ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – On Monday, a Delta County woman pleaded no contest to a felony embezzlement charge.
Last May, Jim’s South Side Grocery owner Jim Berthiaume discovered that Jaime Lynn White, who had been employed at Jim’s for three years, was embezzling company funds.
“Jaime White was stealing deposits in the amount of $72,000,” Berthiaume told WZMQ 19. “Plus, I put $8,000 into the business from my savings when we bounced our first check. She was still stealing deposits after I’d done that.”
Having exhausted his savings, Berthiaume reported the situation to Escanaba Public Safety, which led to White’s arrest in August.
“Approximately 50 checks were located made out to Jim’s South Side in her residence,” Delta County Prosecutor Lauren Wickman said during White’s plea hearing on Monday. “She admitted to taking money from Jim’s South Side as an employee to pay rent, bills, and gambling.”
White pleaded no contest to one felony count of embezzlement of $20,000 or more but less than $50,000, punishable by up to ten years in prison and/or $15,000 or three times the amount embezzled.
Without money to carry him through the winter, Berthiaume says he was forced to sell Jim’s South Side after 15 years as the owner.
“I’ll remain on their payroll,” he said of the new owners. “Right now, we’re just redoing things. A lot of painting, a lot of remodeling. It’s going to be a bigger and better store.”
Berthiaume looks forward to the ordeal coming to an end following White’s sentencing.
“She definitely changed the course of my life,” he said. “Each time she would take a deposit, that was adding to my financial demise, so she sentenced me to life with that. We’ll see what the judge does.”
White is scheduled to appear in court again for sentencing in April.
