OIL CITY, Pa. (EYT) — A Franklin man is facing a hearing this week on multiple charges related to a bizarre series of events in which he is accused of stealing a man’s phone, breaking into a woman’s apartment, and stealing over $1,200.00 cash.

According to court documents, 35-year-old Eugene Samuel Sanders, of Franklin, is scheduled to stand for a preliminary hearing in front of Magisterial District Judge Matthew T. Kirtland at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 17.

He faces the following charges:

– Burglary — Overnight Accommodation, No Person Present, Felony 1
– Criminal Trespass-Break Into Structure, Felony 2
– Criminal Trespass-Enter Structure, Felony 3
– Theft By Unlawful Taking-Movable Property, Misdemeanor 1
– Theft By Unlawful Taking-Movable Property, Misdemeanor 2
– Defiant Trespass Actual Communication To, Misdemeanor 3

The charges stem from a series of incidents that occurred in late June in Oil City.

According to a criminal complaint, in the early evening hours of Tuesday, June 25, Eugene Sanders traveled to a residence on Spruce Street in an attempt to make contact with a known female who resides there. He was met by the male victim who owns the property.

Sanders allegedly asked if he could use a phone to make some calls, and the male victim allowed him into his home and permitted him the use his phone. A few hours later, Sanders left the residence, taking the victim’s phone without his knowledge or permission.

The victim then left his home for some time, returning around 11:45 p.m. that night, and while preparing for bed, heard voices in the female victim’s separately secured room on the first floor; he recognized one of the voices to be Sanders. The male victim then made contact with the female victim who stated she was not in the room and had not given Sanders authorization to be in the home, either.

According to the complaint, the female victim arrived at the home, and the victims confronted Sanders and an unknown female who was with him, who allegedly “appeared to have been using drugs” in the female victim’s room, leaving bloody paraphernalia in the room. The victims then demanded Sanders and the unknown female leave the home numerous times, to the point of near-physical confrontation before they departed.

The complaint notes that after Sanders and the unknown female left the residence, the male victim discovered that over $1,200.00 in U.S. currency, in an envelope, that had been secured in the female victim’s room, had been stolen. The male victim turned the empty envelope over to police as evidence, noting he had found it in the side yard of the property.

According to the complaint, in an attempt to regain the money, the female victim sent text messages to the male victim’s stolen phone to get a response from Sanders. In messages received by the female victim, he stated his name as “Eugene Sanders” and in a separate message, when confronted about being in the home, Sanders commented on the female victim pulling a knife on him while he was there, indicating the level of force required to get him to leave the home.

The complaint notes additional messages were received by the female victim from Sanders asking: “Why are you doing this to me?”

Based on the investigation, Sanders was arraigned in front of Magisterial District Judge Andrew F. Fish at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, June 28.

Unable to post $25,000.00 monetary bail, he remains lodged in the Venango County Jail.