A Machias woman was charged Friday with theft after walking out of the Get-A-Pet store on Stillwater Avenue in Bangor with a miniature schnauzer puppy.

Jessica Papallo, 23, was holding the salt-and-pepper colored puppy – valued at $1,099 – in the store, but after she exited the building, a store employee noticed the puppy was missing. The employee called police after she found Papallo in the J.C. Penney parking lot with the puppy in her bag.

“I realize it is technically theft, but I could pay for it,” Papallo told police.

The dog was returned to the store unharmed after its short journey.

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Police in Holden charged a 16-year-old girl with theft Friday after it was reported that she used her stepfather’s credit card information to make purchases over the phone.

The girl made at least five purchases in May, using the credit card number to purchase $71 in phone cards, which she then used to make long distance calls to people out of state, Holden police Officer Chris Greeley reported.

The unauthorized transactions were noticed on the credit card bill, and the police were called, Greeley said. The girl was on probation at the time she was summoned and her probation officer was notified, he said.

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A Bangor man called police Thursday to report his phone company had charged him for more than $500 worth of unauthorized calls, most to numbers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The 52-year-old man said his last bill to PowerNet Global Communications of Ohio was for $2.71 and the latest bill should have been $3.25, according to police. Instead, the man was charged $589.89.

Bangor police are investigating the unauthorized charges to see if any phone fraud took place but so far have not turned up anything, the report stated.

– Compiled by NEWS reporters Doug Kesseli, Toni-Lynn Robbins and Eric Russell