Man admits stealing from store payment boxes

A felon admitted in Flathead District Court on Thursday to bail jumping and stealing checks from Super 1 in Kalispell in April and October.

Allen Richard Rodriguez, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of bail jumping for missing a sentencing hearing for an unrelated felony matter on Nov. 12, 2015.

He also admitted stealing checks from utility payment boxes of Super 1 twice in 2015. Rodriguez said he wanted to alter the checks and cash them.

In exchange for his guilty pleas, prosecutor Alison Howard said the county attorney’s office was not charging Rodriguez with numerous other crimes, though he had agreed to pay restitution to victims in the uncharged incidents.

Sentencing was set for April 7. Rodriguez also will be sentenced for felony theft, criminal endangerment and criminal mischief convictions that resulted after he tried to break into a vending machine on July 26, 2015, and led an investigating officer on a chase in a stolen truck.

The chase reached speeds of more than 60 mph and Rodriguez hit parking signs, crashed through the bushes of Flathead High School and ran through intersections before he crashed the truck into another vehicle.

He then took off on foot and had to be subdued with a Taser.