A waitress at a country club in The Villages has been sentenced on a lesser charge of theft after scheming to cheat her employer.
Shannon Donovan, 41, of Summerfield, was arrested last month at Orange Blossom Hills Country Club on a third degree felony charge of scheming to defraud. Last week in Lake County Court, she pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of petit theft. She was sentenced to time already served behind bars and ordered to repay her employer $410. She had been lodged at the jail since her Sept. 18 arrest.
Donovan had three membership cards in the names of acquaintances, one of them being her daughter, and used the cards periodically during customer visits, according to an arrest report from the Lady Lake Police Department. The dining plan allowed customers to use their card on each visit and on the 11th visit they would receive a $10 bonus toward their individual bill. It was discovered that Donovan was using the three cards she had obtained when serving customers not on the plan. When Donovan reached the $10 bonus on each card, she would ring up the bill using the bonus of those cards and take $10 from the cash register.
She was being held this weekend without bond at the Sumter County Detention Center on a probation violation. Donovan was arrested last year in The Villages when she was caught driving on suspended license. Her license was suspended after a 2017 conviction for driving under the influence.