AUGUSTA — An Augusta woman who stole thousands of dollars’ worth of high-end liquor from stores in Gardiner, Rockland and Augusta was sentenced Thursday to nine months in jail.
Samantha Berube, 36, pleaded guilty to four felony-level theft charges and other misdemeanor counts, and was sentenced to nine months in jail and ordered to pay more than $2,000 in restitution. She stole merchandise, in some instances with an alleged accomplice, Paul Coyne, 42, of Augusta, who has previously been convicted of shooting a man in Gardiner.
The thefts included a Jan. 17 incident in which Berube filled a shopping cart with merchandise worth $1,074 at the Hannaford supermarket in Rockland and left without paying. A state prosecutor said Hannaford officials said Berube, who was accompanied by Coyne, “took all the high-end liquor” at the store, loading a shopping cart with it, pushing the cart out of the store without paying and loading it into a car, which drove off.
Bri White, an assistant district attorney, said a store employee recognized Berube and Coyne from video of other, similar thefts at Hannafords in Waterville and Gardiner.
The same pair also allegedly took more than $800 worth of store merchandise, including cosmetic items, from Walmart in Skowhegan on Sept. 2, 2024.
On Nov. 1, 2024, in Gardiner, Berube took $514 in merchandise, the prosecutor said, including four bottles of Hennessey cognac, two bottles of Patron tequila and other items from Hannaford in Gardiner.
On Jan. 17 at Damon’s Beverage in Augusta, Berube was seen by a store employee leaving the store without paying with a bag into which security camera footage later revealed she had placed three bottles of Hennessy, worth $182.
Berube, in a plea agreement resolving criminal cases against her in Kennebec, Somerset and Knox counties, also pleaded guilty to charges including violating conditions of release, criminal trespass, and unlawful possession of scheduled drugs. Berube’s criminal record includes other theft convictions, court testimony indicated.
She was sentenced Thursday to nine months in jail by Judge David Hathaway at the Capital Judicial Center in Augusta. She was also ordered to pay more than $2,000 in restitution. Hathaway told Berube, who appeared in court via video from Kennebec County jail, she would have to work out a payment plan with the courts to pay off the restitution after her jail term. Berube has been in jail awaiting action on her case since Feb. 4, she said.
On Feb. 26 Coyne pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge out of Gardiner in a plea deal in which misdemeanor charges out of both Somerset and Kennebec counties were dismissed, according to Maeghan Maloney, district attorney in those two counties. He was sentenced to nine months imprisonment.
It is not the first time Coyne has been charged criminally, according to Maloney.
In 2015, Coyne was sentenced to a decade in prison on charges of aggravated assault and illegal possession of a firearm for shooting a man in Gardiner Jan. 23, 2014. Coyne pleaded guilty to those charges following an incident in which he fought with another man and shot the man in the shin as the man struggled to get a gun away from Coyne.
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