A Jessup man was sentenced to six months in prison yesterday for his role in a theft ring that stole 20 four-wheel-drive vehicles in Columbia last winter.
Charles William Danzer, 19, is one of seven members of the Low Riders car club charged with stealing the vehicles and trying to steal six others last December and January.
Some vehicles were taken on joy rides to Lake Elkhorn in Columbia's Owen Brown Village, where the participants would play what they called "crash-up derby" and "bumper cars," police said.
Howard Circuit Judge James Dudley said yesterday that he found the cases troubling because most of defendants are from good families, have no criminal records and do not use drugs or alcohol.
The judge said the only explanation for the incidents must be that the defendants were suffering from "brain death."
"There must be a social message sent out that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated," he said. "It cannot be treated as an unimportant and isolated incident."
Judge Dudley sentenced Danzer to 24 months in prison and then suspended all but six months of the term. Danzer, who works at an Anne Arundel County nightclub owned by his mother, will be eligible for work release while serving his term.
Danzer also must complete three years of probation and pay $831 in restitution to two victims whose vehicles were damaged after they were stolen. The defendant had asked Judge Dudley for a lenient sentence and apologized for the incidents.
"I don't know what I was thinking at the time," he said.
Danzer, of the 9300 block of Many Flowers Lane, pleaded guilty in September to two counts of unauthorized use of a vehicle, being a rogue and vagabond, and theft.
He admitted to having been a passenger Christmas Day in two vehicles that had been stolen by someone else.
On Jan. 5, a county patrolman saw Danzer and several co-defendants standing near a Geo Tracker parked off Greenfield Road in Columbia. Danzer's own vehicle was parked nearby. The officer stopped the group, searched Danzer's vehicle and found a stolen cellular telephone and a radar detector.
The alleged leader of the theft ring -- Christopher James Peca, 18, of Columbia -- is to stand trial Jan. 9 in Circuit Court on 96 charges related to the theft of 12 vehicles and the attempted theft of five others last December.
Another defendant, Jeffrey Kenneth Rhodes, 20, of North Laurel, is to be sentenced Jan. 12 after pleading guilty last month to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Three other defendants are serving sentences ranging from one to two years for their roles in the theft ring. The seventh defendant, a 16-year-old boy, was prosecuted in juvenile court.