By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A judge today dismissed part of the criminal charges against Lorrine D. Birdwell, a Toledo woman who with her husband is accused of major theft in connection with their used car business.
Lorrine and Keith A. Birdwell operated Birdwell Brothers Auto Sales with sites in Centralia and in Lacey.
They were both in Lewis County Superior Court today, each represented by their own lawyer.
Keith and Lorrine Birdwell
Prosecutors allege the couple used various deceptions to avoid paying back the Centralia-based Security State Bank on loans for vehicles, contending the unrecovered losses to the bank are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They were each charged in January with one count of first-degree theft and five counts of felony unlawful issuance of a bank check.
The “bad” checks – a secondary issue – were allegedly written by Keith Birdwell for several thousand dollars each over a period of three days last July at the point where the bank began to realize there was a problem, according to Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Eric Eisenberg.
Seattle attorney Allen M. Ressler argued this afternoon his client didn’t write the checks and there was no direct evidence to show she was involved in them. Eisenberg argued she had to have known as she was managing the financial side of the business and the bad checks were part of the larger scheme.
Part of what pointed to what would be a proper inference, Eisenberg said, was Lorrine Birdwell’s “runaway spending” of some $26,000 on her American Express credit card right after the bad checks were written.
Judge James Lawler sided with Lorrine Birdwell’s attorney.
Ressler also notified the court he would be filing a motion to sever their cases so they could be tried separately.
They have both pleaded not guilty.
A trial was scheduled for the week of August 26, but both sides agreed to postpone it, or them, until the beginning of December.
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For background, read “Centralia used car lot owners appear in court on criminal charges” from Wednesday January 23, 2013, here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter