Ohio Woman Sentenced In Connection To Lowe’s Theft
WARSAW — An Ohio woman was sentenced in Kosciusko Superior 1 Court Thursday, Aug. 30, on charges related to two separate cases.
LaQuaysha LaShay Harden-Hudson, 22, 615 Evesham Ave., Toledo, Ohio, was found guilty of corrupt business influence, a level 5 felony and battery by bodily waste, a level 6 felony.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, officers with the Warsaw Police Department responded to a theft at Lowe’s on Jan. 28, 2017. Police met with a Lowe’s loss prevention officer, who advised that two subjects entered the store and took a shopping cart to the tool section. They selected three DeWalt power tools, two Bosch power tools and a Turtle battery. The combined value of the items was $1,279.25. The subjects then pushed the cart to the front of the store, removed the tools and ran out without paying.
Lowe’s employees gave police the license plate number and vehicle description, as well as surveillance footage.
When police searched the license plate number it returned to a female who has been incarcerated since Dec. 28. Police questioned the female, who gave them the name of the vehicle’s owner. The female had registered the vehicle because the owner had an active warrant.
According to the affidavit, police then obtained the inmate’s phone calls. Thirteen calls had been placed to a number associated with the vehicle owner, one being on the day of the theft.
On Feb. 7 an officer with the Warsaw Police Department called the vehicle owner and recognized her voice from the recordings of the inmate’s phone calls. The vehicle owner denied her identity and reportedly told the officer, “Quit calling, b****, before I kill you. Blat, blat. Quit calling my phone.”
Police obtained inmate phone calls made to the vehicle owner after Feb. 7. Among these recordings was a phone call from another female. During this call, the vehicle owner admits she was called by a Warsaw number and “didn’t know how they [police] found her number” and admitted to telling the detective “I’ll kill you.” The female advises her to “be cool on the Lowe’s.” The vehicle owner then states she wants to steal three or four more times.
The same female had called the vehicle owner on Jan. 30. In this call, the vehicle owner stated stealing from Lowe’s was her new income and she had been stealing for over two months from various stores. A WCPD officer spoke with Lowe’s loss prevention department and other police departments and verified the thefts. He also verified the vehicle owner’s identity from surveillance footage.
Harden-Hudson was sentenced to two years in the Kosciusko County Jail for the charge of corrupt business influence. For the charge of battery by bodily waste, she was sentenced to six months in the Kosciusko County Jail, with the six-month sentence to be suspended and to be served consecutive to the other sentence. She was ordered to pay restitution to Lowe’s in the amount of $1,279.25.
Because Harden-Hudson is receiving jail time credit for another case, Judge David Cates stated that she will receive no jail time credit toward today’s sentencing.