Shoshone Clerk Fined For Shoplifting

Shoshone County Clerk Marcia Wingfield has been fined $100 for shoplifting last week at a Kellogg, Idaho, grocery store.

On Wednesday, she entered an Alford plea in the incident. That is a guilty plea in which the accused does not admit to the charge, but admits she is likely to be found guilty.

“I went to the store to buy groceries, not to leave without paying for something,” said Wingfield, who was stopped by a security guard at Yokes Pac’N Save in Kellogg on Dec. 28.

During court proceedings, Wingfield explained that she had put a small packet of cold tablets on the seat of her grocery cart beside her purse. When the tablets kept falling out of the cart, she put them in her purse, intending to take them out at the checkout stand. Instead, Wingfield said, she forgot.

In addition to the fine, Wingfield will serve two weekends of in-home detention.

“If anything, four days’ detention is tough, but I felt it was important to both Marcia and the community that she not get preferential treatment,” said Magistrate Judge Neil Walter, who assigned the sentence Wednesday.