Carrier accused of burglarizing Daily Bee

SANDPOINT — A Sandpoint man was arrested early Thursday morning after allegedly breaking into the Bonner County Daily Bee office and stealing money.

Harold Lee Anderson, an independent contractor who delivered papers for The Daily Bee, is charged with burglary. Judge Debra Heise ordered Anderson held on $10,000 and appointed a public defender to represent him, court records show.

Sandpoint Police officers were dispatched to the newspaper’s offices on Church Street after receiving a report of a burglary in process. Witnesses reported seeing Anderson jimmy a lock on the front door and enter the building.

Officers received the call shortly before 4 a.m.

Officers subsequently encountered Anderson in an alley behind the business and he explained that he was stocking up on papers for his delivery route. The papers he was carrying, however, were Wednesday’s edition.

The witnesses, who happened to be passengers in the vehicle Anderson was driving, told police he had been boasting about taking as much as $800 a month by stealing change collected from newspaper racks.

Anderson, 32, denied entering the building when he was arrested, but a search of his pockets turned up as much as $500 in quarters, according to police reports.

Anderson remains on probation in felony assault case stemming from allegations that he carried on a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl in 2005, 1st District Court documents indicate. He was originally charged with lewd and lascivious conduct, but a plea agreement was reached in the case which reduced the charge to aggravated assault.

Anderson was ordered in 2008 to serve two to five years in prison, but jurisdiction was retained, which made him eligible for release onto probation after serving six months of the sentence.