WACO — A man has been sentenced to 99 years in prison for stealing a cell phone.
Glenn Alvin Reed, 31, was convicted of robbery Thursday for stealing a cellular phone from a man's truck last fall and then hitting him several times when he demanded its return.
Jurors, who deliberated about 15 minutes, convicted Reed as a habitual criminal because he has prior felony convictions for injury to an elderly person and robbery. That bumped the minimum sentence from five to 25 years for Reed, who rejected a 15-year plea bargain offer from prosecutors.
Reed also has 15 misdemeanor convictions dating to 1991, including 12 criminal trespassing convictions.
Reed, who testified during his trial against the wishes of his court-appointed attorneys, frequently went into profanity-laced tirades and told jurors he didn't care if they gave him life in prison.
"There's things I choose to do, like, if I go in a store and choose to take a Snicker's bar," Reed testified. "If you catch me, you catch me. If not, I'm going to go home and eat it up and go on about my business, dog."
Four years ago, Reed walked up behind retired Texas Ranger Capt. Bob Prince outside the McLennan County courthouse annex and said he was robbing him. Prince decided not to shoot Reed because he could tell he was unarmed, the former Ranger testified during Reed's cell phone robbery trial.
Prince easily took Reed into custody, and he later was sentenced to two years in prison, according to court records.
Reed made an obscene hand gesture toward Prince as the former Ranger left the witness stand.
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