Accused Chester gang member gets 13 years for stealing safe from war veteran

Since he was a teenager, police and prosecutors say, Kiamma “Curley Moe” Sanders, a “documented gang member,” has stolen.

The last time, Sanders, 22, stole a safe with heirloom $100 bills and more, totaling $10,000, from an aging war veteran who had hoped to give the mementos and the money to his grandchildren.

After Monday, Sanders is taking a 13-year break – for safecracking and burglary.

“What else does the state of South Carolina have to do to keep you from stealing other people’s stuff?” Circuit Court Judge Brian Gibbons of Chester County asked Sanders in open court Monday.

The answer: prison.

There are no “Three Stooges” jokes here.

In December, Sanders and two accomplices broke into an old man’s home and stole the safe and everything inside it, prosecutors said. When they left, they used a crowbar and hammer to smash the safe and split the $10,000 inside.

Prosecutors allege that Sanders, on probation for another burglary at the time of the December break-in, used some of his cut of the stolen money to pay a debt he owed to state probation agents before being sent back to prison for violating probation.

The three also stole two guns that night, police say, which were recovered at a house known to police as a gang haven.

While sitting in jail awaiting trial, Sanders told the judge, he became a father and a new man, and he wants to be a dad to his son.

The first lesson Sanders had learned as a father,” Gibbons said, was to take responsibility for his actions – the best thing he can teach his son.

Sanders told Gibbons that he wanted to be a father – “not just a daddy” – and that becoming a parent had changed his life.

Public defender Devon Nielson asked for “mercy” and eight years in prison so Sanders would have a chance at starting over before his son was grown.

“Give this father a chance,” Nielson said.

But Sanders is a “documented gang member,” Sixth Circuit deputy solicitor Julie Hall said in court Monday. Hall spoke of Sanders’ previous convictions for burglary in Chester and York counties dating back to when he was a teen. He already got his chance, she said, by being sentenced as a youthful offender and receiving probation for previous crimes.

The longtime prosecutor said the plea agreement – in which prosecutors agreed not to seek the maximum sentence for Sanders – was “quite frankly, a gift.” If convicted at trial, he would have faced up to 45 years in prison.

Even with the “gift,” the judge was not going to let the repeat burglar anywhere near the courthouse door to go on a child visit – or anywhere else.

“Chester County,” Gibbons said, “ought to be a safer place with you in jail.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 9:47 AM with the headline "Accused Chester gang member gets 13 years for stealing safe from war veteran."