SWAMPSCOTT — A Beverly man who ran Swampscott's computer system admitted yesterday that prosecutors could prove he used the town's credit card to purchase equipment he was reselling to customers of a side business.
Under the terms of a plea agreement accepted by a Lynn District Court judge, a charge of larceny of more than $250 against Theodore "Ted" Lamonakis, 35, will be continued without a finding for a year and dismissed. He must stay out of further trouble and comply with all of the conditions of his probation, said Steve O'Connell, a spokesman for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.
Nine counts of receiving stolen property were dropped by prosecutors because Lamonakis could not be charged with both larceny of and receiving the same stolen property. A $5,000 piece of video equipment was one of the things Lamonakis was charged with stealing. All of the equipment has been recovered by police, so Lamonakis won't be held responsible for restitution.
Lamonakis was charged after town officials confronted him about some of the charges on a credit card in March 2007. He resigned and was then arrested two weeks later after an investigation by Swampscott police detectives turned up more stolen equipment in his home.
Lamonakis had turned over a computer, a printer and a DVD player, saying that was all he had.
But during a search of his home at 15 Columbus Ave. in Beverly, police found more items, including computer memory chips and other equipment in a laptop bag, according to a police report. Lamonakis told police he had been looking for the items and said he was surprised to find them there.
A town employee told police he had seen Lamonakis carrying a V-Brick, a piece of equipment used to create streaming video feeds on computers, to his car. Police had alleged that Lamonakis asked two other employees to lie for him if anyone asked about the equipment.
Lamonakis was running a computer consulting business on the side and had installed a computer system in a Salem restaurant shortly before the suspicious charges were discovered.
The agreement was reached between prosecutor Jason Grosky and defense lawyer Carol-Anne Frasier on a day that the case had been scheduled for pretrial motions.
Judge Ellen Flatley accepted the agreement and ordered Lamonakis to remain employed full time and stay out of further trouble with the law.
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