AUGUSTA — A former clerk at the district attorney’s office in Skowhegan pleaded not guilty Thursday to an indictment charging her with embezzling an estimated $85,000 in restitution and supervision fees paid to that office over a four-year period.
Julie A. Smith, 58, of Skowhegan, was arraigned in the Somerset County criminal case at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta.
She was accompanied by her attorney, Walter Hanstein.
Smith spoke quietly, saying “not guilty” twice.
The prosecutor in the case is Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin because the Somerset County District Attorney’s Office is named as the victim in the indictment.
Smith pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of theft by unauthorized taking, which allegedly occurred from April 2010 to October 2014, and to a misdemeanor charge of tampering with public records from June 2010 to July 2014.
The latter charge says Smith falsified entries regarding restitution payments.
Smith, who had worked at the district attorney’s office since 2009, resigned after the investigation began in October 2014.
“This is an $85,000 theft case,” Robbin told Justice Robert Mullen.
Hanstein asked for a longer-than-usual discovery period.
“The discovery in this case is rather voluminous,” he said, and Robbin supported that request.
“We produced some of the discovery today, but there’s more to come,” Robbin said.
Smith is free on a $5,000 unsecured bail bond with no special conditions, and the judge set it for a dispositional conference Nov. 18 and a docket call Feb. 1, 2016. Thursday’s hearing was in Augusta, but future hearings will be in Skowhegan at the Somerset County Courthouse.
The investigation into the missing money in part led Maeghan Maloney, who is district attorney in Kennebec and Somerset counties, to tell employees to stop taking cash and check payments at her office. However, the district attorney’s offices now accept personal checks, cashier’s checks and money orders.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
Twitter: @betadams
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