NORRISTOWN >> A 20-year-old Hatfield man faces some time in jail and addict supervision on charges he stole some cash from a Lansdale man’s vehicle while allegedly trying to steal that vehicle.
Maxwell Joseph Liebsch, who listed an address in the 3000 block of Line Lexington Road, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 11 ½ to 23 months in the county jail after he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of theft by unlawful taking in connection with the March 2017 incident. Liebsch has been in jail since March.
Judge Joseph P. Walsh, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, also ordered Liebsch to undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation and to comply with all recommendations for treatment. Liebsch will be under addict supervision while serving the sentence.
The judge said Liebsch can be paroled early, after serving nine months of the sentence, but only to an inpatient treatment facility if a bed at such a facility becomes available.
The investigation began shortly before midnight on March 24 when a man called Lansdale police to report that an individual had tried to steal his BMW on the 600 block of South Broad Street while the owner was taking groceries inside his residence. The suspect, later identified as Liebsch, had backed up into a snowbank and the car’s wheels began to spin, police said.
The owner heard the vehicle’s engine revving and looked out a window at the subject in his vehicle, court papers indicate. When the owner yelled at the suspect, Liebsch jumped out of the BMW and allegedly replied to the owner, “Is this your vehicle? Sorry,” before walking off, according to the arrest affidavit filed by Lansdale Police Officer Drew Freed.
The car’s owner subsequently found that about $3 in quarters had been stolen from a cup holder inside the vehicle. The owner provided a description of the suspect, as did two other witnesses, and Liebsch was soon located and taken into custody, the affidavit indicates.
During the arrest, Liebsch showed several signs of being drunk and a portable breath test showed that he had an elevated blood-alcohol level, according to court documents. Liebsch was positively identified as the would-be car thief by the BMW owner and one of the witnesses, police said.
Police found $3 in quarters in Liebsch’s pocket and the coins were seized as evidence, according to the criminal complaint.
