News

Former grocery store cashier charged with stealing $28,500

February 28, 2010

NewsoftheNorth.Net reports that a 38-year-old Arbor Vitae, Wis., woman and former head cashier at Save More Food Markets in Minocqua, Wis., has been charged with stealing $28,500 from her former employer.

The Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has filed a criminal complaint against Michelle R. Popenhagen, charging her with two counts of felony theft and two counts of fraudulent writings, also felonies. According to the criminal complaint, Popenhagen was employed by Save More as a head cashier until June 2004. Her duties included replenishing the store-owned ATM. Popenhagen was supposed to retrieve cash from the store's safe, record the amount in an accounting journal, place the funds into the ATM and then enter the amount placed into the ATM's keypad.

The complaint alleges that from July 2003 until mid-June 2004, Popenhagen periodically kept some of the funds removed from the safe instead of depositing them into the ATM.

The complaint also alleges that Popenhagen on two occasions made entries in the store's quarterly inventory reports that purported to reflect the actual cash balance in the ATM at the time of the entry but which she knew were false.