The Telegram (St. John's)

No jail time for fast-food fraud

Restaurant manager who stole $20,000 from till gets suspended sentence

- TARA BRADBURY tara.bradbury @thetelegra­m.com @tara_bradbury

A former fast-food restaurant manager who stole more than $20,000 from the till over a period of five months didn’t do it to support a lavish lifestyle or expensive vacations, the Crown said Thursday — she did it to support a controllin­g boyfriend and the addiction they both had to drugs.

Erin Driscoll, 33, pleaded guilty in provincial court in St. John’s to one count of fraud over $5,000 for stealing a total of $22,626.27 from the cash register at A&W in Mount Pearl between December 2017 and May 2018.

Prosecutor Jennifer Lundrigan read aloud an agreed statement of facts in the courtroom, saying the franchise owner had contacted police to report missing money. He had discovered the thefts while doing the business’s finances and tracked them to Driscoll, who was a manager in the restaurant. The owner had confronted Driscoll, who initially denied taking the money, but quickly admitted to having voided transactio­ns for refunds, which she had pocketed.

Driscoll had been co-operative with police from the start, Lundrigan said, expressing regret for the thefts and explaining to the investigat­or how she had started by taking small amounts before progressin­g to hundreds of dollars at a time.

Lundrigan said Driscoll had told police her boyfriend had introduced her to prescripti­on painkiller­s.

“She said that he kept getting loans in her name and there were times when she could not afford her rent or car payments. She said that she needed the money. She told (the police officer) that she used the money to either pay her bills or buy drugs,” Lundrigan told Judge David Orr. “At the conclusion of the interview Ms. Driscoll said she didn’t know what she had been thinking at the time and it wasn’t worth it, that (her boss) was always good to her and she should not have done what she did.”

Lundrigan and defence lawyer Rosellen Sullivan both noted Driscoll has no previous record and had been assessed as being at a low risk to reoffend. She has overcome her addictions issues, is no longer with the same boyfriend and has worked to get her life back on track, the court heard.

“This was motivated by having to pay bills and to feed an addiction and an element of control by an exboyfrien­d,” Lundrigan told the judge.

She said her original argument was going to be one for jail time for Driscoll, as it is a typical sentence for employee fraud of that amount of money, but had taken significan­t time to review the case in terms of Driscoll’s lack of criminal history, admission of guilt, positive pre-sentence report and current circumstan­ces, as well as the current COVID-19 public health situation.

“It’s the Crown’s position that putting Ms. Driscoll in jail wouldn’t solve anything,” Lundrigan said.

The two lawyers put forward a joint submission for a three-year suspended sentence for Driscoll, which Orr accepted. That means Driscoll will spend the next three years abiding by court orders or risk serving the rest of the time in prison. Among her conditions, she must participat­e in counsellin­g, stay away from the restaurant and have no contact with the owner, and not work in a capacity where she is handling money.

Orr also ordered Driscoll to repay the stolen money to the restaurant’s insurance company.

“I shouldn’t have done what I did,” she said tearfully when given a chance to address the court. “I’m really sorry.”

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