Hot Springs woman pleads not guilty to theft charge

Lara Aldridge appeared in 20th District Judicial Court on Tuesday, pleading not guilty to a felony theft charge.

According to charging documents, Aldridge served as secretary and bookkeeper for the Hot Springs Rural Fire Department between 2014 and 2017. In August 2017, documents report that the fire department was made aware of an overdraft on their checking account, then discovered that Aldridge had written unauthorized checks.

Aldridge wrote checks to herself, Little Bitterroot 4-H and Lone Pine Alumni Association, according to court documents, with “wages or supplies” in the memo of several of the checks.

Court documents accuse Aldridge of writing 15 unauthorized checks from the Hot Springs Rurual Fire Department that total more than $35,000.

The maximum penalty for the felony charge is up to a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

Also before Judge Kim Christopher on Tuesday, a defendant was sentenced in the 2016 burglary of a Trout Creek residence in which the culprits were caught on game cameras set up in the house.

Kenneth Hoskins was sentenced to 10 years with the Montana Department of Corrections, with 8 years suspended. Hoskins has spent 221 days in jail since he was arrested in July 2017 in Kitsap County, Wash.

Hoskins’ wife, Jeaneatte post, entered a not guilty plea to burglary in January. The couple, along with Adina Ahlers and John Hannan, were charged in connection with burglary from a home on Beacher Lane in Trout Creek between May and July of 2016.

Previously, Ahlers was sentenced to 10 years in the Montana State Prison. Hannan was sentenced in May 2017 to a 5-year Department of Corrections sentence with all time suspended except two days served in the Sanders County Jail.

In court Tuesday, Judge Christopher said the amount of resitution the four will owe the victim is $14,700.