Stolen $5,500 watch traded for heroin

WASILLA — What did a local man do after he managed to walk out of Fred Meyer with a diamond-studded gold watch? He traded it for heroin.

Jonathan Ashburn, 29, of Wasilla, was charged Nov. 18 with robbery and felony theft for allegedly stealing the watch. A Palmer grand jury indicted him on those charges on Nov. 27.

According to an affidavit Wasilla police officer Jason Holmgren filed in the case, the clerks at Fred Meyer reported the robbery about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 12.

The clerk told Holmgren a man had approached her and asked about the watch, which carries a $5,500 price tag. A police press release from the time reported the man was wearing a camouflage coat and a T-shirt with a 907 logo.

The clerk told Holmgren she took the watch out of the jewelry case and let the man look at it.

According to Holmgren’s affidavit, the man then told her, “You want to know something? I am going to walk out with this watch and if you try to yell or get anyone to stop me, I will shoot them.”

Wasilla Deputy Police Chief Greg Wood said it took a few days after that for police to get surveillance video from the store. But once they had those images in hand, on Nov. 18, they started asking around.

An e-mail was sent out to all the Valley law enforcement agencies, Wood said.

“Within an hour, a trooper identified the suspect from our photographs and said he had arrested the guy the night before for theft in the second degree.”

According to a trooper press statement, in that case Ashburn is accused of stealing a $25,000 diamond ring from a home off of Rue De La Paix Loop. Ashburn was arrested in that case Nov. 17.

Holmgren writes that, having discovered his suspect might already be in jail, he called the Fred Meyer clerk to the police station and showed her a photo lineup. She picked out the photo of Ashburn, saying she was 100 percent positive he was the man who stole the watch.

So, Holmgren wrote, he went to the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility to talk to Ashburn.

“Ashburn stated he had gone into Fred Meyer and took the watch. Ashburn stated he told the clerk not to try and stop him. Ashburn denied saying he would shoot anyone. Ashburn stated he was high on heroin at the time and that he traded the watch to get more heroin.”

Wood said police reports don’t indicate how much heroin Ashburn scored with the watch.

“I don’t know how much and I don’t know that the officers know how much heroin,” he said. “I don’t think that the cost of the watch would be the issue, for a heroin addict it would probably be the next fix.”

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