Store clerk charged with cashing customer's lottery ticket

Friday, December 28, 2012

Kathleen McClusky (Image courtesy Clayton Police Department)

Tags:

johnston county, local/state

CLAYTON, N.C. (WTVD) -- A 19-year-old convenience store clerk was arrested two days after Christmas when Clayton police determined she cashed a customer's winning lottery ticket and pocketed the money for herself.

Kathleen McClusky, of Clayton, was arrested Thursday and charged with felony of obtaining property by false pretense.

On Sunday around 4 p.m., 45-year-old Luis Flores-Bautista of Clayton called police to the Kangaroo Service Station at 10081 US Hwy. 70 Business West.

Flores-Bautista told police that he bought three lottery scratch-off tickets earlier in the day from the store. He said he scratched them off in the parking lot and two of the tickets were winning tickets -- one for $17 and the other for $50.

Flores-Bautista said that when he went back in the store to redeem his winnings, the clerk gave him the $17, but told him the $50 ticket was not a winner and tossed it into the trash can. He then left the store.

After speaking with a friend, Flores-Bautista walked back in the store demanded the ticket back. He told officers he then took the ticket to another store where that store informed him that the ticket had already cashed out and was no longer valid. That's when Flores-Bautista returned to the Kangaroo and called the police.

After an investigation, authorities were able to determine the clerk had cashed the $50 winning ticket and pocketed the cash for her own personal gain after Flores-Bautista left the store.

At last check, McCluskey was in the Johnston County Jail under a $15,000 secured bond.