A Sarnia man arrested last weekend on a long list of charges linked to an armed robbery and a stolen pickup truck has already served two separate jail sentences this year, including one linked to an incident in which a couple was threatened with a hammer during an early-morning home invasion.
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Dan Plain, a 35-year-old Sarnia resident who was arrested Saturday, is in jail facing 26 charges, nine linked to a pickup stolen earlier that day and 17 tied to a robbery from about three weeks prior.
Sarnia police said they were called around 8 am Saturday about a 2023 Ford F-150 Tremor stolen from a Tweedsmuir Avenue driveway a few hours earlier. Officers tracked the pickup to the area of Murray and Cameron streets in Corunna and saw a man and a woman leave a home in the 100 block of Cameron Street.
The man was wearing the same clothes seen on surveillance video outside the Tweedsmuir Avenue home earlier that morning, police said. Both people were arrested and officers found a butterfly-style knife and the keys to the stolen pickup.
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Plain, originally from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, was charged with theft of a vehicle, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and seven counts of breaching probation, police said. Tyler Lynn Sweet, 27, a woman who had an outstanding warrant, was also charged with theft worth less than $5,000, failing to get fingerprinted, and two counts of breaching probation, police said.
On Oct. 25, two men wearing disguises and armed with a Glock-style handgun and a machete burst into a Lansdowne Avenue garage around 10:30 pm and robbed two people, police said previously. The armed men stole several items including cellphones, clothes, computers and tools and fled on bicycles, police said.
Some of Plain’s charges in that case include two counts of pointing a firearm, breaking and entering with intent, disguise with intent, and robbery.
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Plain briefly appeared in a Sarnia courtroom Wednesday by video link from the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Center in London. He was kept in jail and his cases were adjourned to Dec. 2.
About a year ago, Plain was facing 11 charges including two counts each of robbery with a weapon, assault with a weapon, and uttering threats linked to an Oct. 22, 2023 incident on Afton Drive in which a man broke into a home after 4 :30 am and demanded valuables from two people while threatening them with a hammer. Police said there were no injuries and a suspect was arrested a short time later.
Plaintiff pleaded guilty in January only to being unlawfully in a house and carrying a weapon – the hammer – for a dangerous purpose and the rest of the charges were dropped. He got a 140-day, time-served sentence.
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The court heard at the time Plain has a long criminal record of 45 prior convictions, several for violence, and has drug addiction issues.
A judge expressed concerns about Plain’s drug use when he was back in court in June pleading guilty to carrying a concealed weapon – a black tactical-style knife – resisting police, prowling at night, mischief worth less than $5,000, and two counts of breaching probation linked to incidents in March and April. He got a 135-day sentence.
Defense lawyer Terry Brandon said his longtime client has good intentions, but drugs trigger him.
“There’s not really much I can say, just, I’m sorry,” Plain said in June.
Plain was also previously sentenced in September 2023 to nearly six months in jail and ordered to pay almost $500 in restitution for breaking and entering and theft, including of power tools taken from a north Sarnia construction site.
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