A woman who local police say embezzled more than $50,000 from a New Harbor convenience store is at large after failing to appear for a recent extradition hearing in Colorado.
Siarra M. Kear, 23, of New Harbor, faces one count each of class B forgery and class B theft by unauthorized taking, according to court documents. A class B crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office does not know Kear’s current whereabouts, according to Lt. Michael Murphy.
“We have no indication that she’s come back to Maine. … We assume she’s still in Colorado,” Murphy said.
The Aurora Police Department in Aurora, Colo., a suburb of Denver, arrested Kear on a warrant out of Lincoln County on Feb. 24 after she had been at large for 17 days.
She is fighting extradition to Maine, however, and was able to make bail in Colorado twice – after her initial arrest and after a second arrest when she did not appear for another hearing, according to Murphy.
Colorado has a warrant out for Kear’s arrest and, under the terms of the new warrant, will hold her without bail if police arrest her again, according to Murphy.
The sheriff’s office needs a “governor’s warrant” to extradite Kear, according to Murphy. The transition at the district attorney’s office has slowed the process of obtaining such a warrant, but the sheriff’s office hopes to have it soon.
According to police, from Dec. 1, 2015 to Jan. 15 of this year, Kear embezzled more than $52,000 from Dee’s Variety, a convenience store and gas station at the corner of Bristol Road and Huddle Road in New Harbor.
Kear was an employee of Dee’s Variety for about six years and the store’s manager from January 2013 until January of this year, according to an affidavit by Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Detective Scott Hayden.
One day in early January, $3,200 in cash went missing from the store, according to Hayden’s report. The same day, Kear did not show up for work.
A subsequent review of store records by the store’s owner led to the discovery of more than $35,000 in unauthorized checks payable to Kear, as well as thousands more in unauthorized charges to a business credit card in Kear’s name, according to the report.
The owner was later told that Kear left the state Jan. 29. Hayden obtained a warrant for her arrest Feb. 7.
