The former manager of a Powell auto dealership has agreed to repay $46,000 that he defrauded the business out of in 2021 and 2022.

Following a drawn-out investigation and prosecution, former Yellowstone Motors General Manager Vince A. Smith pleaded guilty in February to a misdemeanor count of theft totaling less than $1,000. That charge was reduced from an original felony count of theft totaling $1,000 or more as part of a plea deal with the Park County Attorney’s Office. The arrangement also involved Smith agreeing to serve a total of 10 days in jail and six months of unsupervised probation.

He also agreed to pay restitution to his former employer, but the amount of money Smith owed remained in dispute at the time of sentencing.

Powell police initially concluded that Smith had stolen over $121,000 from the dealership, generally by having customers wire their payments to his personal bank account instead of the business’s. However, Smith’s attorney, Brigita Krisjansons, said she later learned that Smith had repaid the bulk of that money to Yellowstone Motors before his termination in the fall of 2022.

Krisjansons and Senior Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Eichele agreed last year that Smith only had $3,900 left to pay. But at Smith’s Feb. 17 sentencing hearing, the county attorney’s office’s victim/witness coordinator presented a revised restitution document that indicated Smith actually still owed $46,000.

The bulk of that debt came from a settlement that Yellowstone Motors had to pay out as a result of Smith’s actions. Court records and emails show that Smith sold a 2022 Toyota 4Runner for $48,650, but diverted the funds into his personal bank account instead of the dealership’s. (Charging documents say Smith did that in several other sales as well.)

Smith shipped the SUV to the buyer in New York, but it arrived damaged and Smith had the buyer return the vehicle. He never delivered a replacement, leaving the buyer, Ted Hirsch, out the money.

Hirsch later sued Yellowstone Motors in an attempt to recoup his losses, and the business agreed to pay him a $43,000 settlement. Yellowstone Motors owner Anthony Brownlee asked for Smith to be ordered to repay that sum, plus another $3,000 that Smith pocketed from a separate sale of a 2004 Honda Element.

Smith’s attorney, Krisjansons, objected to the increased restitution figure, which she received just minutes ahead of the hearing. Sentencing had been delayed from September to February “so that whatever the verification and paperwork could be provided so everybody would have ample time to review it in light of the many omissions, misstatements, corrections and the fact that we had to subpoena [information] to even figure out what had been paid” back already by Smith, Krisjansons said.

Eichele said he, too, was frustrated, saying he’d sought the information about the restitution a year earlier.

However, Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah said he felt he had a duty to sort out the restitution issue and slated a March 24 hearing. The day before, the parties announced that Smith had agreed to repay the full $46,000. That included an immediate payment of $3,900, followed by monthly payments in the future.

At February’s sentencing, Brownlee said that the restitution represented “a fraction of the damage that he [Smith] caused.”

Smith apologized at the hearing. He said a doctor indicated that his behavior had been triggered by a medication that can cause severe compulsive behavior.