Waitsburg Burglar Sentenced to Prison

WAITSBURG – Waitsburg resident Mason J. Bates, 31, has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty in Walla Walla County Superior Court last week to multiple burglaries in his hometown at the end of last year.

He will be on probation – community custody – for three years after his release from prison and must successfully complete a drug-offender treatment program. Bates had no prior felony convictions.

Bates was arrested on Dec. 28 after a resident on Waitsburg’s West 6th Street filed a residential-burglary report. Other tips and break-in reports followed, coming from neighbors on West 6th and West 7th streets, according to the Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office.

Finally, a call into the sheriff’s office by Bates’s concerned father led to a search of the home they shared in Waitsburg on West 7th Street and subsequently Bates’s incarceration.

He pleaded guilty May 26 to three counts of residential burglary, two counts of theft of a firearm and one count of second-degree theft. Items reportedly taken from four neighboring homes included jewelry, coins, and four guns.