Hefner

ELKINS — An employee has been arrested and charged with embezzling funds from a local supermarket.

Tammy Michelle Hefner, 38, is charged with one count of felony embezzlement and 22 counts of fraud with access device.

She is being held in the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $2,862 cash-only bond set by Randolph County Magistrate Ben Shepler.

According to the criminal complaint, prepared by Cpl. D.R. Wolford Jr. of the Elkins Detachment of the West Virginia State Police, on June 27, Wolford was contacted by Lt. C.G. Boatwright of the Elkins Police Department in regard to a complaint at the Kroger supermarket on 11th Street.

The store’s asset protection specialist told police that Hefner, a store employee, had, between the dates of May 9 and June 27, conducted 22 cashier transactions “placing cash onto two accounts associated with Green Dot Bank totaling $2,862, the complaint states.

Hefner allegedly “completed these transactions when no customer was present at the register and would utilize her phone to scan at the point-of-sale scanner,” according to the complaint. Hefner allegedly added cash to a Green Dot bank card using the PayNearMe application.

Wolford writes that the money embezzled was added to two separate Green Dot card numbers, the complaint states.

The store reportedly supplied officers with both “receipts for all 22 transactions and video surveillance of the same,” according to the complaint.