For the past few months, weve been noticing different things go missing like toilet paper, laundry detergent, cleaning products and food missing from my moms in-home business. Well, now we know who is doing it. An employee was seen by my husband (she thought no one was there) handing her boyfriend, who was waiting outside, bags filled with food from my moms house. Now... my mom buys hundreds of dollars of groceries at a time since she runs a daycare, so its not really noticiable if things are missing. Is there anything we can do about this since theres no proof?If we called the Police, could they do anything about it?As dumb as it may sound, can someone go to jail for stealing some ones groceries?!?!??!
      Answer1:You should set up surveillance cameras to get the proof and then call the police. She will be arrested and charged. Depending on her history she may or may not be placed in jail. Maybe a fine, restitution or community service, probation if not a previous criminal.
      Answer2:The key word is "steal" - of course they can go to jail if they took what belonged to someone else.Why not invest in a couple of inexpensive lipstick cameras that feed video to a recorder. Train them on the area where your husband saw the exchange taking place and one on where the supplies are kept. Once you have the employee on tape, you have evidence.The alternative is to take the employee aside, mention that they were seen doing what they did and that you will overlook the incident this time, but further disappearance of supplies/food will result in the employees dismissal.
      Answer3:You could install a camera to try to catch her. I would suggest just coming up with a reason to fire her, though, and get rid of her.
      Answer4:I agree with the others about installing a camera. Running a daycare, you should already have these things. What if a kid got injured? It would be nice to have some visual evidence of what happened. But, once you catch the woman you can give the evidence to the police and they will deal with it. Before that I would call the woman in and show her the video, then you can fire her and take what she stole out of her last paycheck. With that tape, its very unlikely that she will say anything about that. It is very unlikely that she would go to jail for stealing unless she stole a heck of a lot of stuff. Different states have different laws about what is a misdemeaner and how much theft is a felony. Most likely she would be arrested, given a low bond or released on her own signature (no bond) and she would plea guilty and get probation. Her punishment would be probation, community service, and of course, making restitution to your mother for the stolen property. Of course, if she stold like $3,000 worth of groceries this would be a serious felony, but even then she could get off with probation if she had the money up front to pay in restitution and had no prior charges on her record. Basically, I wouldnt get my hopes up about prison for this woman. There are bigger fish for the police to fry. Unless this was her 12th theft charge, shes just looking at probation and you should simply try to get the money back off of her. Of course, when you bring her in to show her the tape of her stealing, make sure to record her confession and ask her what exactly she took so that you have a good record to show the judge.