NORTHAMPTON — After admitting to a judge he stole thousands of dollars early last year from his grandmother to fuel a drug habit — up to 200 bags of heroin a day, his attorney said — a South Hadley man was sentenced Tuesday to spend the next six years in state prison.
Collected and cordial throughout his hearing, Joseph M. Dziadek, 30, nodded affirmatively as Judge Mark Mason announced his sentence in Hampshire Superior Court.
While his attorney, Rachel Weber, of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, conceded in court that Dziadek had a lengthy criminal past, she argued for leniency because, she said, her client had endured years of abuse as a child and struggled in his adult life with drug abuse.
Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Jayme Parent recommended that Dziadek be sentenced to six to eight years in prison.
In pronouncing sentence, Mason gave Dziadek credit for 312 days he has spent in jail since his arrest in February last year.
Dziadek admitted to stealing his aunt’s car last winter and breaking into her home one night to steal her purse containing a small number of prescribed narcotic pills. Then, Parent said, he used his grandmother’s ATM card to withdraw at least $10,000.
Dziadek pleaded guilty to larceny greater than $250 from a person 60 or older, credit card fraud greater than $250, motor vehicle larceny, larceny of drugs, larceny less than $250 from a person 60 or older and two counts of breaking and entering a building at night to carry out a felony.
He also allegedly used that car to rob a bank in Holyoke. That case is pending in Hampden Superior Court.
The family members Dziadek stole from, Parent said in court, had nothing to say. This was the second time in four years Dziadek was convicted and sentenced to prison time after stealing from the same relatives. These crimes were carried out, Parent said, six months after Dziadek was released from prison.
“Frankly, they are at their wit’s end,” Parent said. “They have nothing further to say in regard to what happens to him.”
“Despite everything that’s happened, his grandmother has still offered … to give him some money for his birthday,” Weber told the judge shortly before the sentence was imposed. “I don’t think it’s true that there’s no love left between these family members. I think there is.”
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.