Sheridan Man Sentenced to Prison for Theft

A sentencing hearing was held Thursday in Fourth Judicial District Court for a Sheridan man charged with multiple felonies. Sheridan Media’s Ron Richter has the details.

This past fall, Matthew Anderson was arrested and charged with two counts of felony theft for stealing over $1,000 worth of merchandise from Wal-Mart in Sheridan on September 13 and 15, 2023. At Thursday’s hearing, District Court Judge Darci Phillips accepted the terms of the plea agreement reached with the State and sentenced Anderson to 3 to 5 years in prison and ordered him to pay $525 in court costs and assessments and $2,127.24 in restitution to Wal-Mart. 
The prison sentence will begin once Anderson completes a 90-day jail sentence he received in Circuit Court for making alcohol in the Sheridan County Detention Center while he was awaiting sentencing for the felony theft charges.

Anderson was on parole for a prior conviction of first degree sexual assault when he was arrested for the theft charges. He was sentenced to serve 7 to 14 years in prison in 2015 for raping a woman while she was unconscious and videoing the sexual assault with his cellular phone.

Also from Thursday’s District Court docket:

A Sheridan woman charged with felony abandoning or endangering children was sentenced at a hearing Thursday in District Court. According to court documents, 42-year-old Lisa Floate was charged with the crime following an incident on May 16, 2023, when Sheridan Police responded to a report of a child wandering on Lewis Street clothed only in a diaper. The child was located by law enforcement and further investigation determined it was Floate’s child and she was later arrested and charged with abandoning or endangering children. The charge was prosecuted as a felony because Floate was convicted of misdemeanor endangering children in Sheridan County Circuit Court on April 20, 2021.

At Thursday’s sentencing, District Court Judge Darci Phillips accepted the terms of the plea agreement reached with the State and sentenced Floate to a deferred prosecution and three years of supervised probation. Folate was ordered to pay $325 in court costs and assessments and will be given credit for time served of presentence confinement.