Minnesota’s charitable gaming includes pull-tab games and meat raffles.
The assistant gambling manager for a Minnesota hockey association is accused of stealing over $10,000 from association funds. Katherine Ann Theis, who serves as assistant gambling manager for the Shakopee Hockey Association, is accused of stealing money from the group’s charitable gambling fund.
Katherine Ann Theis is a 23-year old resident of Shakopee. She was charged on Thursday with “theft by swindle”, which is a felony in Minnesota. Ms. Theis is accused of swindling $10,558 in the SHA’s funds, which were accumulated in their charity gambling events.
Shakopee Police Report
The Shakopee Police Department wrote in a report that it was contacted on August 31 by the Shakopee Hockey Association’s gambling manager, Scott Reed. In that capacity, Reed is responsible for the bingo, pull tab gaming, and “meat raffles” the association has at four locations: Turtle’s Bar & Grill, the American Legion Outpost in Shakopee, Bufffalo Tap in Savage, and Louisville Lanes.
In the report, Mr. Reed said that he and Theis went to two of those locations, Turtle’s Grill and the American Legion, to close out old games and refit them with new pull tab games.
Collecting Money from Pull-Tab Boxes
The two went through the normal procedure, said Reed, which was to record sales and winnings on the pull tab boxes in their paperwork. Some electronic games were not recorded, because they automatically updates in the association’s computer systems.
After a pull tab game closed, either Scott Reed or Katherine Theis would count and collect the money earned from the game. This would happen immediately, so the numbers should be accurate. The numbers then would compare to au audit, so the managers compared the physical count of the sole pull tables with the unopened pull tabs, then tabulate that number minus the winning pull-tabs.
How the Missing Pull-Tabs Were Verified
Every single pull-tab had its own serial numbers, so it could be verified for gambling and tax purposes. The aforementioned audit was down by a third-party auditing company. Both the audit and the numbers were placed in a state report form. Under state law, the pull-tab game numbers needed to be deposited with four days of a particular game’s close-out date.
All of this means that Theis and Reed were the only employees who touched the pull-tab winnings, so they were the only ones who would deposit into the association’s bank account with the Stonebridge Bank in Shakopee.
Theis’s Deposits to Stonebridge Bank
Katherine Theis made certain deposits to the Stonebridge Bank, which Scott Reed later compared against his numbers. In a routine check of the bank deposits, Scott Reed found a significant discrepency in the deposit numbers from June 2016 to August 2016.
The total amount Reed found missing was $9,805 from the bank deposits. In addition, a certain amount of cash was missing from Turtle’s and the American Legion’s backup cash fund. This money was used to pay out winnings prior to new funds being built up. Turtle’s was missing $443, while the American Legion was missing $310, for a total of $753 missing from the backup funds. This amounted to a total of $10,558 which was missing.
Police Spoke to Bryan Turtles
Since Katherine Theis was the only person responsible for making bank deposits, the police immediately considered her a prime suspect. Still, they investigated the possibility that someone at one of the establishments might have stolen the cash-on-hand. Police talked with Bryan Turtles, the owner and manager of Turtle’s Bar & Grill.
He said that the cash was kept in a locked closet and no employees had access to the money. Only the Shakopee Hockey Association employees had access to that closet. No surveillance video existed of the closet.
Theis Admitted Guilt to Scott Reed
Presumably, Katherine Theis admitted to the theft when she was confronted by Scott Reed with the information on August 28, three days before he spoke to the Shakopee police. Theis said she had been expecting to be confronted with the missing cash, and claimed she took the money to help a friend, who is an addict. The police report did not state what kind of addiction the friend battled.
Katherine Ann Theis was arrested shortly after the police investigation began. Her first court appearance is set for February 24, 2017. If convicted, Theis would face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, along with a $20,000 fine.
