Woman pleads guilty to Burger King theft charges

A Madison Heights woman pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling thousands of dollars from a Lynchburg Burger King where she worked as a shift manager.

Mary Noel Smith could face up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced in August.

Smith, a shift manager at the Boonsboro Road restaurant, was accused of stealing an estimated $20,000 by daily overcharging customers and pocketing the difference over the course of a year and a half, said Lynchburg Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Chuck Felmlee.

Management of the local Burger Kings reported the embezzlement in January after a review of their December records revealed thefts totaling $4,341, Felmlee said. Further review showed thefts dating back to November 2007.

The investigation showed that Smith would ring up a phony refund and then give the money to herself, Felmlee said. Smith would also ring up a customer’s order but wouldn’t place the money in the cash register. If a customer made a $5 purchase, Smith would ring it up as a $2 purchase. Then if the customer paid with a $10 bill, she would give $5 in change and pocket the remaining $3.

Smith worked for the Burger King for eight years.

“Burger King was able to link so many of these false transactions back to the defendant as the defendant was the person responsible for signing off on all the transactions at the end of each shift, verifying every transaction as being legitimate,” Felmlee wrote in his proffer statement.

When interviewed by investigators, Felmlee said Smith confessed, admitting to regularly doing over-rings or deletions from the register and pocketing the money. She told investigators that she stole between $100 and $300 a week during 2008.

“Burger King management would have testified that it has been very difficult to determine the entire extent of the defendant’s thefts but it is certainly well above $20,000 in value over the past one and a half years,” Felmlee wrote.