PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles man must complete a drug treatment program through the state Department of Corrections after an attempted purse-snatching in the Port Angeles Walmart that left a woman injured in October.
Michael Thomas Riley, 25, was sentenced Thursday in Clallam County Superior Court to the drug treatment program, expected to last between three and six months, and 24 months of community custody.
The 25-year-old also must pay restitution, the amount to be determined at a March 28 hearing.
Riley, who was not listed on the Clallam County jail roster Saturday, pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree theft, second-degree theft, hit and run injury accident, forgery and trafficking in stolen property.
Clallam County Sheriff’s deputies sought Riley for two days starting Oct. 13 after he took a 30-year-old’s woman purse from her shopping cart while she was loading groceries into her car in the east Port Angeles Walmart parking lot at about 8 p.m.
He ran to a pickup. The unidentified woman chased after him and tried to slam his arm in the door of the truck, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Riley drove away with the woman still hanging onto the truck’s steering wheel, the deputies said.
She fell to the ground and got up with cuts and bruises.
Riley left the parking lot and turned west on U.S. Highway 101, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators ultimately identified Riley by finding the truck and after Riley allegedly tried to pass a check taken from the woman’s purse at a Port Angeles convenience store, deputies said.
Riley turned himself in to deputies at the Clallam County Courthouse the evening of Oct. 15 after they and Port Angeles police failed to catch him during a foot chase through a Port Angeles neighborhood the night before.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
