Wegmans employee pleads guilty to scamming company for $568,000 in fraudulent refunds

ROCHESTER, N.Y. − An employee at the Wegmans Food Market in New York ripped off the company for more than $560,000 by creating fraudulent pharmacy refunds and pocketing the money herself.

Alicia Torres, 47, pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to wire fraud, a crime carried out over almost nine years until February of this year.

Torres admitted that since 2014 she processed about 350 credit card refund requests that she had fraudulently created through the system used to fill prescriptions. She duped the on-duty pharmacists to approve the transactions, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Resnick.

Torres processed the refunds, totaling $568,021, to her personal credit card.

Federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory for judges, recommend a sentence between 33 and 41 months.

Torres had worked at the Wegmans in Webster, just outside of Rochester, as a pharmacy technician since 2008. Since 2020, she also illegally pocketed nearly $11,000 in fraudulent gift card refunds.

Torres is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 11.

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This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Wegmans scam: Webster, New York employee pleads guilty of refund fraud