MTA wire theft case reaches conclusion

PALMER — A plea agreement reached Monday brought an end to a years-long case involving the theft of a significant amount of wire from Matanuska Telephone Association.

The case came to light in November 2010 when Palmer police reported they’d managed to stop eight reels of copper wire from leaving the state after an MTA employee illegal sold them for $8,000 to two men from out of state. The value of the wire was estimated at more than $100,000.

The employee, Howard Tresham, was the last to see an end to his criminal case. In a hearing Monday before Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler — who was filling in on the bench that day — he apologized for his actions.

“It’s not how I was raised,” said Tresham, 46. “I stole from the company that gave me my livelihood for 25 years. It was like stealing from my own family.”

By the terms of the agreement he reached, Tresham will sign over his MTA pension to the company as restitution. He’ll have to do that within a month of when the pension is fully vested and available to him, which might not be until 2015. But if he does that and doesn’t get into any other trouble, he won’t have a conviction on his record.

Tresham said he acted out of frustration and desperation, though he didn’t elaborate for the court on the nature of his financial hardships.

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Tresham said.

His co-defendants, Oregon residents Bob Ristick and Bob Stevens, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts and paid $50,000 each in restitution and received six-month jail terms.

Tresham’s attorney, Josh Fannon, said this transaction was kind of the modus operandi for Stevens and Ristick.

“They have 10 or 20 different aliases in many different states,” he said, before adding of the resolution of their cases that, “they basically bought themselves misdemeanors.”

Assistant District Attorney Kerry Corliss said that Tresham’s participation in the case was crucial, allowing law enforcement to track down Stevens and Ristick before they managed to leave the state and the wire before it was shipped out of Anchorage. She said in light of how much he helped out once he’d been caught, the sentence was fair.

“He runs the risk of ultimately having a felony conviction,” Corliss said, adding that she felt that should be enough to keep him from re-offending. “Deterrence, I think, is important.”

Fannon told Cutler that Tresham’s crime was an aberration.

“The community was really, really caught off guard,” Fannon said, noting Tresham’s history as a contributing member of society and a youth sports coach. “In all, Howard made a really, really bad choice, a choice not in keeping with his character, but he did what he could to fix it.”

While his Alaska case was still pending Ristick picked up a federal case in Washington State in which he was alleged to have rolled back odometers on old vehicles and sold them for a profit. Judging by court filings, that case appears to be reaching a conclusion as well.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.