East Greenbush

Wal-Mart provided more defense for its firing of an East Greenbush employee who redeemed bottles left near the store's entrance in a Washington Post story published Sunday.

The Post reprinted much of the Times Union's previous stories about the case of ex-convict and Wal-Mart employee Thomas Smith — a story that has sparked outrage across the country.

But Wal-Mart also provided the Post with the "voluntary statement" that Smith allegedly signed in which he admitted to the company to redeeming the bottles and cans, a statement Wal-Mart had previously refused to provide to the Times Union.

Smith, 52, a previously homeless man who worked for two months gathering carts in Wal-Mart's parking lot, was fired Nov. 6 for redeeming $2 worth of bottles that were left near the store's redemption area.

Wal-Mart has said that any items left in the store are store property and it is considered theft if they are taken.

On Thursday, both a Wal-Mart spokesman and Smith said he found the unmanned cart in the store's breezeway near the redemption machines.

But Smith's statement that Wal-Mart gave to the Post says he allegedly took "bottles from the service desk and returned them through the bottle area."

Smith had also redeemed another $3.10 in cans and bottles left out in the parking lot. The superstore chain has said that it reviewed surveillance camera footage to prove Smith took the bottles in violation of store policy. "I, Thomas Smith, did not think that this was a problem because I Thomas Smith did not feel like I was stealing from the store," the alleged Wal-Mart document reads that was released to the Washington Post.

Smith said he had to take a one-hour bus ride from Albany in order to repay the $5.10 and was still terminated.

"The reality is our former employee stole from the customer service desk, was caught on camera doing so and signed a statement admitting to that fact," Wal-Mart spokesman Aaron Mullins said in a statement to the Washington Post. "Taking items that have been returned to the customer service desk is no different from stealing off our shelves or from customers."

Prisoner advocate Alice Green at the Center for Law and Justice in Albany has taken on Smith's case. She has said there is racial and gender discrimination present in that a Wal-Mart manager allegedly told Smith, who is black, that there was a white cashier who stuck $20 in her bra, but they allowed her to pay the money back and keep her job because she has five children.

Smith, who served 15 years in state prison for a bank robbery, was fired from his $9-an-hour Wal-Mart job a few weeks before his 90-day probationary period was up, denying him a 10 percent employee discount and other benefits.

A GoFundMe campaign launched on that website had raised $19,145 for Smith as of Sunday afternoon.

lstanforth@timesunion.com • 454-5697