LIVERMORE FALLS – Police charged a Livermore Falls teenager with theft after high school officials reported nearly $600 in computer parts were stolen from the school over the past three months.

Principal Shawn Lambert reported Wednesday the theft of smaller-sized computer parts of three motherboards – one IBM and two generics, four processors and four external 40 gigabyte hard drives, police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. said.

School officials had conducted an investigation and interviewed a suspect who admitted taking the parts and turned that information over to police, Steward said.

Police interviewed the boy and charged him with theft by unauthorized taking, the chief said.

In addition to the items reported stolen, which the boy told police he returned to the school, 13 RAM memory sticks and an IBM CPU chip that belonged to the school were recovered, Steward said.

The total amount of the parts taken from the school was more than $1,000.

The boy was released to the custody of his parents, Steward said, and the case will be turned over to the juvenile system.