ELLSWORTH, Maine — A Bar Harbor woman has pleaded no contest to charges of felony theft in exchange for a deal that allows her to stay out of jail while she tries to make restitution of tens of thousands of dollars.
Jennifer L. Lozano, 42, will have to spend at least nine months in jail, even if she repays the more than $68,000 she stole through check and credit card fraud. If she doesn’t pay off the money in the next six months, she’ll have to spend double that amount of time behind bars.
Lozano faced up to 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine for each of the two class B theft charges she faced. She pleaded no contest to each of the charges last week in Hancock County Superior Court.
One charge stemmed from a check scheme pursued by Lozano last fall. Lozano, who used to own and run the now-defunct Parkside Restaurant and adjacent Best of Bar Harbor gift shop, stole the funds in late October 2011 by writing several bad checks for several thousand dollars each with one bank account, depositing them in a checking account at a second bank, and then quickly withdrawing the unsupported funds from the second bank.
The bad checks were issued on an account Lozano recently had opened at Maine Savings Bank with $150 and then deposited at Camden National Bank.
Before Camden National realized something was wrong, it submitted all eight allegedly fraudulent checks, which totaled $54,000, to Maine Savings Bank, which then returned them all with a notice of “not sufficient funds,” according to a police affidavit filed in court. After Camden National submitted the checks a second time, they were returned again marked “closed account,” the affidavit indicates.
In all, Lozano stole $52,099.28 from Camden National Bank. She did not withdraw all the $54,000 she allegedly wrote fraudulent checks for, police have said.
The second theft charge stemmed from similar activity in November and December 2010, in which Lozano double-billed some Parkside Restaurant customers who had paid for their meals with credit cards, according to Assistant Hancock County District Attorney Mary Kellett.
In that scheme, months after customers had dined at the restaurant, Lozano ran some of the credit card slips, for identical amounts, a second time through her retail gift shop, Kellett said Friday. Lozano may have double-billed customers for a total amount between $30,000 and $40,000, the prosecutor said, but repaid customers who called the businesses to complain.
First Data, a credit card processing firm, sustained most of the losses incurred by Lozano’s credit card fraud, according to Kellett. She said Lozano’s plea agreement requires the former restaurateur to repay $16,346.07 to victims of the double-billing.
“We’re really focused on what [evidence] would have been presented in court,” Kellett said of the credit card restitution order. “We had a forensic financial analyst look at all the paperwork.”
The restitution order for the bank check fraud totals $52,099.28, the same amount that she took from Camden National. Kellett said Lozano has been paying restitution and, so far, has repaid the bank for about $49,000.
Justice Ann Murray sentenced Lozano on Sept. 4 to concurrent five-year sentences on each theft conviction. Lozano has until early February 2013 to repay to combined restitution order of $68,445.35. If she repays all the money before then, she will have to serve nine months behind bars at Hancock County Jail. If she does not, she will have to serve 18 months at a state-run corrections facility.
In either case, Lozano will have to serve two years of probation after she is released.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.
Wow that is a lot of money. I don’t make half that a year! How on earth is she gonna pay it back in 6 months (not that I condone her getting more time to pay it back because I do not). There is just no way someone could support themselves and pay that amount of money back in a half year time. Most people in this area are lucky if they make half of that amount a year. What a greedy greedy woman!
Sounds like she made a sucker bet and the prosecution is betting that she’s the sucker.
I was wondering the same thing and then I reached this part: ” Kellett said Lozano has been paying restitution and, so far, has repaid the bank for about $49,000.”
How in the world did that happen? Kiting more checks? Must’ve sold her ‘business interests…..
This story highlights the importance of checking your bank and credit card charges frequently. You just never know who is going to see if you’re on the ball or ripe for the picking.
Yes, it is very important. In this case though, she was the owner of both accounts.
*Sorry, didn’t read the article fully. Didn’t see the part about the double charging of cards. I’d followed this rather closely at the very beginning, since I only live a few miles from BH, and it peaked my interest. All the articles I read then, didn’t mention the credit card stuff, just the checks.
i bet she has a gambling issue at hollywood slots how that got started
You’re probably right about HS or could be Oxford – there must be some desperation behind this. Stealing from Maine banks when you live in Maine is kinda dumb. Must have thought she could win it back and “fix” everything.
She must have work for the US Treasury department at some time to get this much experience.
Hope she can not get a business license again. She should do more time than 9 months.
I’m betting she has defrauded more than just local banks and is using that money to make restitution locally. She could be selling mortgaged property such as cars, campers, and motorcycles, etc on places like e-Bay, Craigslist, or Uncle Henry’s.. You can’t be too careful buying from places like that. It’s very easy to get a “lost title” and then forge it. BTW, where’s her picture ???
A misandric female prosecutor and a female judge helping a female criminal
get a sweetheart deal and a slap on the wrist. The only thing surprising here
is that they didn’t find any man to blame for this woman’s crimes which is
usually how they justify treating an adult female like a little girl.
If a man was caught doing all this I think most people can guess what kind
of a deal he would have gotten.