LA GRANDE — A former employee at a La Grande business is charged with theft and computer crime after allegedly trying to claim a $25,000 Oregon Lottery prize during a sting operation by Oregon State Police.

A press release from the Oregon Lottery didn’t name the suspect.

Both Lottery and OSP officials declined to name the suspect. OSP Capt. Kyle Kennedy referred questions to the Marion County district attorney’s office.

The employee worked at the Short Stop, 1709 Gekeler Lane, according to the press release.

Fred Bell, who owns the Short Stop, said in a phone interview Friday morning, Oct. 25, that the employee was fired immediately once Bell learned about the incident.

“We were blindsided,” Bell said. “We thought we had a good employee. That’s not what we’re about.”

The business has been a lottery retailer since 2005 and has no history of compliance issues, the press release states.

“While it is rare to see an individual be dishonest at one of our retailers, we have a responsibility to ensure our games are played with fairness and integrity,” said Justin Hedlund, Oregon Lottery’s assistant director of security. “These checks are one way we accomplish that.”

During the operations, known as Retail Integrity Checks, an OSP detective presents a purported winning lottery ticket to a store employee.

In the Short Stop case, the detective brought the ticket to the store on Sept. 19. The employee who scanned the ticket, which was supposed to be a $25,000 winner, told the detective it was not a winner and kept the ticket.

OSP then put the ticket on hold.

On Sept. 26, the clerk mailed the ticket to lottery headquarters in Salem to try to redeem the $25,000 prize, according to the press release.

OSP detectives later interviewed the clerk and issued a citation for aggravated first-degree theft and computer crime. OSP is also recommending additional charges, in Marion County, where the lottery headquarters are located, of theft by deception and first-degree forgery.

Undercover checks are done routinely by OSP at Oregon Lottery retailers throughout the year, with more than 170 being conducted since 2020. The La Grande incident was just the second since 2020 in which an employee was charged, said Melanie Mesaros, a spokesperson with the Oregon Lottery.

Oregon’s online court system doesn’t list any cases with aggravated theft or computer crime charges in Marion or Union counties since Sept. 26.

Short Stop also released a statement about the incident on Oct. 25:

“After today’s recent news being released, we wanted to release a statement regarding our position in this matter with Oregon Lottery. At Short Stop Xtreme we provide our customers the highest level of transparency and pride ourselves on being a family-owned & operated business for over 35 years. Upon being notified by a lottery official that an employee of ours had failed an Oregon Lottery Integrity Check (Sting Operation), we worked hand in hand with OSP & Oregon Lottery to ensure this employee was properly charged for their actions. Upon the closure of this cooperative effort, the employee was immediately terminated, and other staff were notified of the actions he committed. Upon further investigation, we discovered this employee was performing actions of theft against us as well. With being a trustworthy lottery retailer for almost 20 years, we were astonished that anybody would perform such an act.

“As a business, we felt especially betrayed that someone would perform such an act while representing us and our values. Oregon Lottery does provide different avenues for checking your tickets such as front-facing customer scanners, and a mobile app. However, we feel you should never have to deal with this kind of an issue when playing Oregon Lottery, and will continue to provide the utmost level of honesty and integrity that all our customers deserve. We deeply apologize for allowing this individual to taint our integrity as well as your perception of us as a business. For those who know us, understand that we go above and beyond everyday to be the best local business for our customers.”