Former Lunch Box manager pleads guilty

A former Lunch Box manager accused of theft after a $60 cookie sale led to a charge alleging she embezzled more than $60,000 from the restaurant pleaded guilty during a change of plea hearing Friday in state District Court in Havre.

Jean A. Grandberg, born in 1964, of Havre was charged with one count of theft by embezzlement by a common scheme Aug. 5, 2014.

She pleaded guilty Friday to the charge before District Judge Robert Olson, who appeared via video conference from Shelby.

Grandberg previously pleaded not guilty to the charge in 2014.

A plea agreement was filed April 6.

During the hearing, Olson set a sentencing hearing for Wednesday, June 3, at 3 p.m. at the Hill County Courthouse.

According to court documents, Julie Davison, who owns the Lunch Box with her husband, John, contacted Havre Police Sept. 14, 2011, to report suspicions Grandberg had stolen money from the restaurant.

Grandberg reportedly had managed the restaurant for 2½ years at that point.

Julie Davison told a Havre police officer that the suspicions began when a customer purchased $60 worth of cookies for a catering job. Due to some confusion about whether the cookies had already been paid for, the employee making the sale gave the money to Grandberg. The money was never entered into the day's sales, the documents say.

After John Davison confronted Grandberg about the sale, Grandberg said she must have forgotten to enter the amount.

The court documents go on to say when the Davisons reviewed the records, they saw that the total cash intake had been scratched out and $60 was added, but the $60 was not deposited into the restaurant's bank account.

Julie Davison also reported she and her husband had gone over the Lunch Box records and found numerous transactions indicating someone rang up purchases incorrectly, voided out credit card transactions on the till tape and rang up other transactions that apparently meant someone was taking money out of the till while making it appear the till tape balanced the amount of cash in the register.

Julie Davison said other examples showed the amount being deposited in the bank account was less than the restaurant's actual income. For example, the sales for a given day totaled $1,000, but the deposit totaled $900.

The Davisons said an audit of the restaurant's financial records showed a total of $104,430.06 missing from January 2009 to September 2011.

A financial analyst with the state Division of Criminal Investigation found that Grandberg had used multiple methods to disguise the theft of cash and was able to confirm $61,770.05 in shorted transactions, the court documents say. This was through $45,428.50 in shortages of daily intake, cash sales and deposits, $9,619.55 in gift certificates or latte cards not being rung up and $6,722 in charge account sales not being rung up properly.

The analyst also noted that Grandberg, as manager, handled the cash register most frequently, handled the closing of the till, bookkeeping and daily bank deposits, and also would have been able to see if the cash register was short due to the action of another employee.