LOl man...I know a couple dozen people who did the same thing...one got caught and there was no jail time man...just a theft of services and he has been paying restitution...the guy you speak of must have had a body or 2 under that swimming pool or someone is breaking your balls.
A New Berlin man pleaded no contest Thursday to charges that he shaved up to $32,000 off his natural gas bill by bypassing his meter to heat his home, outbuilding and 39,000-gallon in-ground swimming pool for more than 20 years.
Warren J. Krohn did not admit installing the bypass that investigators and a utility crew found in 2005 during an unusual raid at his home, but he acknowledged that he knew it was there.
"His position is that he didn't install it, and that he doesn't know who did," Krohn's attorney, Robert D'Arruda, told a reporter after the brief plea hearing. "But at some point in time, he realized it was there, and he didn't pick up the phone and report it.
"He just let it ride."
Krohn, 67, entered the plea to a charge of felony theft after reaching a plea agreement with the Waukesha County district attorney's office.
The agreement calls for prosecutors to recommend five years of probation for Krohn when he is sentenced June 15 by Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis.
In addition to probation, prosecutors plan to recommend that Krohn serve a "lengthy" jail term, undergo criminal-thinking counseling and pay restitution for the stolen gas to We Energies.
A criminal complaint says We Energies received an anonymous letter in fall 2005 from someone irritated at how Krohn was "laughing" about heating his pool and outbuildings at a reduced cost "for over 20 years" but was worried about being caught when he put his home up for sale.
At the time, Krohn had the home listed for $699,000. Krohn still owns the home on Cold Spring Road and has taken it off the market for the time being, D'Arruda said.
