HARTFORD, Conn. _ A young woman who has become an internet pariah since being arrested for swindling a dinner date at a tony Westport restaurant says she was 30 miles away at the time of the crime and has a lie detector test and statements from five witnesses to prove it.
Until the arrest this month, Katherine Stonick was the 27-year old associate manager of a high-end clothing shop in Clinton. Now, she said, she has been suspended from her job without salary, forced to produce $10,000 in cash for bail and to pay thousands more for a lawyer to defend her.
Worse, she said, is the frustration of believing in her innocence while having to endure the eruption of pernicious internet commentary that followed the arrest and is likely to follow her into the future, whenever she looks for a new job or position.
Westport police Lt. David Farrell said the department has confidence in its investigation and will let the case unfold in court.
As far as crime goes, Stonick is accused of a relatively trivial offense. But it is a crime that could have been designed to inspire snarky internet posts: She is depicted as a conniving woman who stole $300 from an unwitting dinner companion on their first date and used his money on subsequent evenings to buy dinners for other friends at the same restaurant.
"I just want to get my life back," she said. "I just want to go back to work and have this just go away. I was arrested on charges that I didn't commit. It was plastered all over the internet and spiraled out of control."
The police in Westport arrested Stonick on Oct. 14 on charges of illegal use of a credit card and sixth-degree larceny. The police made public Stonick's mug shot and, as they are required to do by law, information about the circumstances of the arrest. The Hartford Courant and other news organizations, along with radio disc jockeys and bloggers, reported on the arrest.
The police said Stonick and her unidentified date _ a man she is purported to have met through an internet dating service _ dined at Finalmente Trattoria in Westport on Aug. 17. She is said to have used the name Sophie. The date arranged to pay with his credit card. While waiting for the bill, Stonick is accused of excusing herself from the table and asking the manager to add the cost of a $300 gift card.
The couple is reported to have left the restaurant _ Stonick with a gift card her date was unaware he had purchased. She is accused of returning to the restaurant on Aug. 18 and 19 and using the card to buy meals for friends.
Police said that when the unidentified date realized there was an extra $300 on the bill, he filed a complaint. He said he happened to remember the license plate number on Stonick's car. A source familiar with the matter said the license plate was traced to a car belonging to Stonick's 68-year old mother. That caused the police to show the complaining dinner date a photograph of Stonick. The date identified Stonick as his dinner companion.
Stonick's lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan of Hartford, called the arrest a case of mistaken identity. McGuigan said Stonick submitted to a series of polygraph examinations earlier in the week at PDD solutions in Suffield and the results showed a 99.99 percent probability that her denials are truthful.
She was judged to be truthful when she denied meeting or even seeing her purported dinner date. The strongest indication of truth was measured when Stonick denied ever having visited Finalmente Trattoria, McGuigan said.
Sworn statements by friends of Stonick support the polygraph. Her roommate said that, on the evening of the alleged dinner date, the two women were at home. The roommate and four other friends said the next night, Aug. 18, was Stonick's birthday and they celebrated it at two clubs in New Haven.
