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Janet Marie Dornfeld, 55, appeared in Winona County District Court on Thursday afternoon for a pretrial hearing in which attorneys for both sides submitted exhibit lists, witness lists and jury instructions ahead of the jury trial scheduled to begin Oct. 7, Assistant Winona County Attorney Kevin O’Laughlin said.
According to the criminal complaint, Dornfeld and her cousin Peggy Lynn Monroe, 56, entered the home of the late Harriet Kelley in the 600 block of West Howard Street.
Dornfeld had a key to her neighbor’s house and thought it would be OK to go inside because Monroe was interested in buying the lot, documents show. According to testimony by Monroe, Dornfeld wanted to go inside under cover of darkness so as not to attract attention from neighbors.
Monroe said she turned on a light for a brief time, and someone nearby spotted it and called police. Officers arrived and found the women inside the house and arrested them on suspicion of burglary. Police found a Cuban peso and a brass ring in Dornfeld’s pocket. She said she didn’t know if the items were hers.
Monroe was convicted of trespassing in May and sentenced to a year of probation. Dornfeld will go on trial on a single charge of third-degree burglary and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
‘White knight?’
Lonnie Alexander Sigmon, 22, was sentenced Thursday to two years of supervised probation on a single count of gross misdemeanor criminal vehicular injury.
He avoided six months in jail as recommended by a pre-sentence investigation, but Judge Jeff Thompson gave Sigmon an unusually strict probation term: no driving violations. Speeding or running a stop sign doesn’t usually constitute a probation violation, but because Sigmon’s crime involved driving, even one of those petty offenses could land him in jail for up to a year, Thompson said.
Sigmon was also ordered to pay $677 in fines and court costs and will not be responsible for any restitution because the victim said all her medical bills have been covered by insurance.
Sigmon admitted in July that he drove off East Burns Valley Road on Oct. 1, 2007, and rolled several times in a ditch, injuring at least two occupants in his vehicle. According to the criminal complaint, he failed to negotiate a curve while going up to 60 mph. Two people were hospitalized with minor injuries.
The pre-sentence investigation recommended jail time because Sigmon saw himself as a “white knight” and “a hero” in the situation because he tried to stop someone from smoking marijuana in the car and dragged one of the victim’s out of the vehicle following the crash, Thompson read Thursday.
He said the investigator who wrote the report advised before “handing over a key to the city,” to check Sigmon’s blood tests, which revealed cocaine and marijuana in his system.
Kevin Behr may be reached at (507) 453-3524 or at kbehr@winonadailynews.com.
