Jeffrey Wells
Berkley police give rough details of how a young restaurant manager pulled off an extraordinary felony -- draining more than $100,000 of his employer's revenue for 30 months.
Jeffrey Wells of Ferndale, now 29, didn't draw any attention at Vinsetta Garage from May 2013 until three months ago.
The methodical embezzlement, which Wells admitted when arrested in November and Monday in county court, involved fake invoices to generate checks he diverted to himself. Mike Martindale of The Detroit News spells it out:
Detective Sgt. Andrew Hadfield said the restaurant’s bookkeepers became suspicious of mounting invoices Wells submitted for reimbursement for various expenses, including shipments of liquor.
“He was falsifying documents beginning in May 2013, first for a few hundred dollars, and by October 2015 this had escalated to one for about $14,000,” Hadfield said.
Wells was arrested on Nov. 17. When confronted, Wells admitted the theft, explaining the money went towards expensive “lifestyle” choices, including trips to Europe.
The massive embezzlement was discovered while Wells took time off, restaurant co-owner Curt Catallo tells Martindale:
“We found some account anomalies, and with help of Berkley police, it didn’t take long to put it together,” said Catallo. . . .
Catallo said . . . operating practices have been reviewed.
Catallo and his wife, Ann Stevenson, also own the Clarkston Union, Union Woodshop and Fenton Fire Hall restaurants.
Deadline reader Michael Jaskolski of Clinton Township, past owner of Subway sandwich franchises, comments about this article at our Facebook page:
I owned two restaurants. No way would more than two weeks of embezzlement happen. Trust no one.
Food cost high? Drink cost high? Total receipts vs. bank deposits? That was hands-off ownership .
-- Alan Stamm
Original article, Monday afternoon:
The popular Vinsetta Garage on Woodward Avenue in Berkley had a six-figure problem.
The manager -- now the former manager -- was stealing. A lot.
Jeffrey Wells pleaded guilty in Oakland County Circuit Court to embezzling more than $100,000 from the restaurant between 2013 and 2015 by falsifying invoices, WDIV reports.
The Ferndale man, 29, was arrested in December and pleaded guilty last week. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 30 and could get up to 20 years in prison.
“My client has admitted making some serious mistakes, regrets them and wants to make it right,” said attorney Eric Wilson, according to a report in the Detroit News. “He got caught up in a fast lifestyle and in drug use ... He plans to make a down payment on full restitution at his sentencing next month and wants to pay it all back.”
The restaurant became an instant hit. On some nights it's not unusual to wait two hours for a table.