9th Magic Johnson Theater Worker Convicted of Theft

Nine former employees of the Magic Johnson Theater have been convicted of stealing an estimated $144,000 in illegal ticket sales during a one-year period, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Allison Albertha Lammey, 31, a manager at the theater, was the latest employee to be convicted when she pleaded no contest Monday to one count of theft. A Superior Court judge sentenced her to 40 hours of community service, ordered her to pay $500 in restitution and placed her on a year of summary probation.

Also convicted over the past year were Tinaya Lenee Brown, 19; Myles Colby Matthews, 23; Maurice Tyrone Cornish, 22; Darnell Perez Martin, 22; Eduardo Eliecer Chavez, 20; Toya Denise Washington, 26; Antonio Deshawn Hawkins, 19; and Garry Albert Flowers, 23. An arrest warrant has been issued for a 10th employee who failed to appear at his arraignment.

Prosecutors say the employees pulled off the caper by selling both halves of a movie ticket instead of depositing one half in a locked ticket box. The employees routinely kept the money for half of the stubs they sold.

Theater officials were tipped off to the scheme after a routine audit in February 1998 found that the cashier’s receipts didn’t match up with the number of stubs in the locked ticket box. The theater was short 757 stubs during an 11-day period. A second audit showed another 4,000 ticket stubs were missing during a 43-day period.