A Waukesha School District employee faces up to 16 years in prison and tens of thousands of dollars in fines after a police investigation reportedly revealed the employee had stolen almost $23,000 from the district while she was employed as a school kitchen manager.
The employee, 40-year-old Stacey Russell of Muskego, also allegedly stole cash out of a safe while she worked for Sodexo Inc., a food services company, and cashed several fraudulent checks at a local bank.
Russell was charged on April 1 in Waukesha County Circuit Court with theft in a business setting of over $10,000 and fraud against a financial institution. She's scheduled to make her initial court appearance on April 20.
According to the criminal complaint, police last December opened an investigation into the incident after a district employee reported discrepancies in deposits Russell had made in September and October 2014.
Russell, who ran a kitchen cash register at Waukesha South High School, was responsible for making daily deposits into the district account and had been employed at the school through Sodexo since August 2013, the complaint said.
Russell reportedly stole money by skimming from checks given to her by students and at times by simply pocketing money from food sales she didn't ring into the register.
The money from the checks would be credited to a student's account, but Russell would enter a lesser dollar amount into the sales system than was written on the check and pocket the difference, according to the complaint.
A district auditor last November spoke to Russell about the deposit discrepancies and she reportedly admitted to stealing at least $6,000 from the school. Russell additionally told the auditor that while working in a similar position for Sodexo at GE Healthcare she stole $888 out of a company safe, the complaint said.
The auditor told police in the complaint that during the 2013-2014 school year there was a negative difference in food sales of $53,000, of which approximately $27,588 was tied to Russell improperly ringing up food sales.
Russell reportedly admitted to the thefts, which ultimately totaled $23,788, and told police during a Jan. 7 interview that she had also written and cashed several fraudulent checks at a local Waukesha State Bank location.
According to the complaint, Waukesha State Bank suffered a loss of $8,535.44 from the fraudulent checks.
Russell claimed in the complaint that she used the money from the district and the forged checks to pay various bills, but added that she took some of the money to the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino in Milwaukee and gambled with it to "try to win some of the money back" so she could make restitution.