Some context:
I’m young, and I have always helped out my parents in our small family business, but a few years ago, at the beginning of 2020, while my Pops and I were working the shop, we got robbed and gunned down, so we both ended up physically impaired, and since my mom was already managing another location that we had opened up, we had to rely on hiring someone external to handle the shop. My brother, who owns his own business, decided to pass on to us his own employee, telling us how he’s a trustworthy guy and all that, so we took his word for it.
Fast-forward to the beginning of 2023, after multiple surgeries my physical health and mobility are starting to improve, and I feel well enough to start keeping a closer eye on the family business, well right from the get go, the employee starts acting suspicious, acting all apprehensive and closed off, impeding my progress on checking up on the inventory and stuff like that, my folks and I didn’t think much of it at first since he’s always been kind of an eccentric person, but he’s just been a pain to work with all year, and my Mom and I had enough and installed more cameras with audio recording a few weeks ago without his knowledge, because ever since he arrived, some cameras go out of line from time to time, and boy o boy did we unravel a big pile of cr… well you know, turns out he vehemently despises us, there isn’t a single moment of the day he isn’t talking well let’s just put it, in a less than desirable way, seriously the foul mouth he has when referring to us would even make a Tarantino film blush.
But we thought, “Hey, at least he ain’t stealing from us”, but no, he is. At least a few times during the day he pockets money from the register, and other times he hides the money in the shop so he can take it out later, and what’s sending me over the hedge is that he is very buddy-buddy with a lot of low-profile criminals in the area, and in one instance while he was talking with one of them, the conversation went like this:
Man, your boss really became a dum… after getting shot, didn’t he?
Nah, he and his dad were already dum… before that, the bullets were to straighten them out.
So that got me and my mom thinking, the guy in the 7 years he worked for my brother always got robbed while in the shop like every other month, so we’re starting to think that all those robberies were planned by him, because it ain’t no damn coincidence that the guys that robbed me and my Pops had robbed him specifically a week before, and he got off without a scratch while we got gunned down.
Now you might be thinking, “Why didn’t we put the new cameras way earlier than just a few weeks ago?” Well, it’s because we trusted him and took my brother’s word for it, and we didn’t reach a boiling point until a few weeks ago, but now that we know who he really is, all of his previous attitudes and actions make sense now.
So what I’m asking you, fine folks, is, what actions can I take? Because it’s blatantly obvious that he was also robbing my brother in the 7 years he worked for him and in the 3 years he worked for us, unfortunately all of those recordings are pretty much lost since the security system recycles its storage after a couple of weeks, and we want to nail him good, jail time, and with no possibility of him suing or anything like that, we now have recordings of him pocketing the money from like 3 weeks now, but we fear that it might not be enough, or can a pattern of behavior be established with this?
I need advice, guys.
Holy cow man. First off, I’m truly sorry for what’s happened to you and your family.
Second, while we can give you our opinions and whatnot here, I think the only course of action for you is to QUICKLY go to the authorities and an attorney if you feel it necessary. This is more than just a theft situation, this is a dangerous situation. Don’t leave anything out when you talk to the police, as every detail can be important even when it may not seem so on the surface. If you can do it yesterday, do it.