FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FEBRUARY 6, 2019
Melvin Lee Tillman pleads guilty to 10 commercial burglaries; sentencing set for April 19, 2019
Today, Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill announced that 63-year-old Melvin Lee Tillman admitted that he committed nearly a dozen separate commercial burglaries in Portland, Oregon during an eight month period in 2018.
On February 5, 2019, Tillman appeared before Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Gregory Silver and pleaded guilty to 10 counts of burglary in the second degree.
Tillman admitted that he unlawfully entered, and remained in, the following properties to commit theft:
According to court documents previously filed in Tillman’s cases, he would either kick in doors or smash out windows to make entry into the businesses in the late evening or early morning hours. In many of the burglaries, Tillman would steal, or attempt to steal, money from cash registers.
As part of the pre-trial agreement reached with the state, Tillman will have an “open sentencing,” which means on April 19, 2019 at 2 p.m., Judge Silver will determine the sentence. Under Oregon law, this case carries a presumptive 30 months prison sentence per count because Tillman is a repeat property offender. The state has agreed not seek a sentence of more than 80 months in prison.
The litigation of Tillman’s cases were handled by Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Shull and Multnomah County Senior Deputy District Attorney Nathan Vasquez and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office Strategic Prosecution Unit, which reviews cases that stem from neighborhood-specific concerns. The unit is primarily responsible for interfacing with the community over specific issues, and handles all types of cases across the criminal justice spectrum to include misdemeanors and homicides.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office recognizes the work of the patrol officers from the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct, the PPB’s Central Precinct Neighborhood Response Team, the PPB’s Detective Division and the PPB’s Forensic Evidence Division for their dedicated efforts investigating these cases.
No additional information can be released by the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office at this time.
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Contact: Brent Weisberg, Communications Director
Phone: 503.988.6567
Email: Brent.Weisberg@mcda.us