ALFRED —
The prosecution and defense have made their closing arguments in the dual trials of Megan and Thomas Woodard, who are accused of stealing more than $10,000 by refunding customers and collecting handling fees for bottles purchased out of state.
The trials have adjourned for the day, and both juries will begin deliberations when they return to court Friday morning.
1:35 p.m.
ALFRED — The state has rested its case in the trials of the former owners of a Kittery redemption center, who are accused of stealing more than $10,000 by refunding customers and collecting handling fees for bottles purchased out of state.
Attorneys for Megan and Thomas Woodard, former owners of Green Bee Redemption, may present more evidence when the trial resumes at 1 p.m. today. If not, the state and the defense attorneys will give their closing arguments.
Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford, who is presiding over the trial in York County Superior Court, told jurors before recessing about 11 a.m. that he hopes to conclude the trials today.
The trials for Woodards, which began Tuesday, are taking place at the same time in the same courtroom in front of two juries, one for Megan Woodard’s case and one for Thomas Woodard’s case.
When the trial resumed this morning, only the jury for Thomas Woodard’s case was in the courtroom to hear testimony by Randy Trahan, an inspector from the Department of Agriculture.
Trahan testified Wednesday that he set up surveillance of SportsZone, an indoor sports complex in Derry, N.H., after getting a tip from an employee there, who said the business was sorting empty containers and hauling them away.
New Hampshire doesn’t have a bottle deposit law. In Maine, customers pay a 5- or 15-cent deposit for most bottles and cans, and get refunded by returning containers to a redemption center in the state.
On the night of March 18, 2010, Trahan found SportsZone owner Dennis Reed dropping 56 bags filled with more than 11,000 containers off at Green Bee’s office on U.S. Route 1 in Kittery. The state seized the containers.
Trahan testified this morning that a couple of weeks after the seizure, he interviewed Thomas Woodard at his office. According to Trahan, Woodard said Reed told him he had sports complexes in Saco and York, and that’s where his containers were coming from. Woodard told Trahan he’d only met Reed a couple of times and didn’t know he was coming to drop off containers that night in March.
After the other jury panel returned to the courtroom, Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin presented a letter written to Trahan by Megan Woodard dated April 13, 2010. It reasserted that Green Bee was not aware Reed was dropping off containers from out of state and said the company would no longer being doing business with him.
Robbin then called to the stand Detective Bruce Densmore from the Maine Attorney General’s Office. He testified that he’d obtained cellphone records that showed about 30 calls made among Reed, the Woodards and Green Bee redemption between Oct. 29, 2007, and March 17, 2010.
The records showed that on March 18, 2010, when the state interrupted Reed’s drop-off at Green Bee, Reed and Thomas Woodard exchanged three phone calls during the day. Around the time Trahan stopped Reed that night, Reed called Woodard’s cellphone about five times.
The state is trying to prove that the Woodards knowingly accepted out-of-state containers from Reed to collect the handling fee of 3 or 3.5 cents per container from manufacturers, distributors and collection agents.
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