Jacob Davis will spend five years on probation for a series of break-ins last year, including Stanley White Presbyterian Church.

The plea arrangement today dropped the charge Davis faced for setting fire to the kitchen of the church by placing a hymnal on the oven.

The plea arrangement, in which the first nine months are intensive probation, carry numerous requirements, which if breached could send Davis to prison for up to 158 months, Judge Alma Hinton said.

Those stipulations include him finishing his Graduate Equivalency Diploma, curfews, random drug tests, continuing psychiatric and drug rehabilitation treatment and paying restitution to businesses and people he stole from.

He must pay $3,046 to Bolling Road Express; $1,420 to Michael Wells and $484 to Bobby’s.

The plea bargain reflects four felonious breaking and entering charges and a charge of breaking and entering into a place of worship.

Assistant District Attorney Kanter Searcy Morris told the court two of the counts go back to 2009 and two of them, including the church break-in, are from 2010.

They include Davis stealing liquor and food from a party on Gowen Drive and stealing cash and other items from another place.

On July 20, 2010, he broke into a garage and stole a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and rode it to Walmart where he was stealing items there, Morris said.

Captain Andy Jackson of the Roanoke Rapids Police Department told the court police were called to a break-in at the church on Ashton Street on July 21. Officers found a hymnal had been set on fire by placing it on the stove and a fire extinguisher had been sprayed.

Officers also discovered, “White power forever,” had been written on an easel  in the church.

Jackson said police tracked the crime to Davis after investigators learned he was trying to switch a pair of Red Wing boots for another pair at Walmart.

Boot prints left in the fire extinguisher powder at the church matched boots Davis bought at American Shoe Shop on Roanoke Avenue.

Davis’ attorney, A. Jackson Warmack, told the court had the case gone to trial, he would challenge Davis was involved in the church break-in.

“Mr. Davis has had problems,” Warmack said, “not so much alcohol, as he has psychiatric problems for which he’s taken medication for.”

Warmack said Davis became hooked on some of the medication but has been in jail for 10 months. “From my perspective, I can tell a difference in his demeanor. He’s had an opportunity to detox and he’s dried out. In the last three or four months he’s come around. He’s not seeing the habit as a crutch. He’s accepting responsibility.”