Found by authorities allegedly hiding underneath a tarp inside a local garden center last month, a Kalispell man now faces a felony charge in Flathead County District Court.

Asher Alan McAlpine-Dixon, 21, is expected to appear before Judge Amy Eddy on Sept. 14 for his arraignment on a single count of criminal mischief. Initially held with bail set at $50,000, he was released from county jail on Sept. 8.

Dixon turned up inside the U.S. 2 garden center near Kalispell after deputies with the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office responded to a trespass complaint about 11:16 p.m., Aug. 31, according to court documents. The person behind the complaint had told authorities that an individual was setting off alarms in one of the facility’s greenhouses.

Arriving deputies found a person, later identified as McAlpine-Dixon, hiding beneath a tarp between two greenhouses, court documents said. The 21-year-old allegedly told deputies he had broken into the garden center by cutting an entrance into a greenhouse when he saw “a cop vehicle out front and decided to hide.”

Garden center employees estimated the damage to the greenhouse at about $1,600.

Criminal mischief is punishable by up to 10 years in Montana State Prison and a $50,000 fine.

McAlpine-Dixon, who already was facing a felony theft case in district court, was on release from county jail when he was arrested. Prosecutors have accused the 21-year-old of stealing a dirt bike valued between $2,500 and $3,500 from a Kalispell repair shop in February.

McAlpine-Dixon allegedly told investigators that he found the dirt bike near a pedestrian trail, assumed it was stolen or misplaced, and loaded it up into a truck. Officers with the Kalispell Police Department, who investigated the theft, noted that McAlpine-Dixon failed to alert authorities to a dirt bike he believed either stolen or misplaced and never sought out the original owner, court documents said.

They also recovered surveillance footage — taken from a nearby property — of a truck matching McAlpine-Dixon’s leaving the area of the repair shop about the time of the theft, court documents said. An object resembling a dirt bike was in the truck’s bed, covered by a tarp, according to court documents.

McAlpine-Dixon pleaded not guilty to the charge in March and a pretrial hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 17.

News Editor Derrick Perkins can be reached at 758-4430 or [email protected].