She first turned to the media to clear her name after she had been named as a suspect in an RNC theft investigation.
She later found herself appearing before a judge on unrelated theft, fraud, stolen property and trespassing charges.
This week, Amanda Oliver was all but in the clear once again, with the Crown withdrawing all but two of her charges.
Oliver, 30, has pleaded not guilty to those two: shoplifting from Dominion and breaching a court order. She’ll go to trial next month.
Oliver’s photo — along with a photo of a man — had been released by police in February in a public appeal for information about a break-in at a Portugal Cove Road convenience store. The pair had been captured on video while cashing lotto tickets stolen from the store, police said.
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Oliver contacted police when she saw the photo, and was later found not to have been involved with the break-in. She approached media outlets in an effort to let the public know, since she felt the police hadn’t done so and her reputation had been damaged as a result. In sharing her story, Oliver acknowledged the photo was indeed of her, but said she had nothing to do with the stolen tickets and didn’t know the man pictured with her.
“Clearly, I was there in the store, but I did not know the gentleman that was next to me. I did not know him and I didn’t engage in a great conversation with this person,” she said at the time.
The man was later identified as Jordan Mousseau-Mitchell, Oliver’s boyfriend. He was charged with theft in connection with the stolen lottery tickets and is in custody awaiting proceedings on that and other unrelated theft charges.
Oliver didn’t share with reporters that the day she had gone to police about her photo, officers had executed a warrant for her arrest in connection with possessing stolen property from Long and McQuade, defrauding Traders, stealing from Dominion and breaching court orders. She had been released from custody with a condition to stay away from Dominion, among other restrictions.
Last month she was charged with breaching that condition, though the charge was short-lived, withdrawn by the Crown in provincial court on Tuesday along with everything but the grocery store theft and related breach.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
