Man charged with theft

SANDPOINT — A Blanchard man has been arrested in connection with a costly raid on an Oldtown construction site.

Michael Alan Schaffer is charged with grand theft. He made an initial court appearance on Tuesday.

Judge Robert Burton sustained Schaffer’s $25,000 bail and appointed a public defender to represent him. Burton declined to release the defendant on his own recognizance without a formal hearing on the request, court records show.

Schaffer, 21, is accused of stealing more than $8,000 of tools and equipment from an Oldtown landowner’s construction site in May of last year.

There were few leads to the heist until the following September, when Schaffer and two other suspects were being investigated in connection with burglaries that occurred in Kootenai County, according to Bonner County sheriff’s deputies’ reports.

Detectives recovered a $2,000 flatbed trailer that was stolen from the construction site on Womack Road, but the other items, which included a soil compactor, power tools and other gear, remained unaccounted for, according to the most recent report on file.