AUBURN – Jan Mulherin told a jury Thursday that she earned the roughly $52,000 she paid herself the final year she worked at a small Poland business by working hard and long hours.

Her boss testified that he fired Mulherin in 2006 for writing company checks to her children’s sports teams. He later discovered more than $10,000 in commissions she paid herself that he claimed she wasn’t entitled to.

Both the state and defense rested Thursday. The jury is expected to hear closing arguments then begin deliberations Friday morning.

Testifying for more than two hours Thursday at her felony theft trial in Androscoggin County Superior Court, Mulherin said her boss and company owner, Roger Dargie, had, in fact, approved the commissions she paid herself on sales orders. Although she worked primarily as office manager, she oversaw the company’s Web site, payroll and more.

“There is not one job I haven’t done” at the business, she said, “except for welding.”

Dargie had testified earlier in the week that he allowed her commissions only on limited items with one client. By contrast, she said Thursday that Dargie authorized commissions on any item companywide that bore a part number.

Dargie also tacitly approved more than $1,000 in donations to sports groups in the Turner area, where her kids went to school and where she served on a board and coached, she said.

“I was uptight about asking for a donation at one point,” she told her defense attorney, Walter McKee, during direct examination.

She said Dargie told her: “Why do you bother to ask me every year? Just go ahead and do it.” So, she did.

When quizzed by a prosecutor about a contribution to her kids’ organization, she agreed with Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin that she exceeded the “annual” donation she believed Dargie had consented to earlier.

Charges she made with a Visa credit card drawn on a company account were primarily for business items. If she charged an occasional personal item, she paid Dargie back in cash, she said.

She cashed non-payroll checks made out to herself at her personal bank. But, instead of pocketing it, as suggested by the prosecutor, Mulherin said she put the cash in an envelope in her office desk to be used for petty cash.

Mulherin said she was “surprised and confused” when Dargie questioned a $200 donation she had made using company money, shortly before firing her, which “dumbfounded” her, she said.

She said she believed she was fired over a disagreement she had with Dargie over the testing of so-called “personnel” netting sold by the company, but never directly referenced the dispute in e-mails she wrote to Dargie because: “You don’t do that with Roger. He’s never wrong and you don’t question him.”

Robert Pelletier, a former worker at Safe Approach Inc., said Dargie had told him years earlier after getting married that he would have to fire Mulherin because his wife didn’t like her.

Dargie told him: “She’ll screw up. I’ll get her,” Pelletier testified. Dargie also told Pelletier that Mulherin “knew too much,” he said.

Mulherin’s husband, Kevin, also testified Thursday, recalling a visit to his wife’s office where Dargie thanked him for a $5,000 loan Mulherin and his wife made to the company from their home equity line. The money helped Dargie make payroll during a slow business period after Sept. 11, 2001, Jan Mulherin said. Dargie testified earlier during the trial that he hadn’t been aware of the loan.

Kevin Mulherin, a lieutenant at the Auburn Police Department, said he knew of the donations paid by Safe Approach to his kids’ sports programs. There was no attempt to keep them secret, he said.