A man convicted of a felony for munching on grapes at a grocery store was ordered to pay 40 cents in restitution and $600 in court costs. Eli Bradley Jr., 52, could have been imprisoned for up to four years on the charge of larceny from a building. But Jackson County Circuit Judge Russell E. Noble on Wednesday delayed the sentence and said he would consider removing the conviction from Bradley's record if he stayed out of trouble until Oct. 4, 1989. ``I'm going to appeal this because I'm not guilty of no felony,'' Bradley said after the hearing. ``Any felony on your record works against you for the rest of your life. If they can do what they did in this court, nobody is safe in the courts.'' Bradley was arrested March 4 while leaving a grocery store. Security guards testified during his trial that they saw Bradley eating several handfuls of grapes while shopping. Bradley testified that he ate no more than two or three grapes to be sure they were seedless before buying more than 1{ pounds of grapes along with other groceries for $13.25. Prosecutor Joseph Filip offered in June to reduce the charge to misdemeanor shoplifting. Defense lawyer Richard L. Wilkins chose to go to trial on the felony charge, which he considered easier to defend. A jury convicted Bradley in September. ``This matter, in my opinion, could have been handled with much less expense as a misdemeanor, not a felony,'' the judge said Wednesday. Assistant prosecutor Donald Ray said his office probably would oppose removal of the felony conviction next year even if Bradley stayed out of trouble. Filip said the September verdict showed the community agrees that ``we don't want people stealing from stores.'' In the Republican prosecutor's re-election campaign, his Democratic challenger, Paul R. Adams, has chided him as having ``made the county safe for grapes.''
