Brewery bartender faces embezzlement charge

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  • Neches Brewing Company
    Neches Brewing Company
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A trial began March 8 accusing one of Neches Brewing Company’s first employees of using her managing position to steal approximately $14,000 for herself and coworkers.

Chelsea Fountain, 29, one of Neches Brewing Company’s first hires and a current teacher within the Beaumont Independent School District, entered a plea of not guilty Tuesday morning before jurors and 252nd District Court Judge Raquel West. She’s charged with felony theft for allegedly altering time sheets between 2018 and 2020 to give herself and coworkers thousands of dollars the owner says they didn’t earn.

According to a probable cause affidavit penned by Port Neches Police Department Officer Scott Thompson, brewery owner Tyler Blount reported Feb. 24, 2020, that his marketing manager, Fountain, stole $14,289.71 from the business by various means.

As the only witness called by the prosecution the first morning of testimony, Blount told the court Fountain was one of his first hires after opening his business in 2016. After two years watching her bartend, Blount promoted her to marketing manager, a role that gave her administrative access to the business’ payroll data. From this position of power, the charging document alleges, Fountain adjusted her own hours enough to make $10,511.27 in ill-gotten gains.

This mendacious manager didn’t stop at lying to line her own coffers, according to the affidavit, she also adjusted coworkers’ timesheets to reflect more hours than they actually worked, resulting in $3,778.44 worth of fabricated hours.

“Blount called the company that owns the operating system for clock in/out, who informed him that the amount of times in which the hours (were) adjusted exceeded the normal a mount for any company,” Officer Thompson wrote in the affidavit. “This made them believe something was wrong.”

Fountain would claim to work on holidays that Blount contests, he told the court. The calendar would say she was out when payroll said she was working, Blount alleged. She claimed to work on her birthday after asking for time off; she purportedly worked an eight-hour shift the day Imelda flooded the brewery, as well as on holidays when they weren’t open for eight hours.

“If she clocked in at like, let’s say, 9:02 in the morning, clocked out at 3:13 in the afternoon,” Blount testified, “about seven days later, or right before the next pay period, she would go in and modify her hours. A lot of times she would just do 9 (a.m.) to 5 (p.m.).

“We opened up from 5 to 10 (p.m.) on Christmas Day, and we normally just have one bartender. And I looked on Christmas Day, and it showed that she had modified her time from 9 (a.m.) to 5 (p.m.).”

Blount went on to tell the court Fountain managed “two to three” events for the brewery, organizing requisite vendors for the occasion. However, three witnesses called by the defense claimed Fountain managed and worked several events, as many as 15 by one vendor’s account.

Also called to the stand was another former Neches Brewing Company bartender, who took over Fountain’s managing role in 2019. The woman told the court she was accused by Blount of overpaying herself, as well. Before she quit a couple weeks ago, the woman said Blount blamed her for paying herself at a higher hourly wage than was agreed.

Fountain took to the stand on the second day of her trial, telling the jury she never paid herself for time she didn’t work, as Blount alleges. The third grade elementary school teacher said she did “everything except brewing beer” for Blount’s company.

“I wasn’t very good at logging in timely,” Fountain said, but, “I have never stolen from Tyler Blount.”

She admittedly forgot to clock in the day she was fired, so she went to modify her time, but her time modifications were already pulled up.

“He approached me very calmly and tells me to come to the computer because he says he thinks he can find a way to save money,” she said before Blount accused her of time theft. “He told me I embezzled money from him and that he talked to his police chief uncle and that I was going to go to jail.”

Wednesday afternoon, the court recessed just before closing arguments. For updates on the trial, visit theexaminer.com.