(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
March 20, 2018 - 12:45 PM
KELOWNA – A local woman was sentenced to a year in jail after police found her and her boyfriend burning stolen mail outside a stolen motorhome with a homemade licence plate last year.
Kristina Michelle Anderson pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of mail, possession of stolen property over $5,000, one count of possessing stolen mail and possessing a stolen credit card.
She and co-accused Julian Alexander Hoekstra, 43, were arrested at a campsite near Peachland Dec. 16, 2017. Warrants were out for their arrest for a previous theft of mail from the Summerland area in June 2017. They were already due in court for another arrest related to a theft of RCMP bait mail from a Peachland mailbox in December 2016.
The RV, valued at $37,000, was stolen from a Kelowna lot in July 2017.
Anderson also pleaded guilty to a charge of racking up thousands of dollars of purchases onto a credit card she opened in someone else’s name in November 2017.
Her defence lawyer Colby Johnson described the couple as a type of “Bonnie and Clyde”, a reference to the bank robbing couple from the Great Depression.
“The two of them together had been up to no good,” Johnson said in Kelowna Provincial Court today, March 20.
When police showed up to execute the arrest warrants late last year, officers found Hoekstra tending a fire that contained stolen mail and envelopes. Anderson was inside the RV, which was missing identification numbers and had a fake licence plate.
Judge Gale Sinclair sentenced her to one year in jail followed by one year of probation. She is also forbidden from contacting Hoekstra, who was sentenced to 60 days in jail last month for one count of mail theft and a breach of release conditions. He will be sentenced for the remainder of his charges after his release.
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