A Vermont man who evaded police on foot, bike, sailboat and other modes of transportation for more than a week after robbing a Burlington store last year has been sentenced to four years in prison on a federal charge.
Eric Edson, 54, was sentenced last week in federal court in Rutland by Judge Joseph Laplante on a federal robbery charge. Edson earlier had pleaded guilty to the charge.
He has been in custody since his arrest on Sept. 7, 2023.
According to court records, the robbery charge against Edson stemmed from an incident on Aug. 24, 2023, when officers from the Burlington Police Department responded to a report of a robbery at the Sierra Trading Post located on Shelburne Road in Burlington.
Responding officers learned that a man, later identified as Edson, tried to leave the store with unpaid merchandise, charging documents stated.
When an employee asked Edson to return the merchandise, Edson allegedly told the employee “Dude, I’ll blow your head off” and partially pulled an item that appeared to be a firearm from his hooded sweatshirt pocket, the charging documents stated.
The items reported stolen included a backpack, 11 shirts, a pair of sneakers, a pair of socks and a water jug — a total of $374 worth of merchandise.
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Police reported they later spotted Edson on the morning of Aug. 30 in a vehicle in Burlington. Police said he fled from them in the car and then by bike before stealing a sailboat on Lake Champlain, crashing it into rocks along Rock Point, and getting away on land on foot.
It was not until Sept. 7 that Edson was arrested after trying to evade police in a stolen dump truck and a John Deere tractor, court filings stated.
Police said he was eventually spotted in a kayak on the Lamoille River and after landing the kayak on the shore, he led authorities on a chase through some woods before he was captured.
In documents filed ahead of Edson’s sentencing hearing last week in federal court, his defense team asked the judge to impose a prison term of 30 months while the prosecution argued for a period of “significant” incarceration.
Edson was also recently sentenced as part of a plea deal on state charges in Chittenden County related to the incident and his time on the run, receiving up to 18 months behind bars to be served concurrently to his federal sentence.
Edson still faces additional charges from his alleged attempts to evade law enforcement in Lamoille County.
He has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for grand larceny and eluding police stemming from another wild chase in December 2020 through back roads in several Lamoille County towns before he was taken into custody.
Edson is currently serving his latest sentences at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge sentences man who fled via stolen sailboat, dump truck and tractor to 4 years in prison for robbery.