BELFAST, Maine — A jury will decide next week whether a Belfast woman embezzled at least $83,000 from her family furniture store while she was working there as the bookkeeper.
Lauri J. Dawson, 57, was arrested and charged last January with Class B theft by unauthorized taking or transfer after police spent nearly a year investigating claims that she had stolen from Macleod Furniture in Belfast.
Dawson’s attorney, Joe Baiungo of Belfast, said this week that his client is looking forward to having her day in court.
“This case should never have have been in the criminal system,” he said. “It should be left up to the family to resolve the differences. Essentially, it’s an effort by her two siblings to squeeze her out of family business and property.”
According to the affidavit filed in court in support of Dawson’s arrest by Detective Sgt. Bryan Cunningham of the Belfast Police Department, the matter came to light when Dawson’s brothers, Scott and Brent Macleod, gave police the results of a forensic audit done for the company by a Rockland accounting firm. Although the audit indicated that $137,000 had allegedly been embezzled, when the criminal complaint was filed, it listed $83,000 as the amount police believe Dawson took from the business.
The Macleod brothers told police they conducted the audit after learning that the company was having problems paying state and federal taxes and that liens had been placed on company property. Scott Macleod told police that the family first tried to work out a settlement with Dawson without success, according to the affidavit. Macleod said that the family made its last best offer to her several months before going to police, but she did not respond to the offer or return calls made by the brothers or their attorney, according to the affidavit.
Dawson owns 15 percent of the family corporation.
Cunningham said in the affidavit that he learned through his investigation that both Dawson and her husband, William Dawson, had multiple liens placed on their properties by the Internal Revenue Service.
Lauri Dawson’s husband, an attorney, was accused in 2013 of financially exploiting two elderly clients. He was indicted last fall by the Waldo County grand jury on charges of theft and misuse of entrusted property.
Efforts to speak with the Waldo County assistant district attorney about Dawson’s case on Wednesday were not immediately successful.
Baiungo said the trial is expected to last two days.
“It’s been really hard for her to not be able to say anything,” he said. “I think that once people hear the case actually presented, it’s going to be markedly different than any of the facts they have already heard from the family members.”
He said the case against Dawson does not have anything to do with her husband’s legal troubles, “other than potentially someone trying to kick her when she’s down — hoping she’ll give up more easily.”
The trial is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, at Waldo County Superior Court.
BDN writer Steve Betts contributed to this report.