Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Shannon Jennifer Moccia, 44, was arrested yesterday and charged with grand theft and 127 other felonies after allegedly embezzling almost $68,000 while she was employed as manager of two Haile Village restaurants.

The owner of Haile Village Bistro and the Queen’s Arm Pub contacted Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ASO) last July to report that he believed Moccia, the general manager of both restaurants, was stealing from him. He said the agreement between him and Moccia was that Moccia and her husband would run the businesses and pay their expenses, paying the owner a percentage of the profits and splitting the remaining profits. Moccia was reportedly fired six days before the owner contacted ASO.

The owner reported that the business bank account was linked to his personal account for overdraft protection, and after traveling overseas for several months in 2022, he noticed that about $40,000 had been transfered from his personal account to the business account, indicating that the business had lost that much money over that period. He told the investigator that over $150,000 was transferred out of his personal account to cover overdrafts in the business account between September 2022 and August 2023.

The owner told the investigator that he knows many of the regular customers, and when he spoke to them, he learned that many of his regular customers had stopped patronizing the business after Moccia was hired as general manager.

The owner told the investigator that he investigated the financial records of the business and learned that Moccia had been using the business’s credit card to purchase personal items and had also written 64 checks to herself. He said that when he confronted Moccia about this, she said the money was all used to operate the business, but she reportedly had no records or receipts to prove that.

The personal items purchased on the business’s credit card totaled about $2,600, and the checks written to Moccia totaled about $29,000.

The owner told the investigator that Moccia was authorized to withdraw cash from the bank account to replace cash in the register and pay tips to the servers, but the amounts of cash were calculated to be about $36,000 more than was needed.

Post Miranda, Moccia reportedly admitted that she had purchased items on the business’s credit card, had written checks to herself, and had withdrawn cash from the business, but she said she was authorized to do those things by the owner; she said she did not understsand how she could have done anything wrong because she had “permission” to use the business’s funds as her own. She reportedly said that she “blended” her personal finances with the business’s finances and that she wrote checks to herself as reimbursement for items she purchased for the business; however, she said she had no receipts to prove that.

Moccia reportedly said she reimbursed the business for any funds she used for personal expenses, but the investigator wrote that the bank statements show that that is “no discernible record” of money moving from her personal account back to the business account.

When the investigator asked Moccia why the amounts she paid out for tips were increasing during a period when the restaurants were failing to the point that one restaurant closed, she reportedly could not answer. She also reportedly changed her statement to say she had kept receipts, but they were in the safe at the business.

The investigator concluded that Moccia stole almost $68,000 from the business.

Moccia has been charged with grand theft over $20,000, fraudulently obtaining property over $50,000, fraudulent use of a credit card, 64 counts of writing fraudulent checks, and 61 counts of using a two-way communications device to commit a felony for using a mobile applicaton to deposit 61 of the checks.

Moccia has no criminal history; Judge Thomas Jaworski set bail at $100 per count, for a total of $12,800.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.