Former fugitive to be sentenced Wednesday for 1996 robbery

Sonja Barisic

Sunday, Aug. 22, 1999 | 4:06 a.m.

NORFOLK, Va. - Sage Weakland and his dad went out fishing on the James River for one last bit of fun the night before the teen-ager was to be sentenced for a robbery.

Weakland faced hard time, even though he and prosecutors had reached a deal for him to spend no more than three years in a youthful offender program.

But Weakland, 16, never came home. The 19-foot boat slammed into an anchored merchant ship. Authorities searched the river bottom for months but never found a body, although his family maintained he was dead.

Nearly two years later, the FBI caught up with Weakland in Las Vegas. He was alive, but the plea agreement that had protected him was dead.

Weakland's sentencing has been rescheduled for Wednesday. This time, he could get a maximum of life in prison for robbery, plus 10 years for fleeing.

"It's got to be more than he was looking at," said Robert D. Hicks, the Gloucester County commonwealth's attorney who prosecuted Weakland. "Otherwise, you reward the behavior."

Hicks said he doubts, though, that the judge will impose the maximum sentence.

"We're playing in the five- to 15-year ballpark realistically," Hicks said. "We've got to keep in mind that Sage is still only 18. The other side of the coin, though, is he's being sentenced for a robbery, which is a pretty heavy crime."

Weakland's court-appointed lawyer, Leo Fitchett, did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Weakland said at a court hearing last week that attorney Colleen Killilea will represent him, but she said Friday that she could not discuss the case because she had not yet been formally hired.

Weakland was convicted in a 1996 robbery in which five young men went to a woman's home, Hicks said.

According to Hicks, Weakland sat in a car as a lookout while two of the others knocked on the woman's door. She let them in, and they robbed her. One carried a gun which Weakland helped acquire.

The woman said they stole money, while the defendants said they took only marijuana, Hicks said.

Authorities agreed to let Weakland enter a youthful offender program. He would have been housed with inmates 24 and younger and could have been released early from the three-year program if he did well. He also could have earned a high school equivalency degree and learned a trade.

Weakland was allowed to remain out on bail before sentencing so he could finish summer school, Hicks said.

"We didn't consider him a flight risk," Hicks said. "Nobody runs after they're convicted and before they're sentenced. That's really foolish."

The night before his sentencing, Weakland and his father, Eugene, went out on the James River in Newport News to do a little fishing.

Then, their boat hit a 2,200-ton anchored merchant ship, and father and son went overboard.

Eugene Weakland was rescued. Helicopters, divers and sonar equipment searched the river bottom for months for Sage Weakland at an estimated cost of $100,000 to local, state and federal authorities, Hicks said.

Weakland has said he blacked out during the collision, woke up alone and decided to take off, hitchhiking to Las Vegas.

Never really believing Weakland was dead, authorities spent the past two years looking for him.

A few weeks before Weakland was caught, prosecutors received a tip that he was in Las Vegas, Hicks said. The FBI and federal marshals found Weakland at an apartment complex, hiding in the bathroom of a neighbor's apartment, and arrested him on July 14.

Weakland told reporters during a jailhouse news conference Aug. 11 that his family didn't know he was in Las Vegas. He also said he was unaware that his father also was living in Las Vegas. Eugene Weakland, 45, has been charged with reckless boating.

Weakland said he skipped town because he was afraid to go to jail. He said it was "a stupid move" and that life on the lam was terrible.

"Living on the streets, having no money, no nothing," Weakland said. "Every day, the same thing. Always looking over your shoulder. Always scared you're going to get caught."