumstances that he created.”

The debate over restitution came after McPhetres questioned the rest of the plea agreement after it was approved.

At the beginning of the hearing, Stokes had quickly run through the agreement and was set to begin the restitution hearing when McPhetres raised his hand while sitting in the gallery and asked to address the court.

McPhetres then asked Stokes why McPhetres was not able to deliver a victim impact statement to the court before sentencing.

Stokes apologized and said he not aware there was any objection to the plea agreement, but told McPhetres to read his statement and one from his wife, who was not inside the courtroom.

The two statements described the material and psychological impacts of Cunningham’s actions, asked for more severe sentences and criticized the criminal justice system.

“There are a lot of bleeding hearts in the world, but until you become the victim, you do not truly see how broken the system really is,” McPhetres said in reading the statement from his wife, a former police officer who has also worked in other areas of law enforcement. “It is discouraging, disheartening and frustrating.”

Snyder, the prosecutor, said he understood McPhetres’ perspective, but told Stokes that Alton had expressed approval of the proposed plea agreement, and McPhetres never responded to requests to meet with prosecutors before sentencing.

In response, Stokes, a former homicide prosecutor and mayor of Augusta, launched into a half-hour response to McPhetres, explaining the three-step process used to determine sentences in Maine, professing his admiration for the American justice system and lamenting how the COVID-19 pandemic had derailed the court’s ability to conduct jury trials.

Stokes concluded that the plea agreement was reasonable. He said four years in prison — the full prison sentence that Cunningham could be required to serve if he violates his probation — is “nothing to sneeze at.”

He also said he has been victim of two home burglaries and could relate to McPhetres’ discontent.

“I can’t say that you’re wrong that it should be more,” Stokes told McPhetres from the bench. “But I can’t say that the agreement that was struck by the state is unreasonable under the circumstances. I grant you, and I have to admit, I don’t have the wealth of knowledge that you have. You know more about this case than I do. If I knew everything that you knew, I probably would feel the same way that you do.”