Last Friday, more than six months after the raid at 268 Meadow St., the two student tenants of that household, seniors Don Lippert and Ian Vonie, faced sentencing.

Several weeks ago, Lippert and Vonie accepted plea bargains that reduced their respective charges from 107 counts of furnishing alcohol to minors to only two counts apiece. Charged and sentenced separately, both men pled guilty to two third-degree misdemeanor counts of furnishing alcohol to minors.

Judge Anthony Vadaro ruled that each must pay $1000 and serve 100 hours of community service and 12 months probation for the first count and pay $2500 and serve 12 months probation for the second count. The two probation sentences for each defendant will be served concurrently. Each defendant must also pay $30 per month to the probation office for probation services.

At the hearing, a discrepancy arose regarding the treatment of the counts in accordance with the plea bargain. According to Ed Hatheway, lawyer for Lippert and Vonie, the two counts for each defendant would fall under the umbrella of a single offense. If this were the case, the defendants would have faced significantly lower fines.

“From a common sense standpoint, I thought it’d be a first offense," Hatheway said.

Vardaro, when presented with this interpretation by Hatheway, admitted to having read the statute differently. By his interpretation, each count represented an individual offense, increasing the punishment for both men.

“Obviously, this was a rather large party,” Vardaro said. “It certainly doesn’t do anything to help relations between the college community and the community surrounding it.”

“I’ll be working, so I guess I don’t mind paying [the fines],” Lippert said.

“It’s all I seem to be doing these days, working,” Vonie said.

The disparate understanding of the plea bargain left a bitter taste in the mouths of the defendants, both of whom had hoped for a better outcome.

“Relative to what could have happened, it turned out good,” Lippert said, “but relative to what I would have wanted, bad.”

“The probation was taken care of concurrently, but the fine is not. So where do you draw the line?” Vonie said, seated with Lippert outside the probation office.

For the community service obligation, the judge recommended that the work either be for the benefit of the Meadville community or somewhere in the educational system where the defendants could talk to the kids about the pitfalls of underage drinking.

“I’d rather pick up garbage,” Vonie said. “They’d want me to tell [the kids] that drinking is bad, but I would want to tell them to make educated choices.”