ROCKLAND, Maine — A 24-year-old woman who said she had turned her life around will be held without bail for leaving the state and not paying restitution while on probation.
Judge Susan Sparaco ordered Miranda Wotton Thayer held without bail until a probation revocation hearing is held next month.
Wotton Thayer was convicted of theft in 2010 and sentenced to three years in jail with all but eight months suspended. She also was ordered to serve probation for two years and make restitution of $5,780 to her victims.
According to an affidavit filed by the probation office, however, the then Rockland woman stopped seeing her probation officer and only paid $171 in restitution. In 2012, the probation officer filed a motion to revoke her probation.
The officer had no contact with the woman until her arrest recently when she returned to Maine.
At her initial court appearance Monday in Knox County Unified Court, the defense attorney for the day, Andrew Wright, said she had moved to North Dakota, where she became a certified nursing assistant and has held a job for a year. Wotton Thayer had obtained her high school diploma through the Regional School Unit 13 adult education program in June 2011.
Wright said she had returned to Maine to attend a family member’s funeral and thought her attorney had taken care of the matter.
Wright said his client has three children — a 6-month-old, a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old — and that the youngest child just had surgery. He asked the judge to release his client on $1,000 cash bail.
Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Baroody argued against bail, saying she was a flight risk.
Judge Sparaco agreed, saying she did not believe the woman’s rendition of the facts.