Women’s clothing store employee accused of stealing

An assistant manager of a women’s clothing store in Vancouver is accused of stealing more than $5,000 from the store since its opening in the fall.

Abigail L. Bolin, 22, of Vancouver appeared Tuesday in Clark County Superior Court on suspicion of first-degree theft.

The manager of the Hazel Dell Maurices located at 7901 N.E. Sixth Ave. Suite 101 called 911 on Monday to report that Bolin had admitted to stealing thousands of dollars from the store. Bolin had been an assistant manager at the store since it opened in October, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in the case.

The store’s loss prevention alerted the manager that Bolin was electronically returning merchandise that customers purchased and putting the money into her personal debit account. No merchandise was actually returned. Instead, Bolin was assigning various customer phone numbers to the returns to make them appear legitimate, the affidavit states.

Sixteen returns totaling $2,332.72 were placed on a debit card belonging to Bolin, and 14 returns totaling $2,685.51 were placed on a second debit card belonging to Bolin. An additional return authorized by Bolin on Friday in the amount of $231.38 was placed on an unknown debit card, court records show.

Bolin was reportedly cooperative with Clark County sheriff’s deputies and agreed to produce a written statement. She told deputies that she had been issuing the refunds to herself since December. She said she did it to support herself and that it became an “addiction,” according to court documents.

During her court hearing, Judge Derek Vanderwood granted Bolin supervised release.

She will have to retain an attorney before she is arraigned March 13.