OCALA, Fla. --
Major stores usually have at least one employee whose full-time job is to make sure customers are not stealing. However, Ocala police said Wednesday that a Walmart employee used his inside knowledge to steal from the store.
Police talked to the man for help on several other cases of theft inside the store, but they said he may have been the biggest thief of them all.
Officers said William Scott Lashinski is a loss prevention officer at the Walmart on SW 19th Avenue in Ocala
Police said he and two friends cleared the store out over the last few months of more than $18,000 in electronics.
"He's supposed to be protecting their merchandise and here he is probably stealing more than they lose in six months," said Sgt. Chas Maier of the Ocala Police Department.
Detectives said Lashinski turned the cameras around so they couldn't see what was happening in the stock room. They also said he loaded up TVs and computers, and wheeled them outside so his two friends, James Butler and Thomas Smith, could put the electronics in a cart and take it out the front door.
But Lashinski, police said, also took merchandise out of the front door, even though other cameras caught him in the act.
"They have more cameras probably than any other store that I know of, so pretty much anywhere you go in the store there's cameras, and out into the parking lot, so I don't know why he would have done it," Maier said.
The front door of the Walmart and the loss prevention office are right next to each other. Police said Lashinski would essentially carry a computer out of the front door, and no one ever noticed.
Lashinski was even caught on camera trying to distract the employee who checks receipts at the front so his two buddies could steal without any questions. Lashinski and Butler turned themselves in. Police are still looking for Smith.
Walmart customers WFTV spoke with said Lashinski was smart, but with all the surveillance video he wasn't smart enough.
"I feel like, when someone does that and they're in charge, they deserve a bigger punishment," customer Larry Hamilton said.
As for the merchandise, it remains a mystery. Police said they haven't been able to track any of it down.
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