An Arkansas steakhouse employee was arrested Tuesday, months after a manager found he stole nearly $7,000 from the restaurant by tampering with his time sheet, authorities said.
According to a report from the Jonesboro Police Department, officers spoke in August to a manager at Colton's Steak House and Grill at 2309 Parker Road. The manager said the hours on 37-year-old meat cutter Matthew Wallace's time sheet didn't match up with the amount of steak he cut.
The manager reportedly explained that Wallace was only working eight to 10 hours a week because he was only scheduled for Mondays and Tuesdays and had a different full-time job.
But his time sheet, which appeared to have been edited, showed that he was working the whole week, with different hours each day, the report states.
Wallace had access to several managers' passwords that would have allowed him to edit his hours, the manager told officers.
None of the managers whose names Wallace had used to edit his timesheet remembered editing his hours, according to police. One manager whose name he used is based in a different city.
Another steakhouse employee said he noticed Wallace would come in Sundays and seem to be checking his hours for the week, which was not unusual.
Police noted that a total of 699 hours had been edited and that Wallace had made edits 177 times over the past 17 months.
With an hourly wage of $9.75, the restaurant's total loss was about $6,800 for the extra hours Wallace said he worked. He was arrested on a felony theft charge.
Wallace has since been released from the Craighead County jail on his own recognizance and is scheduled to appear in court Dec. 27, records show.
