{"id":1313604,"date":"2019-08-15T17:40:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T23:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=986074"},"modified":"2019-08-15T17:40:39","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T23:40:39","slug":"former-hy-way-feed-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-from-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/former-hy-way-feed-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-from-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Hy-Way Feed employee pleads guilty to stealing from store"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
An employee with Hy-Way Feed and Ranch Supply in SIlt, was recently charged with embezzling $20,000 from the business located on Highway 6.<\/strong>
Kyle Mills\/Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A woman charged with stealing money from her employer for nine months starting in 2018 pleaded guilty to felony theft, and paid nearly $50,000 in restitution.<\/p>\n

Dolores West-Burris, 21, appeared in court in Glenwood Springs Thursday, and was sentenced to one year probation after reimbursing money taken from Hy-Way Feed and Ranch Supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think this will require any significant penalty,\u201d Walter Brown, West-Burris\u2019 attorney said in court.<\/p>\n

West-Burris also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment, and spent one day in jail after turning herself in<\/a> on April 2. The deferred sentence on the felony theft charge could carry prison time if West-Burris fails to complete probation or violates the conditions.<\/p>\n

The total amount taken through small transactions and withdrawals amounts to nearly $50,000. That \u201ccan have significant business effects on commerce in this valley,\u201d 9th<\/sup> District deputy prosecutor Graham Jackson said.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, the owner of Hy-Way Feed would sometimes allow employees to withdraw money from the register and pay it back after they received a paycheck. West-Burris withdrew large sums, sometimes obscuring the payments as fake returns, the court documents alleged.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe needs to learn to earn her income honorably, and within the law,\u201d Jackson said. Prosecutors did not ask that West-Burris receive a jail sentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that jail time is necessary here. She\u2019s made restitution,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Jackson also said West-Burris\u2019 father, Levy Burris, an employee of the Garfield County Sheriff\u2019s Department, had been involved in resolving the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth Mr. Brown and her father, Mr. Burris, have been working hard on her behalf,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Brown added that the day spent in jail was significant to West-Burris and could impact her future career goals. Gathering the funds for restitution was also difficult, according to Brown. \u201cIt was a chore to get it together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

West-Burris declined to give a statement at the hearing.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, Hy-Way Feed owner John \u201cBrock\u201d Hedberg started looking into West-Burris\u2019 receipts after noticing Jan. 9 that the till drawer was $150 short after the end of the day.<\/p>\n

Hedberg told investigators that he didn\u2019t find the reason the drawer was short, but he did find a suspicious refund of $1,834 for a 1,700-gallon septic tank return. It was suspicious because Hy-Way didn\u2019t stock that item.<\/p>\n

As the investigation proceeded, Hedberg and law enforcement detected more evidence that West-Burris had embezzled from the store, and gave her a chance to repay before the charges were filed.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was working to pay this back before the charges, but that didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Jackson said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Hedberg told Garfield County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives in a statement that he still loved and respects West-Burris. \u201cI want what is best for her and her family,\u201d Hedberg wrote in a March 5 statement to investigators.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An employee with Hy-Way Feed and Ranch Supply in SIlt, was recently charged with embezzling $20,000 from the business located on Highway 6.Kyle Mills\/Post Independent A woman charged with stealing money from her employer for nine months starting in 2018 pleaded guilty to felony theft, and paid nearly $50,000 in restitution. Dolores West-Burris, 21, appeared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1313604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 06:50:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}