WESTLOCK – A former Domino’s Pizza employee who stole a customer’s credit card number and used it to make an online purchase without her consent, faces a year of probation as part of a suspended sentence and will have to repay the victim.
In Westlock Court of Justice April 5, Jonald Rivera, 24, pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of credit card data with Justice Gordon Putnam agreeing to a joint-sentence submission from Crown prosecutor Anthony Estephan and duty counsel Gail Gerhart on a 12-month suspended sentence. In addition to the year-long probation order, which includes a no-contact order with the victim, Rivera, who has permanent resident status, will repay the Westlock-area woman for the $125.99 he fraudulently charged to her credit card.
While Estephan called the crime “very serious”, he noted that Rivera didn’t have a prior criminal record and the woman was going to be reimbursed. Gerhart also told court that Rivera, who’s single, is currently employed in Westlock as machine operator.
“We have a guilty plea which indicates to the court your remorse and the probation order will be an opportunity for you to be accountable for your actions,” said Justice Putnam. “And you know this, but being a permanent resident, you don’t want these kinds of things happening. You’re employed and that’s a good thing and you need to keep going in the right direction.”
Court heard that on Nov. 14, 2020, a woman placed an online order at the Westlock Domino’s Pizza with her credit card and received a call from the outlet saying that they were sold out of the pizza she wanted.
She asked for a refund and later that night she got a call from the store asking for the expiry date and security code of the card so they could refund her money.
“She was not comfortable providing those details, but she gave the information nonetheless and received the refund within a few minutes,” said Estephan.
Shortly after she then received a notification on her phone that her card had been used to make a purchase of $125.99 from Apple, then at 10:53 p.m. that night she got another notification that a purchase of $89.24 had been declined by Apple.
“She locked her Visa and the RCMP attended Domino’s and during their investigation they learned that it was Jonald Rivera who had taken her information and used it to make the purchases,” said Estephan.
