Woman accused of stealing, using officer’s passport

A Spokane woman is accused of stealing a federal Homeland Security officer’s passport and using it to pawn two stolen rifles.

Investigators identified Amanda Wayne Macklin, 23, as a suspect after finding her number in Double Eagle Pawn’s phone records. They say she called the pawn shop on Nov. 21 asking if a passport could be used to sell items there, then went to the East Sprague Avenue store and sold the stolen guns for $475 using a passport belonging to Shannon L. Hart.

Hart was at Oz Fitness at 603 E. Holland Ave. in Spokane on Nov. 20 when someone prowled her vehicle and stole her Homeland Security identification card, her passport and a Sig Sauer .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol, according to court documents.

Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives obtained surveillance video from the pawn shop, and Macklin’s family members identified her as the woman selling the rifles, which were stolen during a Nov. 21 burglary. When agents questioned her, Macklin admitted to breaking into Hart’s car and said she had dumped the passport and pistol into a trash bin, according to court documents.

Federal agents also obtained a recording of Macklin telling her mother in a phone call from jail that she pawned the guns and burglarized other homes to support her and her sister’s drug habit. Macklin and her sister, Jordan Newkirk, already are charged with several felonies for an alleged burglary ring.

Prosecutors filed six new gun and property crime charges May 25 for theft of Hart’s passport. Then a federal grand jury indicted her last week on a charge of unlawful possession and barter and disposal of a stolen firearm and misuse of a passport.