The Region - News from May 20, 1986

A Palm Springs man who pleaded guilty to participating in the theft of more than $4 million worth of crude oil from an interstate pipeline in San Bernardino County was sentenced in Los Angeles to a year and a day in federal prison, fined $5,000 and placed on five years probation. In sentencing Christopher D. Geter, 24, U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima said that Geter was less culpable than his father and others in the scheme. But the judge said that the size of the oil theft and the duration of the crime over about four years demanded some prison time as a deterrent to others. The father, Mose Allen Geter, 44, of Morongo Valley, was convicted last week and awaits sentencing.