A Hobart woman charged with being part of a couple who burglarized Portage garages and sheds during the summer had her first appearance in court Friday and faces up to six years in prison if convicted at a May 8 trial.

Nikita Shelby, 29, of the 1200 block of West Third Street, is charged with level 5 felony aiding in a burglary and level 6 felony assisting a criminal, and she is being held on $2,000 cash bail bond, court records state.

Police encountered Shelby about 4:12 a.m. July 29 when they responded to reports of an SUV parked in the 2800 block of Whittier Street near Meadow Avenue with the lights off.

Shelby told them she was waiting for her boyfriend, who was visiting a house that didn't have lights on, and police officers traced footprints to a shed with the padlock broken and power tools stacked by the door, according to the charging information.

The boyfriend, Rodney A. Dazzen Jr., 36, of the 5200 block of East 10th Avenue in Gary, has been charged with level 5 felony burglary and was due in court Tuesday.

Police found items in the SUV reported stolen from other Portage homes, such as a floor jack, air conditioner, a ladder and tools, and Dazzen talked with Shelby by cellphone but never returned to the vehicle but called police later to try to claim it, court documents state.

An Arizona man who acted as his own attorney was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for not paying child support after he tried to back out of an Oct. 21 plea agreement.

Thomas D. Davis, 37, of San Tan Valley, Ariz., had pleaded guilty Oct. 21 to level C felony failure to pay child support and owed more than $15,000 from January 2000 to July 2014, court records state.

Davis argued that he misunderstood the sentence of two years incarceration and four years probation described in the plea agreement and asked to rescind his plea so he could get an attorney; however, Porter Superior Judge William Alexa said he believed that Davis was making excuses for that and for not making child support payments since his plea, as stipulated.

“You have a fairly lengthy criminal record. This is no new experience for you,” Alexa said.

A Gary man who was part of a counterfeit credit and debit card shopping spree in Portage was sentenced Friday to 127 days served and the rest of his three-year sentence on probation.

Terrence O. Jefferson, 28, of the 500 block of Durbin Street, had pleaded guilty Oct. 31 to level 5 felony fraud on a financial institution for his part in a January 2015 incident at the Portage Meijer store on U.S. 6, court documents said.

Police responded to a phone call from the Meijer employees about two suspicious men making multiple purchases of goods and gift cards and told police Jefferson was having an argument with another driver in the parking lot, documents said.

Police found that Jefferson and Dwaron Walford, 22, of Markham, Ill., each had multiple debit and credit cards where the user names and numbers on the cards didn't match the identifying information on the magnetic strips — and thus didn't match the information on the receipts, charging information states.

Between Dec. 27 and Jan. 5, the men allegedly took $15,711 in merchandise and gift cards, and Walford was sentenced on May 24 to six years, divided into credit for two days served and the rest on probation, court records state.

A Michigan City man who faced multiple felonies in two different cases pleaded guilty to one of the felonies and is set to be sentenced to 500 days of incarceration at a Jan. 6 sentencing hearing.

Joseph Radtke, 34, of the 1800 block of West Washington Avenue, pleaded guilty to level 6 felony possession of a narcotic drug for a December 2014 incident where he was stopped in Burns Harbor and police allegedly found in his vehicle 1.6 grams of heroin, a syringe and a burnt spoon, court records state.

If Porter Superior Judge William Alexa accepts Radtke's plea, the state will drop other drug-related felonies, possession of a syringe and maintaining a common nuisance.

The state also will drop a level 5 felony criminal confinement charge, a level 6 felony strangulation charge and two misdemeanors from the second case, where Radtke allegedly got into a physical altercation in the 700 block of Plaza Drive in Chesterton in January 2015, according to court documents.

Burglarizing a neighbor's apartment after the neighbor's door was broken by emergency medical personnel has netted a Valparaiso man a sentence of 172 days in Porter County Jail and 740 days on probation.

Anthony D. Rootes, 28, of the 300 block of Garfield, originally faced up to 12 years on a level 4 burglary felony before pleading to level 6 felony theft on Oct. 7, court records state.

Rootes went into his neighbor's apartment some time between when the neighbor's mother left at 7 p.m. Oct. 22 and returned at 10 a.m. the next day, the probable cause affidavit states.

Police found the neighbor's electric guitar at a pawn shop and traced the sale to Rootes, and the mother reported headphones, speakers, a watch and a total of $1,050 in items stolen, court documents state.

A Portage man who faced multiple drug-related felonies from a March 25 traffic stop received a sentence of a little more than six months for his Friday plea to two misdemeanors.

Richard A. Zeller, 18, of the 2100 block of Samuelson Road, was sentenced to 180 days of time served, 20 days community service and the rest of his sentence on probation for his plea to class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana, plus he was sentenced to another 60 days for his plea to class C misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia, court documents state.

Before the plea, he faced up to 16 years in prison on a level 3 felony dealing in a controlled substance charge and up to two years and six months in prison on a level 6 felony possession of a narcotic drug charge, but the state dropped both as part of his plea agreement, according to charging information.

When police searched the vehicle Zeller was in on March 25, they allegedly found 20 MDMA pills and a bottle of liquid LSD in the vehicle along with marijuana in plastic bags and in cigars, the probable cause affidavit states.

— Staff reports