Taking the Pledge; paying the price

BERGEN

Posted By: David W Sinclair (email)
Date: 3/2/2008 at 13:00:43

Lineville Man Pleads Guiltily
Lewis Bergan indicted for burglary of the Frogge store at Jerome, who gave himself up by coming to the jail Christmas night after wandering through the west, plead guilty before Judge Vermilion Thursday and was given an inderterminate ten-year sentence at Anamosa. In asking for clemency for Bergan, Attorney C. R. Porter spoke of the fact that he would never have done what he did except he had been drinking that the burglary was in broad day, and when it was over, Bergan was very penitent for what he did. After he had broken jail and gone west interest in his wife and child had brought him back, and he had voluntarily surrendered and came back to jail where Wm. Hamilton was serving sentence for letting him and Bert Shepard out. Mr. Porter said Bergan now wished to take his punishment and come back to his family to drink no more and support them. Judge Vermilion in passing sentence spoke of how much better it would have been for Bergan to have thought of his duty to his wife and child before he did the deed, than now to ask the court to have sympathy for them, that Bergan did not show he had when he drank and committed burglary. He said he would advise under the cirucmstances, that he be paroled in 118 months. -Iowegian.