By Sharon Coolidge
Enquirer staff writer

A local Girl Scout troop leader traded $625 worth of Thin Mint cookies for seven days in the Hamilton County Justice Center.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Melba Marsh today said she ordered Relavette Price's jail time to send a message to Price's troop: "The way to build character and gain skill and be successful in this world is to do the right thing. If you do wrong, you get punished for it."

The Roselawn Girl Scout troop leader pleaded guilty Sept. 15 to stealing $625 worth of cookies—or 250 boxes—and taking $1,240 the girls earned selling cookies in 2003.

In addition to the week in jail, Price must also repay her former troop and spend two years on probation.

Authorities think the 31-year-old Westwood woman ate the cookies, but Price told Marsh she sold them and kept the money.

When asked what kind of role model she thought she was, Price said, "I taught them right, I just didn't do right."

Marsh was once a Girl Scout herself, she said.

Price, leader of Junior Troop 8715, based at the Academy for Multilingual Immersion Studies, also violated Girl Scout protocol in handling the cookies. That job usually is handled by a troop-member relative who is designated "cookie manager," in this case, Juana Ervin.

Price took the money the girls, ages 10 to 12, collected, and then wrote six checks to the Girl Scouts of the United States on an account that had been closed, prosecutors said.

When the check bounced, Girl Scout officials confronted Price, who promised to repay the money. She never did.

Cincinnati police arrested Price on July 1.

Troop parents hid the theft from their children, said troop cookie manager Ervin, who praised the Girl Scouts of the USA Great Rivers Council because it gave the troop credit for all sales.

E-mail scoolidge@enquirer.com