Grand theft charge dropped

A former employee of a local McDonald’s fast food restaurant says she plans to pursue litigation seeking lost wages and other compensation for damages she feels she suffered because of a grand theft charge that was filed against her in early 2010. The charge was subsequently dropped, the state filing its intention to do so in paperwork dated September 2010.

But, informing the Floridan this Wednesday that the charge had been dropped that year, Ashley Chante Brown-Barkley says she had by then suffered significant personal and professional damage because of the incident and that the fallout continues.

Authorities leveled the grand theft charge in January 2010, based on allegations dating to 2009, when Barkley’s last name was still Brown.

The office of State Attorney Shad Redmon filed the charging document, which was based in part on an investigation by the Marianna Police Department which began when store manager Janet Padgett reported a missing deposit.

The charging document essentially accused Brown of stealing a $2,073 McDonald’s deposit she was to have made at Wachovia Bank’s night depository in July 2009.

Brown denies taking the money, but says she was forced to resign about four weeks into the investigation and that no one would listen to her side of the story.

Eventually, however, the state filed its intention to dismiss the charge. In that document, the state acknowledges that there is a video record of Brown-Barkley at the after-hours deposit area and that the bank had acknowledged that it did have problems during that time with deposits getting stuck. “Based on all of the above, the state would not be able to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Redmon’s document read.

Brown said she did nothing wrong, but that her life has been turned upside down by the allegation. Other than two temporary jobs, she said she hasn’t been able to get steady work since the incident and she believes it is because of that circumstance.

She also says she hasn’t been able to obtain the original food-handling and other certification records she needs from McDonald’s, documents she said she needed to get a managerial position that had been offered by another fast food restaurant chain on the condition that she could produce those records.

“I was just wrongly accused and never got an apology from anyone,” Brown-Barkley said. “I felt I shouldn’t have lost my job for something they didn’t thoroughly investigate and listen to my side of,” she said. “I really want a job, period. It’s been two years, and I can’t get one because of what happened.”

She also said she feels she was treated differently and forced to resign much sooner in her investigation than another McDonald’s employee at a different location in Jackson County. April Denise Williams was recently charged with grand theft because of two missing bank deposits she was to have made at a bank depository for McDonald’s.

Brown-Barkley said she plans to pursue a case seeking lost wages and compensation for discrimination and defamation of character.