The former manager of a Woodstock pretzel shop faces a felony theft charge after stealing nearly $32,000 from his employer, authorities said.
Leonard Casey, 25, who worked at the Auntie Anne’s in the Outlet Shoppes at Atlanta, was arrested earlier this month after his boss noticed that cash deposits dating to January never made it to the bank.
Franchise owner Daniel Trickel came to police after an audit of the business’ finances revealed a $31,956 discrepancy, according to a Woodstock police incident report.
He immediately suspected Casey, who was in charge of depositing the store’s cash at a nearby Chase bank, authorities said.
When asked why it took so long for him to realize the money was missing, Trickel said his wife, who does the accounting, spent several months caring for her dying mother. The discrepancy was discovered in late July when the couple got around to auditing the business through the first half of the year, he told detectives.
Trickel said he owns more than a dozen other shops, and that the outlet store location was the only one missing that much money. He also described Casey as “an excellent employee” and said he had no reason to believe he was stealing money, according to the incident report.
The only downside, he told police, was that Casey would occasionally hang on to four or five deposits at once before taking them to the bank.
He confronted Casey in late July after noticing that two bags of money were missing, he told police. Casey, however, was reportedly adamant that he had taken the money to the bank and deposited it over the weekend.
Trickel then asked for the bank deposit slips, but his manager couldn’t prove that the money had been deposited, according to the report.
As he left the pretzel shop, Trickel received a call from Casey, who told him he suddenly found the deposit bags inside the store, authorities said. Casey told him one of the bags was on top of the safe and that he found the other inside, according to the report, despite Trickel searching both locations before confronting the manager.
Casey was arrested Sept. 4 and charged with felony theft by taking. He bonded out of the Cherokee County Adult Detention the same day after posting a $4,875 bond, records show.
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