Lakeville home invader heads to prison

A 22-year-old Lakeville man was sentenced this week to nearly 3 1/2 years in prison over a home invasion in which an acquaintance was beaten with a baseball bat, kicked and punched -- apparently was over a mistaken belief that he had stolen illicit drugs, court papers say.

Jeremiah Janousek pleaded guilty this week to aggravated robbery. Counts of second-degree and third-degree assault were dismissed on Tuesday.

In December, a co-defendant, Jason J. Betelak pleaded guilty. Both received 41-month prison sentences with credit for time served in jail.

They confessed to attacking the man because they mistakenly thought that he burglarized a car belonging to Betelak outside a Lakeville plastics company where both worked last August and stole Ecstasy pills, marijuana and cash.

Betelak worked briefly at that company with the victim.

The victim told police that he was sleeping facedown in bed at his Lakeville home last September when hit about 15 times with a bat.

He said one man, believed to be Janousek, held him down while Betelak struck him in the head, chest, arms and legs.

Betelak kept asking where his meth, marijuana and Ecstasy were, and the victim kept answering that a different plastics company employee stole it.

Betelak also threatened the victim with death if he told.

As Janousek was holding the victim down for Betelak during the attack, he began to fret that they were beating the wrong man, court papers say. Still, they ransacked the victim's home and later claimed that they recovered 10 Ecstasy pills, a digital scale and a box cutter belong to Betelak.

The victim called 911 after his attackers left and was hospitalized in St. Paul with a lacerated kidney, deep gashes to his head, a broken scapula and a bowel injury.

Tuesday, Chief Judge Edward Lynch credited Janousek with 195 days served on his 41-month sentence.