A 31-year-old transient man was charged with a felony in Kitsap County District Court for stealing the car of the mayor of Bainbridge Island from his Point Monroe driveway last March.

Adam Carter was charged with second degree taking a motor vehicle without permission in court Oct. 3. Authorities said a half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew that was left in the stolen car led to Carter’s arrest.

According to court papers, Carter stole a 2000 Mercedes SL500 from the driveway of then-Mayor Steve Bonkowski’s home on Point Monroe Drive on March 1.

Bonkowski told police he had not given permission for anyone to take his car.

The stolen Mercedes was later found in a parking lot in Port Orchard.

Police found a half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew on the floor next to the front passenger seat.

The soda bottle was sent to the state crime lab, and investigators discovered in April that the lab results matched a previous case from 2008 that involved Carter as a suspect.

Police obtained a search warrant to get a DNA sample from Carter — who was by then an inmate at the Airway Heights Corrections Center near Spokane — in June.

During that prison visit, a Bainbridge detective asked Carter about stolen vehicles and Carter was allegedly silent for a moment before asking, “Which one?”

When Carter was told about a car theft near where he once lived on the Point Monroe sand spit, Carter repeatedly denied taking the car.

“When I confronted him with the DNA results he seemed to think for a bit and then told me that ‘I may have been in a stolen car but I didn’t steal it,'” the officer recounted in a statement of probable cause.

A few minutes later, Carter allegedly offered, “I was in a stolen car and had something to drink in a stolen car but I didn’t steal it.”

The officer noted that he did not disclose the source of the DNA.

When asked about the person who took the car, Carter would not answer.

Bainbridge police received a DNA profile in August from the state crime lab with the results from the June DNA sample, and said Carter’s previous DNA sample matched the DNA found on the Mountain Dew bottle.

“The lab reported that the estimated probability of selecting an unrelated individual at random from the U.S. population with a matching profile is 1 in 110 quintillion,” according to court papers.

Carter has three prior felony convictions for taking a motor vehicle without permission, according to court documents, as well as convictions for possession of a stolen firearm and possession of a controlled substance. He also has 14 misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor convictions for crimes that include vehicle prowling, theft, assault, DUI, trespassing and resisting arrest.

Conviction of second degree auto theft carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and $10,000 fine.