Man With 18 Felony Convictions Sentenced in Rochester Case

Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A man with a long history of burglary and theft convictions has been sentenced to 41 months in prison for stealing a safe from a home in Rochester.

51-year-old Joseph Dwight Daniel entered a guilty plea to a second-degree burglary charge in Olmsted County Court last month. He was sentenced in the case this morning.

Daniel was arrested last December as the suspect in a residential burglary at a home in the 2300 block of 15th Avenue Northwest in Rochester's Elton Hills neighborhood. The person living in the residence told police they returned home to find the front door had been forced open and the safe was missing. Police say the crime was captured on video by a security camera.

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Around the time the burglary was reported, officers were busy responding to a report that a man was smashing a safe on the pavement outside of a business located about a mile west of the crime scene. Rochester police arrested Daniel later the same week after a ring that had been locked in the safe was sold to a local pawn shop.

Daniel is being allowed to serve his prison time concurrently with a four-year prison sentence he was given in March after he was found guilty of a second-degree burglary charge connected to break-ins at three homes in the Twin Cities that occurred on the afternoon of February 16th last year. The criminal complaint in that case listed Daniel's 15 prior felony convictions on burglary, theft and robbery charges dating back to 1989. He was previously sentenced to five years in prison for multiple burglary convictions in 2018.

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