HOLLYWOOD, Md.—A woman accused of surreptitiously stealing tens of thousands of dollars from her employer last year is set to go to trial on Wed., August 31, on a single theft charge.
Emma Clark, 29, who holds addresses in both Lexington Park and Lusby in Calvert County, has been charged with using automated teller machine (ATM) transactions to steal money from the owners of Cook's Liquor and convenience store in Park Hall over a period of about six months from July to December of 2015.
According to charging documents filed against Clark by Det. David Alexander of the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office, Clark was found out by her own employers at the store when they noticed large discrepancies in the business' cash flow.
The owners, Wayne and David Cook, undertook their own audit and narrowed down the missing money to the activities allegedly perpetrated by Clark, according to charging documents.
When they confronted her, court papers stated, she immediately acknowledged what she had done and vowed to repay the money.
The owners even had Clark sign a prepared statement admitting to the theft scheme, stating that she devised "a method of zeroing out the cash in the machine by making a false entry and then taking the cash," court papers stated.
Clark would "then put new money into the machine and a produce a transaction statement validating the deposit, thereby disguising my theft," court papers said of the statement she signed for her employers.
The entire amount of money Clark is alleged to have stolen is $53,040, court papers stated and Clark apparently removed the money in large monthly installments.
Court papers stated Clark stole $6,720 starting last July, $5,480 in August, $3,960 in September, $16,060 in October, $14,300 in November and $6,520 in December.
Clark is being represented by the Office of the Public Defender.
For more local news stories from the County Times newspapers, visit ct.somd.com