By Mary Delamater,Staff Editor

PARIS – Norway Community Development Director Deborah P. Wyman, who is charged with stealing money from the town, has been ordered to appear in Oxford County Superior Court on April 4, after she finishes a month-long Caribbean cruise.

The 51-year-old Harrison woman had her March 17 arrest warrant recalled after her attorney filed a motion stating she was out of state and would return the first week of April.

Justice Roland Cole ordered her to appear at the courthouse in Paris to sign a bond for bail in the amount of $10,000 worth of property or $2,500 cash, Clerk Donna Howe said Friday. Wyman must also sign a waiver of extradition, she said.

The motion to lift the arrest warrant was filed by her attorney, Edward L. Dilworth III of Norway, on Tuesday and granted on Thursday, court documents state.

A request for comment from Dilworth had not been answered as of 11:25 p.m. Friday.

According to the motion, Wyman “will be returning to the State of Maine the first week of April.” Dilworth stated he understands the Oxford County grand jury is meeting April 5 or 6 and there is a possibility Wyman may be indicted.

Howe said if Wyman is charged by the grand jury, which is expected to hear the case April 6, she would have to appear in court for an arraignment soon after.

Wyman, who has held the $15-an-hour, 20-hour-a-week job since 1986, was charged March 17 with theft of at least $55,000 intended to be used for town grant programs she administered. The money is believed to have been taken from January 2003 through January 2006, according to court records. At least 67 transactions between town funds and Wyman’s bank account have been identified, records state.

Wyman has had responsibility for overseeing more than $5 million in federal Community Development Block Grant money since 1986.

A warrant for her arrest was issued March 17 at the request of Maine State Police Detective John Hainey, the primary investigator in the case.

Also that day, Justice Cole ordered an attachment on Wyman’s assets in the amount of $55,352.63.

According to court records, Wyman’s checking account at Norway Savings Bank showed a “$48.66 balance whereby $400 is owed on it” as of March 20. KeyBank reported Wyman’s account balance as $211.19 as of March 17, according to its court filing.

Northeast Bank, Bangor Savings Bank, Rainbow Federal Credit Union and Oxford Federal Credit Union had no accounts under Wyman’s name, court documents state.

The single, 5-foot, 6-inch blonde was granted a personal leave of absence from Dec. 30, 2005, through the first week of April 2006, Town Manager David Holt said in an affidavit to the court March 17.

“Because of personal difficulties, she told me that she wanted to go down to Fort Myers, Fla., for those months and perhaps work in a restaurant while she was there. Because of her years of service to the town, I granted her request,” he wrote. “I understand she has a friend named Sue Cyr, who now lives in Florida and who used to live here in Maine.”

In his affidavit last week, Holt said, “Currently, though Ms. Wyman is on leave from work at the Town Office until the first week in April, she has been in contact via e-mail with Shirley Boyce, the town clerk, and has informed Ms. Boyce that instead of being in Florida continuously during her leave, she will be on a cruise to St. Martin Island in the Caribbean from March 6, 2006, with a friend from Maine, and expects to return to work on or about April 5, 2006.”

On Monday, Wyman phoned Holt at his office trying to determine what evidence the town has against her, the town manager said. He asked her where she was, he said, but she didn’t answer the question.

Wyman is believed to be on a chartered sailboat with Gary Searles of Harrison, a wealthy businessman who owns The Anchorage commercial/residential building at 27 Main St., where Wyman has been living.

Also Monday, Searles’ son, Chris of Harrison, called the Sun Journal on behalf of Wyman and said she wanted to tell the newspaper her side of the story and would call later. She never did. He said he didn’t know where his father was and didn’t say where Wyman was calling from.

The town’s side of the story is based on an investigation that began in January when Norway officials began mailing 1099 tax forms to people who had done work for the town as part of a federal grant to improve business facades, town attorney David J. Mitchell said in an affidavit. The grant was administered solely by Wyman, he noted.

Arthur Gouin, owner of L. F. Pike & Son clothier on Main Street got one of the forms and contacted the town to advise he never received the money indicated on the form. That set off an investigation which revealed that a $5,000 check to Gouin and one for $3,687 to contractor Scott Hatch were never received by them, although funds had been collected on them in full, the affidavit stated.

In early March, Norway Police Chief Rob Federico subpoenaed records from various local banks which showed “several unauthorized transfers of funds” from the town’s checking account to Wyman’s personal account at KeyBank between January 2003 to Nov. 21, 2005. Most of the transfers were deposits by Wyman using an ATM, Mitchell stated.

Wyman “used the town manager’s authorization to pay the invoice to write original checks on behalf of the town into her own name, and either forged the signature of the town manager or the town assistant treasurer, Carol Millett, in order to deposit these checks into her personal account,” Mitchell stated.

“Ms. Wyman also removed the original canceled checks from town checking account records when they were returned to the town from the bank, whited out her own name as it appeared on the check, wrote another name in as the recipient of the funds, and replaced the originally returned check with a photocopy of each altered check in the town checking account records,” his affidavit stated.

“Based on this history of the past three years, Chief Federico is currently moving forward to supplement the original subpoena of records to reveal the full extent of this series of forgeries and siphoning of funds by Ms. Wyman,” according to the civil complaint Mitchell filed on behalf of the town.