CHICO, CA (MPG) - A Red Bluff man was caught on Dec. 20, stealing from several Chico stores and was introduced to the hard realities of the recently passed Proposition 36 provisions that elevated his petty thefts to felonies. 

Mark Belisle Jr., 30, was captured by Chico Police driving a box truck filled with stolen goods from various Chico stores after a report came in that he had just fled from Dick’s Sporting Goods with many stolen sports clothes. Patrol officers spotted him a few minutes later driving his truck through the Chico Wal-Mart store parking lot and stopped him. 

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said Chico officers looked in the truck and found approximately 80 items still in original packaging with price tags from Old Navy, Best Buy, Target, and Boot Barn. 

Ramsey noted Belisle kept his thefts at the various individual stores below the felony grand theft limit of $950. Before the passage of Proposition 36 which became effective on December 18, Ramsey said Belisle would have only been liable for a series of petty thefts. However, with Proposition 36 now in effect, prosecutors are now able to “aggregate” or add up all his individual thefts to over the $950 felony limit and charge him with felony grand theft. 

Additionally, Ramsey said, Belisle’s record showed he had five prior theft-related convictions in Tehama County that triggered another new provision of Proposition 36 that allowed prosecutors to now charge him with the new felony of petty theft with two or more prior theft convictions. 

Belisle also has been charged with committing his Chico thefts while on bail for pending theft and drug-related crimes in Tehama. He had outstanding warrants for those crimes when he failed to appear in Tehama County Superior Court. 

Belisle was arraigned on his multiple charges in Butte County Superior Court on Dec. 24 and was remanded to Butte County Jail in lieu of $140, 000 bail to appear with a public defender on Dec. 31 to set the preliminary hearing on his charges.