JAY — A Texas teenager is accused of burglarizing a home on Knoll Circle in Jay and stealing a large amount of cash while the homeowners were away on vacation in April 2015, Detective Michael Mejia said Wednesday. 

The teenager, of Sweeny, Texas, formerly of Jay, was 17 at the time the burglary occurred, Mejia said. The boy was arrested on a fully extraditable warrant charging felony charges of burglary and theft.

He is now 18, but the Franklin County court is treating it as a juvenile case.

Jay Police Chief Richard Caton IV and Mejia flew down to Texas to pick up the teenager on Tuesday at the Brazoria County Jail and brought him back to the Franklin County jail early Wednesday.

This was done with authorization from the Franklin County District Attorney’s Office as an alternative option to the DA hiring an outside agency to do the extradition, Mejia said.

The charges resulted from an investigation that began in April 2015.

There was no forced entry into the home, Mejia said.

The burglary was discovered by family members who were watching over the home while the owners were away. More than $10,000 was stolen, according to Mejia.

Police had collected physical evidence at the scene.

During the initial investigation and after becoming a person of interest, the teenager left Maine and took up residency in Texas, Mejia said.

At the conclusion of the extensive investigation, probable cause for charges against the teenager had been established, but he refused via phone to cooperate with a request to return to Maine to face charges, he said.

Deputy District Attorney James Andrews, who handled the teenager’s appearance in court Wednesday, said that though the teenager is 18, it was a juvenile matter unless the state decides to hold a bind-over hearing to prosecute the teenager as an adult. Andrews asked the court to have the teenager held at the Franklin County jail in Farmington but the court declined, Andrews said after the court appearance.

Judge Susan Oram presided over the matter in court.

A co-defendant in the case, Herbert Small, 20, formerly of Jay, was arrested in July 2015 on felony charges of burglary and theft in the case but failed to appear at court, Mejia said. Small had an unrelated warrant out for his arrest in Texas for theft of money, and was extradited back to Texas in July to face that charge which caused him to miss his Maine court appearance, he said. Small is serving one year in a Texas jail on the unrelated charge.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net

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