PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine's highest court has upheld a former Kittery redemption center operator's conviction for illegally redeeming cans and bottles from out of state.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine's highest court has upheld a former Kittery redemption center operator's conviction for illegally redeeming cans and bottles from out of state.



Thomas Woodard, who ran Green Bee Redemption in Kittery, was convicted in 2011 in the state's first criminal trial over redemption fraud for passing off no-deposit containers from New Hampshire and Massachusetts as if they were purchased in Maine. He was sentenced to 21 days in jail.



In his appeal, Woodard argued there was insufficient evidence for a conviction and that the lower court judge erred in allowing certain evidence at trial and failing to give requested jury instructions. He further said the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by asking the jury to “send a message.”



In a unanimous decision Tuesday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled the conviction stands.



In 2011, when the case was first reported, it was compared to a memorable "Seinfeld" episode in which Kramer and Newman took thousands of cans and bottles to Michigan so they can get a nickel more per container than they would in New York.



In the Seinfeld episode, Kramer laments the scheme can't be done. "You overload your inventory and you blow your margins on gasoline," he says at one point. But Newman offers up free space in a mail truck he has to drive to Michigan before Mother's Day — "the mother of all mail days," he calls it — and the pair head off. (They end up aborting the trip while chasing down Jerry's stolen Saab.)



Green Bee was accused of passing off more than 100,000 out-of-state containers — with a value of more than $10,000 — as if they had been purchased in Maine.