A former wholesale employee who was caught stealing three bags of frozen chicken nuggets from her workplace is to be sentenced on May 25.

Davia Skeen, 18, of Bray Street in Kingston who was employed as a store clerk at a wholesale in downtown Kingston, pleaded guilty to simple larceny when she appeared in court last Thursday before Parish Judge Vaughn Smith.

However, her bail was extended for her to return for sentencing and a social enquiry report requested.

The court heard that Skeen was caught leaving the store with three bags of nuggets weighing 10 pounds each and valued a total of $6000.

Skeen, after admitting guilt, said in her defence, “Someone gave it to me and told me that when I reach outside they will talk to me, but I never got outside.”

However, a representative from the wholesale who attended court hinted that he was not totally satisfied as he pointed out that that her actions amounted to more than $6000 in losses for the company.

“Two weeks before we caught her we notice that we were losing 10-15 cases of nuggets, and we had no idea how it was happening until we caught her,” he said.

However, he said he later found that about 10 of them were involved in a plot where they stole chicken nuggets, burger bread, baloney, french fries and other items daily from the company.

According to him, the company lost $150,000 over a two-week period.

The representative, in explaining how the workers stole the items, said they would purchase a pound or two of the items and then their friends would take additional pounds of the item to stash inside their changing room. Then in the evening when they were leaving, they would show the receipt for whatever they had purchased.

He said that Skeen had purchased one pound of nuggets on the day she was caught. However, he said the reason why she was caught was that the security officer, who would often not search the workers’ bags because of the evening rush, was told to do a thorough search of each person’s bags.

The company representative was then asked by Judge Smith if he would be pursuing the case against the others and he said that some have left the job and the police had told him that he would have to catch them in the act for them to be arrested.