Liquor store clerk owes $73K in stolen cash

A liquor store clerk accused of stealing more than $83,000 from her employer was handed a four-year sentence Tuesday.

Chanell Alaniz, 31, of Lafayette will spend three years in Tippecanoe County Community Corrections and another year on supervised probation, according to sentencing information from the county prosecutor's office.

She also was ordered to pay more than $73,000 in restitution, with monthly payments of $300 set to begin Jan. 1.

Alaniz, who worked six evenings per week, was videotaped scanning items she hadn’t purchased, performing a refund and pocketing the cash, only to place the items back on store shelves, court documents state.

She also allegedly voided and canceled real transactions, collecting cash from customers without creating any record of the sale.

The store manager and owner told police they caught on to the scheme in November 2013, when they conducted an inventory review and noticed Alaniz had an abnormally high rate of returns for a liquor store, court documents state.