A Baltimore man was sentenced to 18 months in jail yesterday for breaking into the storage area of an Ellicott City apartment building through the drywall of the ceiling.

Carl Daniel Forte, 32, is serving a sentence in Baltimore County for burglary and was linked by police there to more than 10 burglaries in November in which entry was gained through the ceiling.

At Town & Country Greensview/West on Town and Country Boulevard, Forte and Gary Pernell Byrd, 33, pried open access panels in hallways, then crawled over the apartments before punching their way through ceilings.

Forte was charged with several counts of first-degree burglary and destruction of property. Byrd, also of Baltimore, was previously sentenced to 14 years on several counts of attempted burglary.

Pub Date: 8/26/98