A habitual thief was recently sentenced after stealing a gun from a truck in Central Florida.
The career burglar and car thief who single-handedly worsened crime statistics in northern Brevard County was sentenced to life in prison. A jury convicted 43-year-old Wilford E. McCloud Jr. in July of armed car burglary and grand theft of a firearm stemming from a truck break-in in Port St. John in 2022.
Prosecutors Jennifer Mostert and Andrew Joy successfully argued at his sentencing that McCloud should be sentenced as a Habitual Offender and Prison Releasee Reoffender – statuses that qualified him for longer mandatory prison terms.
Circuit Judge Curt Jacobus sentenced McCloud to natural life in prison for the armed car burglary, due in part to McCloud’s 28 prior felony convictions for similar crimes. The judge also sentenced McCloud to 6.2 years for grand theft, to run concurrently with the other term…