A man who has already spent most of his adult life in the state prison system may have unintentionally helped add many more years to his time there after being convicted at a trial arranged at his insistence.

Richard L. Coleman, who will turn 46 next Thursday, was convicted in Cayuga County Court Friday of robbing a Cato homeowner nearly 10 years ago. He now faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison over a case in which he originally got 18 years.

In October 2000, Coleman, only four months after being paroled on a felony conviction in Onondaga County, was burglarizing a home on Short Cut Road in Cato when the owner came home and confronted him. Coleman swung a piece of wood with nails in it at the homeowner before fleeing and leading police on a high-speed chase into Wayne County.

He pleaded guilty in March 2001 to three of the charges against him and was later sentenced to 18 years in prison by then-county judge Peter Corning, who called Coleman a “career criminal” who needed to be “out of society.”

But because the court never told Coleman that post-release supervision had to be part of his plea deal, Coleman was given the options of accepting the post-release supervision, having his original sentence left untouched or withdrawing his guilty plea. Because Coleman decided to withdraw his plea, his previous sentence was vacated, and his new conviction could carry even more time in prison.

Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann, who had sought in August to work out a new sentencing agreement and avoid a new trial, said that because Coleman is a second-felony offender who has been cited for disciplinary problems 18 times during his latest stint in prison, he will ask that Coleman be given the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison - plus five years of post-release supervision.

Budelmann said that a jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Friday before finding Coleman guilty of all six of the original charges against him: first-degree robbery, first- and second-degree burglary, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, third-degree grand larceny and resisting arrest.

Budelmann said that he regretted having to put witnesses through a trial but that he was gratified that jurors were able to make clear sense of the nearly 10-year-old case.

Coleman is scheduled to be sentenced June 11.