EQUESTRIAN SHOP THIEF TAKES PLEA, PROBATION
WEST PALM BEACH — A judge Thursday ordered probation and restitution for the former office manager of a high-end Wellington equestrian shop on charges that she sold accessories online but pocketed much of the money.
Kristin Cook, now 45, pleaded guilty to separate felony counts of fraud and grand theft. After the hearing, Cook and her attorney, Paul Walsh, declined to comment.
Palm Beach County Judge Laura S. Johnson sentenced Cook to 36 months of probation and 250 hours of community service and ordered restitution of $57,005. The judge said adjudication would be withheld and she could serve probation in California, where she’s been living.
Cook could have gone to prison for up to 20 years. According to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s report, Pierre Jolicoeur, owner of P.J. Saddles, told detectives in December 2015 that he’d hired Cook
three years earlier to process sales orders, ship items and maintain inventory.
Eventually, Jolicoeur told the detectives, Cook approached him with the idea of selling items online on eBay. In 2014, he said, he discovered his bank account was too low to buy inventory.
Jolicoeur said Cook gave vague answers and later moved to California. He told detectives that in the fall of 2015, he reviewed the store’s PayPal account and discovered numerous transactions in which Cook transferred money from there into her personal bank account.
“It took us forever to figure it out,” Jolicoeur said in January.
He said that while he likely would have noticed questionable saddle sales, at $3,000 to $6,000 each, Cook was selling accessories at lesser amounts, such as $100 to $400. In all, she allegedly moved more than $57,000 to her bank accounts, even after she’d left the company.
On Nov. 28, Ventura County, Calif., deputies pulled her over for running a red light and a computer check revealed a 2016 warrant from Palm Beach County.