ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — An Orange County woman is accused of stealing donations from Goodwill and then reselling them to make a profit, deputies said.
Maria John, 54, worked at the Goodwill Donation Xpress in Avalon Park.
Deputies said other Goodwill managers suspected John has been stealing, so they set up an undercover sting. The managers sent in someone to donate items.
The managers said that at the end of John’s shift, she walked out the store with $400 worth of donations. The bags contained unwanted clothes and household items, deputies said.
"Why were you taking the stuff in the first place?" asked Channel 9's Jeff Deal.
“It was just stuff they were throwing in the garbage,” John said.
John admitted that what she did wasn’t right, but claimed she is not the first employee to walk out the doors with donations. She said the sting was retaliation for filing an EEOC complaint against the Avalon Park Goodwill.
"They know what they are doing. As soon as something happens that they don't like, they hold it against you. They know everybody takes stuff out of there,” John said.
Deputies said John admitted to them that she sold some of the stolen goods online and gave some to her grandchildren.
Goodwill released a statement Monday evening: “Goodwill takes stewardship of donated items very seriously, and we do not tolerate theft under any circumstances because every dollar we lose to theft takes away from our mission to help people in the community.
When it comes to throwing away peoples generous donations we have a very strict policy we only throw away broken or unusable items and even then we make every effort to recycle everything we can. Additionally, the items this former employee took were absolutely not headed for the trash. We took swift action to terminate this employee and we are cooperating fully with the police as they investigate this matter.”
Cox Media Group
