Plea talks in theft case

SANDPOINT — Plea negotiations are under way in the case of an Oldtown man accused of stealing money from his former employer last spring.

A preliminary hearing in Jasen W. Johnson’s case was planned for Oct. 21, but was reset for next month partly because of the plea talks, documents in magistrate court say.

Johnson, 48, is charged with two counts of grand theft and remains free on his own recognizance. He has been ordered to have no contact with staff at Family Foods, the Oldtown grocery store he used to manage.

The amount of money Johnson is accused of pilfering last May remains undisclosed, although the sum exceeds $1,000, court documents allege. Johnson allegedly committed the thefts by entering in fake merchandise returns in the store’s computer system and pocketing the cash.

The state asserts Johnson sought to conceal the thefts by conducting the returns during the store’s busiest periods so the bogus transactions would not attract attention.

The two theft counts cover the same period of time, although the charges are structured differently to give the state alternate ways of proving the same offense.