On Q Professional Investigations

COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. – Just a few days after Black Friday, police said a woman employed at Sam’s Club in Colonial Heights snatched a bag of money from the safe.

Store accountants noticed the missing deposit money, and launched an investigation into the missing $60,000.

“As they began their investigation and they realized one of their deposit bags was missing, they began to go through some surveillance tape from inside the store,” said Capt. William Anspach, with Colonial Heights Police.

Store cameras revealed that an employee removed the money from the safe and took it to the family restroom before an armored vehicle picked up the deposit.

Police said 30-year-old Erika Sue Apodaca then met up inside the store with 36-year-old Brian Steven Lindenfeld Jr.

“Ms. Apodaca removed the bag from the safe, took it into one of the family restrooms inside the store and failed to return it back to the area where the Armored Car Delivery Service would pick up the bag,” Anspach said.

“There was an exchange between the two and the male party and female party later met outside, outside in the parking lot,” Anspach said.

Both Apodaca and Lindenfeld were arrested Monday, without incident.

Apodaca is charged with felony embezzlement and conspiracy. Lindenfeld is charged with two felony counts of grand larceny and felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

The money has not been recovered.

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Pleasant Grove CA Dec 5 2017  Pleasant Grove police arrested a man and a woman after they reportedly attempted to pick up six orders from essential oils company doTerra totaling more than $13,142 from Nov. 24 to Friday.

The orders were reportedly made using credit card information that was hacked from a Nashville company named Z Health, according to police reports.

On Friday, a doTerra security employee called Pleasant Grove police to report that two people were at the Pleasant Grove company to pick up product that was suspected of being purchased with a stolen credit card number. The order was placed online and the pair didn’t have the credit card in their possession.

The employee reported the pair was in a white Ford pickup with a California license plate. After the pickup left the doTerra property, officers executed a traffic stop on it near 1300 West and 100 South. The vehicle reportedly changed lanes without signaling and had a recently expired registration.

During the traffic stop, the man reportedly said his license was suspended and he couldn’t provide any form of identification. He reportedly provided a name of Jose Martinez and an age that didn’t match his stated date of birth. The man said three times he was 25 years old and born in 1986, reports state. He later said he was born in 1991.

The woman, identified as Jessica Contreras, 30, of Rifle, Colorado, said the man’s name was Martinez and he was her boyfriend of two years.

The man was later identified as Armando Mendoza, 31, of Downey, California, reports state.

The doTerra security employee told police that the man had repeatedly picked up packages from the company, beginning with a $160.13 order on Nov. 24. On subsequent days, the man returned to pick up four additional packages averaging $3,245, purportedly on behalf of purchasers in Colorado and North Carolina, reports state. Police contacted a credit card investigator, who reported that the cardholders had reported the fraudulent activity and canceled their cards.

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A panel of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission unanimously backed a proposal (P 29) that would require all employers in Florida to use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Employment Authorization Program, known as E-Verify, to determine the eligibility of new employees.

Commissioner Rich Newsome, an attorney from Orlando who sponsored the proposal, said the measure has widespread support from the public. However, he said the issue has failed to garner legislative support in past years because powerful special interests tied to agriculture and construction make it “impossible” to advance.

“Everybody knows why it can’t pass the Legislature despite the fact that if you polled the Republican base of the folks that are in power, it’s off the chart,” Newsome said.

Adam Blalock, representing the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, told the commission’s General Provisions Committee that if E-Verify is put in place, the agriculture industry would suffer a short-term labor shortage that would result in lost and unharvested crops.

“There must be a replacement labor for agriculture before E-Verify is established,” Blalock said.

“The federal government this year is working on legislation to better the H-2A guest worker program to try to remove some of the problems that agriculture faces to allow a more legal work force to be in the United States,” Blalock continued. “But domestic supply of agriculture workers, it’s not there to replace those who would inevitably be not able to work if E-Verify was put into place. There is just not that population of people that is willing to do the hard work to get the food on your table. And that’s not a popular opinion, but it is reality.”

Newsome said he offered a carve-out for agriculture interests that use guest-worker visas, but a number of mid-sized farmers are concerned about covering housing, transportation and health-care costs.

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