Woman found guilty of theft from El Norteño

Abbotsford woman found to have stolen between $10k - $100k

An Abbotsford woman has been found guilty of a class G Felony for theft in a business setting of between $10,000 and $100,000.

Mariah D. Stanley, 31, was charged with the crime in April and pled guilty to the theft charge on July 5 at the Clark County Courthouse after Abbyland Foods and El Norteño officials filed a complaint on February 16 of this year. Another Felony charge of Identity Theft was dismissed but read in according to court reports.

Stanley will be sentenced at 9 a.m. on September 13 at the Clark County Courthouse in Neillsville. She will be facing up to 10 years in prison and/or $25,000 in fines. According to the criminal complaint, which was filed on April 17, 2023, Stanley, who had been living in Wisconsin for two years, failed to deposit anywhere between $10,000 to $100,000 in El Norteño funds between August 2022 and January 2023 while working as the manager of the restaurant. Investigators with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office noted that Stanley had a felony warrant from Arizona for theft-related charges and failing to appear in court from 2021.

On February 7, 2023, a Clark County Sheriff’s officer took a complaint from the overseer of Abbyland plants who said he had recently fired Stanley from her managerial position after discovering they were missing a large amount of money from the business. The executive stated that Stanley was in charge of the restaurant, events and other managerial duties including bank deposits.

The executive stated he had fired Stanley and her boyfriend, who worked as a bartender at the restaurant, on February 7 after they were caught on camera going into the restaurant after hours and going behind the bar. The video caught them taking beer and drinking it along with taking shots.

The executive told the officer that there were a number of violations including not ringing up all drinks that were ordered at the bar and placing the money given for the drinks on the side. Stanley would also tip all workers $300 some nights for doing a good job, along with herself, according to the complaint.

In March, the executive gave the detective paperwork which showed that $38,896.44 was missing from El Norteño restaurant sales and an estimated $66,711 from a paycheck cashing program that Abbyland Foods offers to its pork plant employees.

In the complaint, the executive said that once a week, Stanley had gone to the bank to get approximately $100,000 to $120,000 in cash and took it back to El Norteño. The large amount of money was used when workers would sign their checks over to the restaurant and the checks were then scanned over to the bank. The executive said any money left over from this process should have been taken back to the bank.

The executive said the money taken from the bank, the checks that were cashed and the cash returned to the bank did not match company records.

The detective double checked the accounting made by the company and noted that Stanley had filled out the paperwork for the deposits but several deposits were not made at the bank.

After speaking with other employees that shared their stories of Stanley’s business practices while working at El Norteño, Clark County detective Jared Beauchamp attempted to make contact with Stanley multiple times over the course of three weeks with no success.

On March 15, Stanley was pulled over by a Colby-Abbotsford Police Department officer for driving without a valid driver’s license and Beauchamp responded to the traffic stop. Stanley agreed to meet with him and the duo spoke at the CAPD.

Initially, Stanley denied knowing what had occurred to cause the discrepancies in the deposits for El Norteño. During the interview, Stanley stated on several occasions the reason for the missing money was the costs of promoters and entertainment for events that El Norteño hosted.

She said she never took money from the restaurant except for one time when she paid the company back right away. She said she had tip money and that is what would pay for her trips to sporting events or other trips out of state.

She told the investigator that all communication with the promoters was conducted on her cell phone through text messages where they discussed costs and payments associated with events. No written contracts or agreements were made with promoters.

The day after the interview, the detective was notified that El Norteño had been advertising that tickets for events could be purchased by sending money to the restaurant’s Cash App account. The human resource director at Abbyland Foods said nobody in the company had permission to create such an account for El Norteño. The Cash App account showed that money had been withdrawn and sent to Stanley’s personal financial cash application account.

On April 14, 2023, Beauchamp received a note from Stanley through the Clark County jail staff who said she wanted to speak with the detective. According to the complaint, Stanley was open and honest with the detectives, stating she thought about $170,000 was missing in total. Stanley said that when she went shopping for supplies for the restaurant at places such as Sam’s Club, she would not only buy things for the restaurant, but she would also buy personal items for herself with the money from the restaurant and after shopping, she would keep whatever money was left over which she said wasn’t a large amount of money.

She went on to explain that she currently has a drug habit of using methamphetamine. Stanley said her drug habit had cost her about $4,000 - $5,000 over the past year.

She also admitted to creating the Cash App for El Norteño and admitted to creating the app with no permission from anyone at Abbyland Foods.

Stanley went on to explain that the bulk of the missing money had been sent to her friends who had major gambling and drug addictions. The friends lived in Mount Pocono, Pa. and Stanley. She said she sent each set of friends an estimated $40,000 - $50,000 over the past year according to the court documents. She said she borrowed the money to her friends with the intention of them paying her back so she could pay back El Norteño.

She also said a lot of money was used to pay promoters and entertainment at the business. She said she was never trained or taught what the right way to pay and work with promoters was or how she was supposed to obtain entertainment. She said she was just told what they wanted and Stanley was tasked with learning and figuring out how to get it done on her own.

Stanley admitted she would take money from the cash sales for herself and said that at any given event, she would take approximately $1,000 for herself after an event. She said she didn’t have an exact amount due to her not documenting what she took.

She was later arrested and a complaint was filed with the Clark County court on April 17.