'Career Criminal' Sentenced for Burglarizing IGH Home, Other Felonies

A St. South Paul man was sentenced to nearly 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to a number of felonies he committed over the past 15 months, including burglarizing an Inver Grove Heights home.

According to a Dakota County District Attorney’s Office press release, Jeffrey Allen Stewart, 44, pleaded guilty to:

• One count of theft by swindle (aiding and abetting), for taking $2,500 raised for the benefit of his 19-year-old nephew last August. The nephew was severely burned when he was set ablaze during an assault in St. Paul in July 2011.

Stewart’s sister and the victim’s mother, Jodi Ann Stewart, pleaded guilty to the crime last November and was sentenced to 60 days in jail and five years probation.

• One count of second-degree assault (assault with a firearm) for threatening two men with a CO2-powered BB gun in South St. Paul on July 4. One count of possession of a firearm by someone convicted of a violent crime that was filed in the case was dropped.

• One count of first-degree burglary for entering an occupied dwelling in Inver Grove Heights in March 2011.

Stewart entered his plea in Dakota County District Court on Monday. Judge Erica MacDonald sentenced him to spend 174 months in jail and to pay restitution.

The attorney’s office press release said Stewart was sentenced as a career criminal.

“We are pleased to have obtained a significant sentence for the career offender and to have brought all of these matters to a close,” said County Attorney James Backstrom.

According to one of the criminal complaints filed against Stewart, he was arrested and charged with third-degree burglary in December 2003, and eventually served time for that crime.

Before his guilty plea on Monday, Stewart had been held in the Dakota County Jail on $150,000 bond since being arrested for second-degree assault in South St. Paul earlier this month.