Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
No felony charges in Disney theft
Disney World accused a Magic Kingdom vacation planner of stealing nearly $34,000 over two years from the company, but she wasn’t charged with a felony or sentenced to any jail time following a Sheriff’s Office investigation, records show.
After getting caught redhanded, the 53-year-old Davenport woman was fired from her job at the Magic Kingdom in May 2019. The Orange County Sheriff ’s Office investigated her for grand theft and sent the case to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office.
But ultimately, the woman was charged with two misdemeanors. The woman pleaded no contest in October to petit theft and was placed on probation for 12 months.
Her sentence also required community service, a $273 fine and a seminar on impulse control, according to court records. She also isn’ t allowed to go back to Disney World.
The woman, whom the Sentinel will not identify because her crimes were only misdemeanors, and her defense attorney also did not return messages for comment.
The state attorney’s office released the woman’s file at the Sentinel’s request this month. It showed“concerns” in the case. Her file said the case was “lacking: ’scheme to defraud,’” she “did not obtain cash under false pretenses” and “corpus issues with the estimate of ~$40K,” but the office declined to elaborate.
According to a 2019 sheriff’s incident report, Disney told deputies the woman stole $33,988 from the company between January 2017 through May 2019 while working in the ticket booth at the Magic Kingdom’s Transportation and Ticket Center.
“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,” the sheriff’s report said.
Compared with her colleagues, she had lower cash sales and the number of MagicBands she activated stood out compared with how many she actually sold, according to a Disney investigator’ s statement to the sheriff’s office.
When confronted by Disney, she admitted to stealing about $40,000 since 2017, according to the Disney investigator’ s statement given to the sheriff’s office.
Disney fired the woman on May 21, 2019, the documents showed.
The Sheriff’s Office said there was sufficient probable cause to charge the woman with grand theft and scheme to defraud. Disney also wished to press charges, according to an arrest affidavit.
Her misdemeanor theft charges came from the cash she was accused of pocketing from the two Magic Bands she sold to Disney investigators.