Two of three Orangeburg County youths charged with nearly a dozen counts of throwing rocks through car windows earlier this year got the book thrown back at them on Tuesday.

Orangeburg City Judge Barney Houser accepted guilty pleas from two youths who admitted to 11 counts of malicious injury to personal property.

“You didn’t think about your consequences, did you?” Houser told the youths. “Sometimes, you’ve got to learn a hard lesson. And you’re about to learn a hard lesson. This is beyond a teenage prank.”

Houser sentenced an Orangeburg and a Cordova youth, both 17, to restitution in the amount of $1,056 each, subject to the outcome of the third suspect’s case. The youths will also spend 11 nights in jail, Houser said, “one night for each window.”

He also added community service, to be served on Saturdays.

“I think we need to do a bunch of community service, 500 hours of community service,” the judge said. “That’s 62 days. That’s every Saturday for the next year, year and a half.”

The youths will serve 16 of those 500 hours doing yard work or labor at each victim’s residence, if the victims want them.

“If they (the victims) don’t want to do that, I understand,” Houser said.

One youth, a 17-year-old from Elloree, asked for a continuance in his case, which was granted. His attorney had a scheduling conflict.

One of the youths present Tuesday asked for PTI, or pre-trial intervention, a program aimed at setting straight first-time, non-violent offenders through community service and a possible expunging of their record. That request went over in court like a lead balloon.

“PTI is for non-violent offenders,” Houser replied, curtly.

The sentence the boys received was suspended from the original, which included a restitution amount equal to the damage inflicted of $7,403 and 30 days in jail on each of the 11 counts of malicious injury to personal property. Houser warned the youths they better adhere to the terms of their reduced sentence.

“If you don’t, I’ll immediately reinstate the sentence -- that’s 330 days (in jail),” he said. “There’s just absolutely no sense in this.”

Investigators say Orangeburg residents began waking up to broken windows on their vehicles around March 25. Police received at least five calls over the five days.

The following weekend, at least that many more vehicle windows, and a local business’s window, were reported shattered with rocks, taking the total to 11.

At several of the locations, including some of the latest, a rock or piece of concrete was found around or inside the vehicle.

One woman, of half a dozen angry victims present at the hearing, told the judge the rock thrown through her car’s window struck a child seat, showering it with shards of glass.

“I pray they will learn from what they have done to us,” she said.

Lead investigator Detective Cindy Smoak brought at least three softball-sized rocks or chunks of concrete to court.

Nelson, Wilson and Pinebrook, Rembert, Evergreen and Dantzler streets, Belleville Road and Broughton Street ... the list of victims went on.

One victim told the court she was taken to the emergency room the night her vehicle was damaged. When she returned home early the following day, her windows were smashed.

At the time of the boys’ arrest in April, police said they were tipped off because the youths bragged about breaking the windows.

T&D Staff Writer Richard Walker can be reached by e-mail at rwalker@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5516.

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