NEWPORT — A New Hampshire man who prosecutors said was the brains behind a plan to heist a high-end car out of a historic barn in Plainfield that went up in flames and burned to the ground shortly after he and his accomplice fled the scene will spend more than three years behind bars.

Thomas Hamel, 31, formerly of Lebanon, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of theft in Sullivan County Superior Court in Newport and was sentenced to 3½ years to 15 years in state prison — less the 181 days he has been in jail without bail since his arrest. Hamel also was ordered to pay restitution of $2,500 to the owner of the property where the more than 200-year-old barn burned down.

Arson charges against Hamel were dropped as part of his negotiated plea deal filed in Sullivan Superior Court in Newport, according to court records.

Still pending are theft and arson charges against Jesse LaFlam Jr., 31, Hamel’s alleged accomplice in the April 2, 2023 scheme to steal the 2001 silver Audi TT convertible that was being stored in the barn along with two other high-end vehicles — a Porsche Boxster and a Mercedes van. Both the Porsche and Mercedes were destroyed in the blaze.

The relatively quick disposition of Hamel’s case — he was indicted on the charges less than four months ago in October and wasn’t arraigned until December — nonetheless still leaves unresolved the origin of the blaze that left the barn — which was easily visible from Route 120 — in a smoldering heap of ashes.

Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway, the prosecutor in the case, declined to comment. Ben St. Pierre, Hamel’s defense attorney, did not respond to an inquiry via email.

Although both defendants were charged with arson, the state Fire Marshall’s Office never conducted an investigation of the scene because investigators were tied up that weekend with fire investigations elsewhere in the state and an excavator brought in by the Plainfield Fire Department to move debris had disturbed the structure’s remains.

The barn fire damaged the nearly adjoining residence in which Judith Belyea, the home’s occupant, was sleeping at the time. Belyea only escaped after a neighbor from across the road spotted the conflagration and called to alert her to get out of the house.

When firefighters sifted through the barn debris they discovered the charred remains of the Porsche and Mercedes but did not learn of the theft of the Audi until they contacted the owner of the vehicles, a Plainfield resident who spends the winters in Florida. The individual informed police that there was a third car also being stored in the barn.

That revelation launched a police investigation to find the missing vehicle.

Hamel was tied to the car’s theft a couple days after the fire when Plainfield police received a tip that the Audi was at his residence on Bank Street Extension in Lebanon.

When police arrived at Hamel’s home, he initially denied them permission to inspect his property but later relented and told police that the vehicle was “hot” and had been driven there by LaFlam Jr. At the time, police charged Hamel only with attempting to falsify evidence because he tried to smash his phone when police asked him to hand it over.

But investigators later determined that it was Hamel who had hatched the plan to steal the Audi and enlisted LaFlam Jr.’s help into the scheme by having him drive Hamel to the barn and then act as a lookout scout while Hamel went inside the barn to seize the vehicle and drive it back to his residence in Lebanon.

Jury selection in the case against LaFlam Jr., who also has a numerous prior felony convictions in Sullivan County Superior Court, is scheduled to begin March 4, according to court records.

Belyea, 81, a well-known Plainfield resident who had served on the Selectboard for more than 30 years and is still the town’s timber tax agent, told the Valley News on Tuesday that she is in the process of converting her former office space in the south side of her home, which had been damaged by the fire, into a single-car garage.

But she has no plan to rebuild the barn.

“You can never replace it,” Belyea said. “The barn was built in 1815, and it was just so beautiful. You can never replace that, and I’m not going to.”

Still, Belyea notes, the barn site is memorialized by a natural shrine.

“I have a big flower garden in front of it, and I always did,” she said. “I’m leaving it there.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.