PALM COAST, Fla. (WFLA) — A second Popeyes employee has been arrested after authorities said they learned she was helping her coworker defraud customers at the fast-food chain’s Palm Coast location.
Shaunta Johnson, 42, of Palm Coast, was arrested by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday, Oct. 15 following a seven-month fraud investigation.
According to detectives, Johnson and her coworker and close friend, Chaniqua Richberg, 49, of Palm Coast, were fraudulently charging customer credit cards while working the Popeyes drive thru.
Richberg was arrested in April on multiple charges related to the case. However, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said it was Johnson who was the “mastermind” behind the crime.
“Thanks to the cooperation of the new owners of Popeyes, we were able to put the missing pieces together and arrest the mastermind in this case,” Staly said.
Johnson is believed to have orchestrated the scheme to make commissary payments to her boyfriend, an inmate at Apalachee Correctional Institution in Sneads, according to the sheriff’s office.
“While they won’t be joining ‘friends’ who are already locked up in a prison cell, they are on a fast track to sleeping in a prison cell,” the sheriff said of the two Popeyes employees.
Johnson was arrested on multiple felony charges, including organized scheme to defraud, three counts of fraudulent use of a credit card, three counts of unlawful use of a two-way communication device, and three counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information.
She was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where she is being held without bond. Authorities said Johnson has a lengthy criminal history, including previous arrests for fraud, larceny and selling drugs.
Richberg, who was previously convicted of fraud in an unrelated Pennsylvania case, is currently out of jail on bond, according to the sheriff’s office.
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