MACHIAS — A Washington County grand jury on Monday indicted former sheriff Donnie Smith on multiple charges, including two felony theft counts related to illegal expenditures from an inmate benefit account at the Washington County Jail.

A representative of the Washington County district attorney’s office confirmed to the Bangor Daily News that Smith was indicted on charges of theft by unauthorized taking, theft by misapplication of funds and misuse of entrusted property.

Margie Berkovich, a detective from the Maine attorney general’s office, assisted in the investigation of allegations against Smith. The indictment was sought by Washington County District Attorney Matt Foster, said Timothy Feeley, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

“This was a lengthy investigation by the attorney general’s office detectives and after careful review it appeared that charges were warranted, so we decided to proceed,” Foster said Monday in a brief prepared statement.

According to Foster, Smith is accused of misappropriating $11,700 from the county’s inmate benefit account by spending it on gifts for deputies, charitable donations, meals, flowers, uniforms and other items that did not benefit inmates.

A copy of the list of indictments in Washington County indicates that the alleged theft occurred over a six-year period between January 2007, just after Smith first took office as sheriff, and December 2012. Smith lost his re-election bid last fall to current Sheriff Barry Curtis.

In response to Smith’s indictment, Washington County Commissioner Chris Gardner said, “The investigation evidently has run its course,” and the county is going “to let the legal process work itself out.”

“At this time, we have no further comment except to say that we have complete faith in the criminal justice system in seeing this matter concluded,” he said.

Use of funds from the inmate benefit account at the 48-bed Washington County Jail has been under scrutiny for years. Funds from the account, which contains revenue from jail commissary sales and fees from telephone service for inmates, are to be used to directly benefit inmates and not for a jail’s operating budget or other purposes, according to state Department of Corrections jail standards.

Smith had received a report from an administrative assistant in October 2012 indicating suspicious expenditures were being paid from the inmate benefit fund, and he hired an attorney to investigate.

Waterville attorney Peter Marchesi said in his 28-page report that his investigation could not justify the purchase of cellphones, a leather motorcycle jacket, dresses, jewelry and lingerie, among other items paid for with inmate funds.

In December that year, Smith suspended Karina Richardson, the jail clerk, and Robert Gross, the jail administrator, and recommended to county commissioners that both be discharged. Gross resigned not long after being suspended. The commissioners held a disciplinary hearing in January 2013 and approved Smith’s recommendation to fire Richardson. At about the same time, the commissioners also asked the state attorney general’s office to investigate jail operations and have been awaiting the results since.

Meanwhile, Richardson took her case to the state Board of Arbitration and Conciliation, which ruled in October 2014, that she should not have been terminated, but rather only suspended without pay for six months.

Gardner said Monday that the county since has settled its case with Richardson, but he did not have the details at hand.

Efforts to reach Smith and his attorney, Don Brown of Brewer, were unsuccessful Monday afternoon.

Before Monday’s indictments, Smith already was facing four misdemeanor charges in Washington County for unrelated incidents. He faces charges of reckless conduct, driving to endanger and two counts of harassment by telephone or electronic communication device. Smith has requested a jury trial on the misdemeanor charges and was expected to have his case on the docket call scheduled for Thursday, May 7.

The misdemeanor charges stem from confrontations involving Smith in early January. One incident involved a series of text messages he had with Sheriff’s Department employees on and around Jan. 1, as he was leaving office, according to charging documents. The texts were “offensively coarse or obscene” and were sent without the consent of the recipients, the documents state.

Another involved Deborah Bousquet, a Lubec teacher who had a prior roadside confrontation with Smith in October, when they each went to Route 189 after a report of an incident on a school bus. In the prior incident, which resulted in Smith arresting Bousquet on assault charges, Bousquet and Smith each accused the other of aggravating the situation on the bus.

All charges against Bousquet stemming from the Oct. 8 incident later were dropped by District Attorney Matthew Foster for lack of evidence. She since has notified Smith of her intent to file a civil lawsuit against him, alleging that with her arrest he falsely imprisoned her, assaulted her and used excessive force.

A subsequent alleged confrontation that Smith had with Bousquet on Jan. 6, after he left office, resulted in Smith being charged with reckless conduct and driving to endanger. Bousquet and Foster each have said that, in that incident, Smith was driving his truck in front of Bousquet’s vehicle on Route 189 in Lubec when he twice stopped abruptly, nearly causing a crash each time.