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The Austin woman who was charged with a total of 15 counts in a pull-tab scheme at a local bar will serve jail time.

Shelley Marie Thompson, 53, received a sentence Thursday in Mower County District Court, of 364 days in jail, for gross misdemeanor lawful gambling fraud, 164 days of which will be served as supervised probation for two years. It leaves her a total time required to be served in jail of 200 days.

It runs concurrently with a five-year probation sentence for felony identity theft that also comes with 30 days in jail, $1,000 in restitution and a fine of $50.

Thompson was also convicted of misdemeanor gambling-may not participate and received one year of supervised probation, which also runs concurrently with the first two charges.

All other charges were dismissed.

Thompson was charged in June of this year and initially faced 10 felonies, three gross misdemeanors and two misdemeanors related to the case.

Of the 10 felonies, eight were for aggravated forgery as well as one felony count for identity theft and one for gambling fraud.

According to the court complaint, the Minnesota Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division (AGE) received a referral from the Gambling Control Board (GCB) on Dec. 20, 2023 regarding forged prize receipts that had been claimed at the B&J Bar in Austin.

The GCB reported that during a routine compliance review of the Austin Youth Hockey Association, a compliance specialist discovered that Thompson had stolen the identities in order to forge gambling prize receipts to claim pull-tab prizes at the bar.  

An investigator with the GCB was notified during the audit that three pull-tab prize receipts had been found with both the date and time torn off the receipt to the total amount of $450 with the same name on the receipt.  

However, when the person was asked about it she was able to tell the investigator the name was not written by her, noting she didn’t spell certain letters the way they were written.

Then on March 5 of this year an agent with the AGE and the GCB investigator were able to confirm that Thompson had worked at the establishment, but had been fired in late October 2023.  

It was also noted that since the firing, the pull-tab boxes were no longer short and that there was noticeably more cash in their games than before.  

The complaint goes on to say that the AGE agent spoke to Thompson that same day and that she admitted to forging the name of the same person.  

Thompson went on to say during a stretch of about six months she dealt with drinking and gambling issues and that she started gambling for no reason, acknowledging that what she did was wrong.  

She also had stated that she bought the pull-tabs she was playing and was not stealing from the bar. After reviewing several pull-tab games, the GCB investigator determined that Thompson had stolen the identities of eight individuals to forge 24 prize receipts resulting in $4,611 in unlawfully claimed prize money.  

On all of the prize receipts, Thompson was shown to be the seller and that in some cases receipts were shown to have been printed prior to the bar opening at 11 a.m.

Prior to this, Thompson was sentenced in September to one year supervised probation and fined $100 for misdemeanor disorderly conduct.