A Florida woman accused of stealing $34,000 from Walt Disney World over a two year period has been charged with only misdemeanors.
What’s Happening:
- The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that a former Magic Kingdom Cast Member who was accused of stealing $34,000 has been charged with two misdemeanors and placed on probation. According to investigation reports, the woman was not charged with any felony or sentenced to jail time.
- She was caught stealing and fired from her job in May of 2019. After the incident, her case was investigated by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for grand theft then sent to Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office.
- Earlier this month, The Sentinel requested files on the woman’s case from the state attorney’s office. According to these files the case was “lacking: ‘scheme to defraud,’” she “did not obtain cash under false pretenses.”
- From 2017-2019, the 53-year-old woman from Davenport pocketed cash from the ticket booths Magic Kingdom’s Transportation and Ticket Center.
- According to court reports, “The Defendant was responsible for issuing theme park tickets and MagicBands to guests wishing to enter the various Walt Disney World locations. The Defendant would systematically activate the Disney MagicBands, collect cash from guests for the purchase and subsequently void the transactions and pocket the cash.”
- Disney first started to notice red flags when the woman’s cash sales were less than that of her colleagues while the number of she MagicBands activated were different from the numbers sold. In 2018 she sold 1,965 MagicBands; however, she activated 3,272 for people to use.
- Twice in the spring of 2019 Disney sent undercover investigators posing as guests to confirm their suspicions.
- The investigators visited her booth at Magic Kingdom and paid with cash for MagicBands that weren't properly entered in the system. Both times she did not offer the investigators a receipt and they noted that she also placed the cash off to the side.
- When confronted, the woman who’d been a Cast Member since 1990 admitted that she had stolen nearly $34,000 since 2017.
- The court report states that “[she] claimed she was doing this to help pay bills and that she had been sending her mother home $100 a month since her father passed away in 2017.”
- This October, the woman pleaded no contest for petit theft and was charged with the misdemeanors. Her sentencing also included:
- Community Service
- A $273 fine
- A seminar on impulse control
- Banned from Walt Disney World
- Her arrest affidavit stated that the Sheriff’s Office believed there was probable cause to charge her with grand theft and scheme to defraud. Disney too wished to press charges.
- The woman’s misdemeanor charges are from the two times she was accused of pocketing cash from the sales of MagicBands to Disney investigators.
- Disney and both the state attorney and sheriff’s offices refused to discuss the case with the Sentinel.
- The woman and her lawyer also didn’t respond to requests for comment.