Howard man sentenced on Reckless Burning and Grand Theft charges

A Howard man will serve time in the state penitentiary for starting a fire that destroyed a large shed near Lake Madison earlier this year.  44-year-old Wade Haak earlier pleaded guilty to felony charges of Reckless Burning and Grand Theft.  On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Kent Shelton sentenced Haak to serve ten years in the state penitentiary on the Reckless Burning charge.  The judge also ordered Haak to pay costs and restitution totaling more than one-point-one-million dollars.  Haak must also re-pay his court-appointed attorney’s fees and have no contact with the victims involved.  The judge gave Haak credit for the seventeen days he had already served in connection with the charge. 

For the Grand Theft charge, Judge Shelton sentenced Haak to serve six years in the state penitentiary, but suspended the penitentiary time based on several conditions.  Some of those conditions include that he pay restitution of close to 37-thousand dollars, plus fine, court costs, and his court-appointed attorney’s fees. 

Haak was arrested in February of this year, when the Lake County Sheriff’s Office reported that he stole four boxes of American Eagle Silver coins from the building in November of 2020 before starting it on fire on January 21st to conceal the theft that he had committed.