Sheetz Worker Printed $17K in Free Lottery Tickets to Pay Bills, Cops Say

A worker at a Sheetz convenience store in Ohio has been accused of printing $17,000 in unauthorized lottery tickets and using the winnings to pay his bills.

Joshua Melvin Hartley, 32, of Cleveland, was arrested on Nov. 5 at the Sheetz on Cochran Road in Solon, a suburb southeast of Cleveland. He faces a fourth-degree felony theft charge.

Hartley had apparently figured out how to use a lottery terminal function that Sheetz staff did not regularly use, enabling him to print Keno tickets without paying for around two months. It is unclear how he learned to do this or whether he had to bypass any security measures.

“Either he worked somewhere different and learned, or he was just savvy enough to figure it out on his own,” Solon police spokesman Lt. Bill Vajdich told Cleveland’s FOX 8.

Audit Trail

The scheme was uncovered when a Sheetz loss prevention supervisor noticed unusual losses in the store’s Keno transactions.

Working with the Ohio Lottery Commission, the company audited its system and found approximately $17,000 in suspicious ticket activity. Some individual wagers stood out, according to Vajdich.

“Some of them were pretty big, like somebody is really paying $500 for one Keno game!” he said.

Store managers compiled a list of the dates and times the tickets were printed. Police say Hartley was working at the store at all of those times.

Caught on Camera

Footage from the store’s surveillance system recorded Hartley using the store’s lottery kiosk to print dozens of Keno tickets without paying.

When questioned by police, Hartley admitted that he had accessed the machine multiple times, investigators said.

Police seized nearly $2,000 from Hartley during the arrest. They said they will look to have the money returned to Sheetz by way of a court-ordered forfeiture.

The $17,000 refers to the value of the tickets Hartley was accused of printing without authorization, rather than the amount of winnings he collected.

Vajdich told FOX 8 that lottery transactions are audited, so committing the same offense multiple times is difficult to get away with.

Hartley was taken to Solon Jail following his arrest.