When Police Chief Brennan Baird examined a video obtained off a hidden surveillance camera in the Rite Aid store of Danielsville, Georgia, the chief reported he was astounded at what he observed.
A store employee was suspected of stealing money to purchase Georgia lottery tickets inside the store and the video showed a behavior of constant thefts, according to the report. Store officials suspected her of taking money on "hundreds of occasions."
The suspect would "literally remove money from the register, buy tickets, scratch them off, cash them out and repeat," according to the report.
As a result of the investigation in which approximately $7,000 to $10,000 is missing, charges of felony theft were filed Aug. 25 against employee Vickie Jean Matthews, 51, of Drake Woods Road, Danielsville.
"On several days of surveillance I watched Vickie unlock the store, get the systems up and running, and then begin to play the lottery," Baird said in his report.
But during the investigation, police also observed a pattern of theft by two other Rite Aid employees, Robin Booth Mathis, 55, of Danielsville and Dianna Eve Farr, 50, of Winterville Road, Athens.
They were also charged with theft.
The three women appeared to be taking the money individually and not in concert with each other, according to the report.
When confronted, Mathis told police she had been taking store money to purchase the lottery tickets for several months, while Farr admitted she had been engaged in thefts for about a month, according to the report.
Matthews, who worked at Rite Aid for 19 years, supervised the lottery register and told police she was "borrowing" the money. She admitted she had been borrowing the money since sometime before Christmas 2015, according to the report.
Company officials were alerted to a possible problem because the Rite Aid in Danielsville was surprisingly selling more lottery tickets than almost every other store in Georgia, according to Baird.
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Don't play if you can't pay!
Big Brother is always watching!
Let me guess this is what Mr Trump calls crooked Hillary
Are folks getting stupid or just more brazen? There's CCTV just about everywhere these days. Once again, I say resititution, probation and of course be fired!
And a bad hair day to boot! Lock em up.
What will be so funny is to lock all three in one cell birds that flock together steals together so they look at themselves in the face every morning and realize how stupid life can be.
Okay first this article is definitely tracing so it's not worth over anyones job. I wonder what these women were thinking of and now it's on their criminal records for good. Shame on them. That isn't good at all.
Why on earth would soneone take store money when it doesn't belong to them in the first place?
You can't fix stupid and we shouldn't be paying for stupid.
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Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3
Things are getting worse all the time.
The one on the right looks like she was just dug up for an autopsy.
It's a shame too. It spooks me.
How many of these lotto ticket rip-offs are we yet to see?
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To the arrested women in the article:
I know you are very sorry (I'd hope). You are all in your 50s.
Do any of you have kids?
Do any of you care?
I shudder to think what would've happened should any of you have gotten a significant winning amount.
Would you have voluntarily paid back what you took, if you won something big?
The amount that's missing is between $7,000 and $10,000.
Do you think any of them were keeping track of how much they were steeling?
Dianna Vickie Robin
I am not sure what the laws are down south however I am not sure Rite aid would pursue in court. A couple of people told me it's the companies image and branding but that is something else to deal with.
For example if someone did this to wawa, wawa won't prosecute to that they would contact the lottery commission.
Second they will be surely have their names in the 1-800 gamlbing hotline. Once a persons name is in there the person can't claim or do anything.
They did pay with the money they steeled