Employee accused of stealing $100K worth of lottery tickets from Westmoreland County pizza shop

SOUTH GREENSBURG, Pa. (KDKA) -- A woman is accused of stealing $100,000 worth of lottery tickets from the Westmoreland County pizza shop where she worked. 

Kimberly Morris was charged with theft and receiving stolen property after Westmoreland County detectives said she pocketed lottery tickets from the machine at Falbo's Pizzeria in South Greensburg. 

The owner of the pizza shop learned about discrepancies with their lottery machine in 2019, which authorities said Morris oversaw from 2018 to 2020, working a shift where she was unsupervised. 

The victim told detectives that their lottery machine had deficiencies in instant game tickets ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars a week. During a review of statements related to the pizza shop's lottery account, detectives said they learned the owner deposited more than $102,000 of her own funds into the account to make up for the loss. 

Morris told the detectives that because she was an administrator of the machine, she was able to play the instant games without paying for the tickets. 

She was arraigned and released on her own recognizance.