Car battery thief didn’t quite reach the poles

Forty-one year old Marlon Leslie Chavez is tonight beginning a yearlong bid in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of theft.  Leslie was caught red-handed by a security guard of Bottom Dollar Store in the wee hours of Friday morning stealing two Renco batteries from the compound.   Shortly after two o’clock that morning, officers on mobile patrol along Regent Street noticed a man acting suspiciously and pursued him.  When the policemen caught up with Chavez they observed that he was carrying a green plastic bag on his shoulder.  A search of the bag yielded two car batteries valued at six hundred and ninety dollars.  In court today, he wasted no time in pleading guilty to the charge and was sentenced to a year at the Belize Central Prison in Hattieville.