Delray Beach bagel shop manager Keith Lynn Martin charged with stealing nearly $30,000

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — A former employee at a Delray Beach bagel shop has been accused of stealing nearly $30,000 from the business, police said.

Delray Beach police on Monday charged Keith Lynn Martin, 47, with two counts of grand theft and one count of organized scheme to defraud after he confessed to gambling away much of the money, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit.

Police said that Martin, a manager at the Brooklyn Water Bagel Company, initially reported being robbed on Nov. 28 while he was leaving to make a business deposit of $7,189.93 at a bank.

However, the company's director of operations, Louis Torelli, later reported a theft from a safe and that Martin had failed to report on Dec. 7. Instead of finding the previous three nights deposits _ totaling $5,762.73 _ in the safe, Martin's company issued cell phone and his resignation later were found instead, Torelli told police.

Torelli told police he believed that Martin had not only stolen the deposits, but also faked the robbery and stole the store's Nov. 28 deposits.

Torelli also told police that 26 checks from The Watershed, a company with whom the Brooklyn Water Bagel had an account, had gone unaccounted for. The checks totaled $16,637.65.

Police learned that Martin had been checked into a Fort Lauderdale hospital and interviewed him there.

According to the affidavit, Martin told investigators that he had a gambling problem as well as some health issues.

Martin said that he staged the robbery and instead took the deposits to a casino that night, where he gambled and lost the entire amount in the slot machines. Martin also said he later removed three nights worth of deposits from the safe and tried to win enough money and replace what he stole.

He went back to the casino and lost again, the affidavit stated.

Martin also confessed to falsifying deposit slips the Watershed account, police said.