By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — A 22-year-old Menomonie woman who was a waitress at Jake’s Supper Club and was found guilty of credit card fraud to increase the amount of her tips has been ordered to pay $675 in restitution in two separate cases.
Kaylee L. Sutliff, along with her attorney, Samantha Richie, appeared in Dunn County Circuit Court before Judge James Peterson for a restitution hearing June 11.
Sutliff was charged with four misdemeanor counts of theft by false representation of less than $2,500 and one misdemeanor count of bail jumping.
At a plea hearing in February, Sutliff was found guilty of one count of misdemeanor theft by false representation. Sentence was withheld, and Sutliff was placed on one year of probation and ordered to complete 40 hours of community service by November 15, 2019.
The remaining three counts of theft by false representation and one count of misdemeanor bail jumping were dismissed but read into the record for restitution.
In a separate case, Sutliff was charged in November with one misdemeanor count of retail theft in Dunn County.
The misdemeanor count of retail theft also was dismissed but read into the record for restitution.
Sutliff will be eligible to have the charges expunged from her record if she successfully completes probation and pays the court costs and restitution.
In the Jake’s Supper Club case, Sutliff was ordered to pay $481.52 in restitution, and in the retail theft case, Sutliff was ordered to pay $193.75 in restitution.
Sutliff must start paying restitution by July 1.
According to the criminal complaint, a deputy with the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department was dispatched to Jake’s Supper Club on County Highway D in the Town of Tainter on December 21 where he was informed a waitress was suspected of committing credit card fraud.
Peter Gruetzmacher, the owner of Jake’s Supper Club, said he had received a call from a man on December 10 who said he had been overcharged on his credit card. Gruetzmacher located the credit card slip and forwarded a copy of it to the man, who informed Gruetzmacher the writing on the slip was not his, and the credit card slip had been forged.
Gruetzmacher told the deputy he had contacted the waitress, Kaylee Sutliff, and forwarded a copy of the credit card slip to her by text message. Sutliff said she had wrote in the amount of the tip on the slip but denied adjusting the total on the credit card charge, according to the complaint.
Gruetzmacher said Sutliff had worked at Jake’s for a few months, and he had no reason not to believe her. Customers forgetting to fill out credit card slips or filling them out incorrectly is common, and Gruetzmacher said he gave Sutliff the benefit of the doubt, according to the complaint.
Gruetzmacher told the deputy he had learned on December 20 that Sutliff had recently been arrested for retail theft, so he contacted his bookkeeper and asked her to start looking through Sutliff’s credit slips for possible changes to the tip and total amounts.
The bookkeeper located several credit slips that been tampered with, Gruetzmacher said, according to the complaint.
