THE TRIAL of a man accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a South East business started in the Mount Gambier District Court this week.
Roman Lazicki, 54, appeared at the Mount Gambier District Court Monday and pleaded not guilty to 71 counts of theft between June and November 2017 at the 24/7 Car and Dog Wash.
“The offending itself is quite simple,” the prosecution said.
“The working out and final figures is quite complicated.”
The prosecution said almost $24,000 was stolen from two sepaprate automatic car washing machines.
“The owners have lost a significant amount of money,” the prosecution said.
The prosecution told the court Lazicki “came with the business” when owners Sue and Anthony McDonnell took over ownership in February 2017.
“He had worked for the previous owners, was the business’ only employee and was there most of the time,” the prosecution said.
Appearing in court, Mr McDonnell said he was happy to keep Lazicki on at the time as he and his wife were not interested in working at the business themselves.
On the day of the first offending, the prosecution said Mr McDonnell attended the business premises and noticed two dog washing machines were empty despite a visibly busy day.
Reviewing CCTV footage, Mr McDonnell found the accused removing the money from the machines even though it was not his job to do so.
Further investigation by Mr and Ms McDonnell revealed other incidents.
“Allegedly Mr Lazicki is going and taking out monies and performing a short-term memory reset,” the prosecution explained.
“The McDonnells have gone back and looked over machines and have found numerous shortfalls.”
The issue came to a head when McDonnell inserted several marked coins into a dog wash machine as a way to test Lazicki.
On November 26, Lazicki was arrested and found with five of the marked coins and $279 worth of coins.
Mr McDonnell said Lazicki ceased employment at the premise on November 26.
“The accused said he would remove the coins to clean them but always return them back to the machine,” the prosecutor said.
“He said he would also take money if customers needed it.”
The prosecutor said the accused had bank records with cash deposits which included a significant number of coins.
“The expenditure was significantly beyond his carwash income,” he said.
The court heard Lazicki was employed to work at the premises five days a week from 8am to 5.30pm.
The jury was given several photographs of the premises, a mud-map and an aerial shot and were taken to the site to examine facilities.
However, the defence counsel argued the discrepencies could have occurred in ways, other than Lazicki’s actions.
Witnesses are expected to be called to give evidence about the case, with the trial expected to finish this week.
