Six months after hearing the evidence, Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green told former Jefferson City businesswoman Ann Metternich Wednesday morning she was guilty of stealing.
He scheduled her sentencing for Dec. 2.
A Cole County grand jury indicted Metternich on a single charge of theft for stealing property worth at least $500, but not more than $25,000. The charge is a Class C felony, with a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
Metternich owned and operated Victoria's Bridal Boutique from 2000 until she closed it a year ago.
She was charged with stealing from Anderson's Formal Wear by not returning tuxedos she had gotten from the Minnesota-based company, then rented to Victoria's Bridal customers.
Green heard the evidence April 6-7, then gave Cole County Prosecutor Mark Richardson and Daniel Hunt, Metternich's attorney, time to file post-trial written arguments.
Several witnesses testified during the trial that, when company officials noticed some items sent to Metternich had not been returned, they asked her about them - but Metternich insisted they had been returned.
Dennis Gerber, a 33-year Anderson's employee who had served as general manager and vice president, told Green last April the thefts started prior to 2008.
"This was a gradual progression," he testified. "(Metternich) had insisted for a couple of years that she had returned them. ... She would tell me, "I've turned the store upside down and cannot find these items.'"
And, Gerber said: "She refused to pay late charges and replacement charges because she said she had returned them."
In his 16-page post-trial brief, Hunt argued the state had "failed to offer evidence that ... Anderson's demanded the tuxedos be physically returned."
He argued, "instead of delivering a formal demand for the physical return of the tuxedos, Anderson's elected to engage in "sting operations' and to then involve law enforcement."
Testimony during the April trial presented evidence that people Metternich didn't know came to the store and asked to rent or buy specific items of clothing - then determined those items were on the list of things Metternich had said she had returned to the company, or never had received from the company.
Anderson's then asked Jefferson City police to monitor one "sting" transaction, to show the items had been removed directly from the store and not delivered to the store after being ordered.
Hunt wrote that two previous Missouri Supreme Court cases, in 1919 and 1986, supported his case.
When Anderson's "billed her for their purchase," Hunt wrote, the tuxedos "became (her) property" even though she didn't pay for them. He said failure to pay isn't the same thing, legally, as stealing.
Green told Metternich Wednesday he'll have a final order explaining his verdict, including his "findings to what throughout the case has been referred to as the "Special Occasions' tuxedos."
Those were tuxedos Anderson's intended to ship to the Special Occasions company in Odessa, which had ordered them, but were delivered instead to Metternich's Victoria's Bridal business in Jefferson City.
According to trial testimony, Metternich told Anderson's she never had received the incorrect shipment.
But the Anderson's "sting" operation, and items taken from the store after Jefferson City police served a search warrant, found numerous tuxedos in the store Metternich said she never possessed - including some intended for the Odessa business.
Richardson's five-page post-trial brief included references to the Special Occasions tuxedos as support for Green finding Metternich guilty of the stealing charge, while Hunt never mentioned the Special Occasions items.