Photo: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrari_488_GTB_(2018)_(52570602228).jpg">Charles from Port Chester, New York</a> / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
Texas Department of Public Safety agents arrested a former office manager at Ferrari of San Antonio on Monday, Oct. 19, on four felony counts. According to an arrest affidavit reported by the San Antonio Express-News, she used the dealership’s credit cards, fuel cards and checking account to pay her own electric and insurance bills and to shop at H-E-B and Walmart, more than $45,600 in all. Those are allegations, not findings. The affidavit itself was not available to Backfire News at publication, so the details below come from the Express-News’s account of it.
What the affidavit says she controlled
The affidavit says she joined the dealership as office manager in March 2024 and had control of the company’s credit and fuel cards and its checking account. The general manager called police on June 12, the affidavit says, and an audit then turned up payments that were not authorized: H-E-B, Walmart, fuel and household bills.
I found no published statement from the accused or an attorney for her, and no statement from the dealership. I also found no docket entry showing a plea, a bond amount or a court date, so the current status of the case is unconfirmed.
How Texas grades a theft by the dollar
Texas sets the level of a theft by the value taken. Under Penal Code Section 31.03(e), property worth $2,500 or more but less than $30,000 is a state jail felony, and $30,000 or more but less than $150,000 is a third-degree felony. At $45,600, the alleged total sits $15,600 over the lower line.
The grocery receipts matter because of Section 31.09. When amounts are taken under one scheme or continuing course of conduct, the statute allows prosecutors to treat them as one offense and add them up to set the grade. Say a $60 Walmart run: a misdemeanor on its own. Folded into everything else the affidavit alleges, it’s part of a felony. A third-degree felony carries two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
The reporting I have seen does not list the statutes behind the four counts. The third-degree range describes the theft statute’s tier for this dollar amount, not necessarily what she has been charged with, and a conviction on any count would be for a jury or a plea to decide.
One person with the cards and the checkbook
The affidavit’s own description is that a single employee held the cards and the bank account. That is a common setup in a mid-size office, and it works until someone has to check the statements against the receipts. Fuel charges are routine at a dealership that moves loaners and delivery cars, and a grocery charge on a corporate card is easier to spot than a fuel charge that fits the pattern. The reporting I have seen does not say who reviewed the statements, or how long the charges ran before the audit. Expect a defense lawyer to start right there.
Dealerships end up in Texas court files from both directions. Backfire News has covered a Dallas dealer accused of repossessing the same Tesla six times, which the dealer called a civil matter. This case is a dealer as the alleged victim, with an employee as the accused.
What to watch
Felony charges in Texas generally move to a grand jury, so the next filing to watch is an indictment, followed by a bond hearing and a first court setting. Any of those would put the specific charges and the amounts, count by count, on the public record for the first time.
If the money did vanish, who answers for it: the person accused of taking it, or the business that put the cards and the checkbook in one set of hands?
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