Former Delaware state Rep. Gerald Brady was sentenced to probation on Thursday after pleading guilty to shoplifting from a local grocery store.
Court documents provided by the City of Newark Alderman’s Court state that he was also ordered to pay a $100 fine, $174 in restitution in addition to $90 in other fees. His probation term will run through July, according to court staff.
Brady, a Wilmington Democrat who spent 16 years in the General Assembly after a decade on Wilmington City Council, was charged and surrendered to police in January. He initially pleaded not guilty and resigned his legislative seat in February.
Court documents state that Brady stole a shopping cart full of merchandise from Acme on Suburban Drive in Newark on Dec. 29, according to Newark police and court documents. He again tried to steal more items on Jan. 12, but was confronted by a store employee.
Nine bundles of firewood were among the stolen items, according to court documents.
ORIGINAL STORY: 9 bundles of firewood among items Delaware Rep. Gerald Brady charged with shoplifting
Court paperwork filed Thursday states that Brady pleaded guilty to one count of removing items, also known as shoplifting, and another count was dropped per his plea agreement.
In a statement announcing his resignation, hours before Delaware Online/The News Journal broke news about his criminal charges, the 65-year-old lawmaker said he had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He did not mention the criminal investigation in that statement.
An attorney representing Brady did not return a phone call seeking comment. A man who answered Brady’s cellphone number said the former legislator was not available and that he’d pass along a message to him.
Since his arrest, Brady has not elaborated publicly about how his statements about post-traumatic stress disorder may or may not relate to the shoplifting charges, which are detailed in court documents.
During the December shoplifting, court records say Brady placed several items into a reusable bag and left the store without paying. After loading the items into his vehicle, court records say, he returned to the front of the store and took nine bundles of firewood.
“It was noted that the male does not enter the store to pay for the said firewood,” the court documents state.
During the second incident in January, an Acme employee noticed a man pushing a shopping cart full of merchandise past the registers and toward the exit, according to court documents. The employee confronted the man and asked him about the items he was taking without paying for, court records say.
“The male acknowledged the items in fact had not been paid for,” the documents state.
The man declined to pay for the items and after returning them, left the store.
The employee, who called police, said he recognized the man from a shoplifting incident before on Dec. 29, though that incident had not been reported to police at the time.
The employee recorded the man’s license plate number and was able to confirm Brady was the vehicle’s owner because it was a Delaware state representative plate containing his initials. The employee also looked at a photo of Brady and confirmed he was the suspect, police said.
The total value of the merchandise was less than $200 in each incident, police said.
HESITATION: Emails show Brady didn’t know if he should tell public about his anti-Asian remarks
Brady’s criminal charges came less than a year after he was caught using racist and misogynistic language describing Chinese women in a June email to an unidentified person, creating a controversy in which he ignored calls for his resignation. After the email surfaced, Brady apologized in a statement sent by a spokesman.
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareon
