Ann Metternich's guilt or innocence now is in the hands of Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green.
A Cole County grand jury indicted Metternich in October 2011 on a single charge of theft for stealing property worth at least $500 but not more than $25,000. The indictment remained suppressed until Dec. 27, 2012.
Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson said Metternich, co-owner with husband Greg Metternich of Victoria's Bridal and Formal Wear Boutique, failed to return a number of tuxedo pieces to the Anderson's Formal Wear Co. of Rochester, Minnesota, between 2008 and February 2010, as required by her agreement as a wholesale dealer for the company.
Metternich's defense attorney Dan Hunt submitted a number of documents as exhibits in the case, but called no witnesses after Richardson rested the state's case Tuesday afternoon.
Unlike a jury trial, there were no closing arguments. Instead, Hunt and Richardson will be given time to file post-trial briefs. Green scheduled a status hearing for May 11.
Testimony over the trial's two days said Anderson's officials continually told Metternich she hadn't returned some clothing items, while Metternich countered that she had.
Company officials eventually launched a "sting," having people Metternich and her staff didn't know go to the store and ask to rent, or buy, specific tuxedo items.
Each of those "sting" visits, several witnesses testified, resulted seeing items Metternich insisted she had returned to the company.
LaDean Thorson, Anderson's order office manager, told Green that Metternich never bought any tuxedos outright.
"Our company was, mainly, a rental company," she said. "The majority of the time we won't be able to sell out of our rental line unless it's an older suit."
Randy Crawford, Anderson's chief financial officer from 1993-March 2013, testified they determined more than $10,000 worth of garments were sent to the store and not returned, including 60 coats and 59 pants, valued at $100 and $40 respectively.
But, Hunt argued over Richardson's objections, "There was a civil finding that these items belong to Victoria's Bridal."
Richardson argued Green should ignore Circuit Judge Pat Joyce's order last November in the civil case, because "the state was not a party to that case and it has nothing to do with this (criminal) case."
On behalf of the Victoria's Bridal business, Hunt sued Anderson's in July 2011 - before the indictment was issued against Metternich - claiming the boutique, not Anderson's, owned the tuxedos Jefferson City police seized in February 2010 with a search warrant after Anderson's "sting" visits.
In her two-page order, Joyce listed several instances where Anderson's failed to respond to Hunt's request for the production of documents, required by the pre-trial discovery process.
"More than two years have passed without a response of any kind being filed by (Anderson's) to (Hunt's) discovery request," Joyce wrote last Nov. 26. "Defendant's failure to respond is without reasonable cause."
Citing a Supreme Court rule about the failure to respond to discovery requests, Joyce dismissed all of Anderson's prior findings and declared all property in dispute the lawful property of Victoria's Bridal."
But Richardson told Green the civil case still isn't final.
Docket entries for the case, as posted on Case.net - the state courts' online docketing system - show Anderson's on Dec. 23 filed a motion to vacate the judgment and orders, and that a hearing was held Feb. 17 with no other orders issued since.
Green said he would take "judicial notice" of the civil case, but didn't say it what impact, if any, it would have on his final verdict in the criminal case.
If Metternich is convicted of the Class C felony charge, she could face up to seven years in prison.