Arrest made in USU Bookstore thefts

Elder said the individual arrested is Logan resident Landon Putnam, 24, a USU graduate and employee of the campus admissions office.

“He was pretty quiet,” said arresting officer Sutton Hanzalik. “He struggled on being honest at first, because he’s never been in that position. He doesn’t have a criminal record.”

Elder said the books were taken throughout the course of the current academic year piece by piece. The red flag went up for employees, she said, when they began to see multiple, high-price titles coming back within a short time frame.

An individual is required to show a school ID whenever they return books, she said. There are multiple satellite locations in the area that buy back textbooks, and they all keep track of which books are returned.  

“Basically this guy went into the bookstore several times over the school year,” Elder said, “and was taking one or two books at a time. We’ve got roughly 44 books that have been stolen. In a five-day period, 40 books were sold back.”

After the arrest, Hanzalik said he interviewed Putnam who said money was tight for he and his family, and he recently had a baby girl.

Allegedly, Putnam started taking books because he could not afford them as a student, Hanzalik said. In many cases, he said, after people start stealing it becomes hard for them to stop.

“He felt guilty, is what his statement was,” Hanzalik said. “The bottom line is would he have ever came to us and said, ‘Hey I made a bad choice, I’m here to confess’? No, we had to take the initiative to speak with him.”

The amount of money that Elder said was profited from the resale of the textbooks is set at $3,117. When combined with the cost of the books taken, the total is almost $10,000, which makes it a 2nd degree felony theft.

“The biggest sufferer here is the bookstore,” Elder said. “These books were stolen brand new, in shrink wrap. They’ll never be able to sell those new now, so they lose all that money now on the books. It’s a big hit for the bookstore.”

She said if convicted, Putnam would face the 2nd degree charge for taking the books and also be charged with 3rd degree felony theft by deception for trying to sell the books back.

“He came down yesterday (Tuesday), and he knew I was going to book him,” Hanzalik said. “He and his wife are going to work through it. We all make choices. He’s not a bad kid he just made a very bad choice.”

The issue that makes a crime like this worse, Hanzalik said, is that it is an accumulation of repeated offenses, rather than a one-time thing in which the perpetrator immediately sees the error of his ways. During questioning, Hanzalik said Putnam was cooperative.

“It could be a great learning experience,” Hanzalik said. “I can’t say I haven’t made mistakes as a kid.”

Hanzalik also said there was a trust violation and he will have to notify Putnam’s employer, the admissions office, of what happened.

The bookstore has sustained book theft in the past but nothing on a scale this large, Elder said. In the past, she said the highest number of books taken was about 10.

This semester the bookstore did not require students to remove their backpacks before entering the store. Elder said she would like to see the Bookstore go back to their no-backpack policy.

“I can’t even believe in
my mind that nobody saw this guy, that many times, put a book in his backpack,” Elder said. “I think people are real complacent and they just don’t care sometimes.”

Putnam was booked in and is being held at Cache County Jail. A district court administrator said it is likely he will be seen Thursday afternoon for arraignment.

USU Bookstore director David Parkinson was unavailable for comment.