BY DAN HILDEBRAN
General manager
LAKE BUTLER—After serving two years in prison, a man on five years’ probation was sentenced to an additional 10 years behind bars after a judge found him guilty of violating probation.
Ira L. Holmes Jr., 41, of Lake Butler, was first sentenced after pleading to a 2021 burglary in which he attempted to crawl through a window on Southeast 5th Avenue in Lake Butler. According to the victim, Holmes got one arm through the window but fled when the victim chambered a round in his gun.
In April, the defendant was arrested for burglary after the victim said someone broke into his truck, and witnesses saw Holmes near the vehicle around the time of the break-in.
During a probation violation hearing, witnesses told Judge Mitchell D. Bishop they saw Holmes near the truck, but no one saw him enter the vehicle.
Deputy Charles Townsend Jr. testified that he found the defendant in his backyard while investigating the burglary.
“I just simply looked at him and said, ‘Why’d you go in that man’s truck?’” Townsend recalled. “He said, ‘I needed money.’ That was about it.”
Holmes told Bishop that he was nowhere near the vehicle when the burglary occurred and denied admitting to Townsend that he broke into the truck.
The defendant’s prior convictions include loitering or prowling, criminal mischief, burglary, grand theft, exposing sexual organs, aggravated assault, lewd and lascivious behavior, battery, arson, possession of a firebomb, attempted burglary, robbery, and escape.
