Former Mo's Pub Employee Charged with Embezzling

A 28-year-old Greenfield man has been charged with embezzling funds from his employer by using the business' computer system to create fraudulent gift cards, according to a criminal complaint. 

Adam C. Podkomerski was charged April 1 in Milwaukee County Circuit Court with three counts of theft by embezzlement of less than $2,500, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months in jail.

It appears from the evidence in the complaint that Podkomerski had kept up a ruse for more than six months by creating phony gift cards from time to time but not using them for large withdrawals at any one time, making the transactions less noticeable.

He slipped up, according to his bosses, the police and prosecutors, when he put money on a phony card and then accidentally gave it to someone very likely to notice it wasn't her own.

A very regular customer complains

According to court records:

Podkomerski was employed at Mo's Irish Pub, 10842 Blue Mound Rd., when, on Feb. 9, the tavern's general manager got a call from a business partner about her card.

The manager told police the cardholder was a local radio personality who was paid $455 a month onto her gift card in exchange for advertising.

The woman called to mention that her card account had not been refilled for February. The manager checked with Mo's accounting and was told that indeed, money had been transferred to the broadcaster's unique account under the correct serial number.

The next step was to discover why the woman's account didn't show the transfer of funds. And the answer was, the card she was now carrying was not her own.

So, who's was it? The answer to that turned out to be — nobody's. The card she held was not properly registered. It appeared to be a fraud.

An internal investigation showed that on Jan. 10, Podkomerksi had been the radio announcer's server, and she had paid for a meal with her gift card. Before she called to ask about her account in February, the card had been used six more times, but clearly not by her.

Podkomerksi was investigated further and, when confronted about the suspicious discrepancies, admitted he had created a number of phony cards on at least three occasions.

The night he served the advertising client and she gave him her card on her bill, he had accidentally given her back a card he had fraudulently created in the same amount the same day.

Skipping a step in the process

Podkomerksi could get away with it, the complaint said, by skipping one step in the restaurant's computer process. Mo's uses two sets of software for sales and accounting purposes, and a card account created in one is supposed to be registered in the other.

A manager's card was provided to give subordinate employees access to both accounts. But a card created in the first system can be used without an authorization from the second.

Podkomerksi would create the cards, the complaint said, and then use them to pay customers' tabs, pocketing their cash.

According to the complaint, Podkomerksi began creating phony gift cards in August and September, in values from $100 to $500. Then he began to make small redemptions against customers' bills with increasing frequency and in growing amounts.

Some redemptions were less than $10, others in the $65 to $75 range. Sometimes there were several phony redemptions made on the same shift, totaling well over $100.

Wauwatosa police detectives confirmed everything Mo's managers and accountants had uncovered, and Podkomerksi was arrested.

Also noted in the complaint: His employment was abruptly terminated.