The Brief
- A West Bend woman is accused of stealing cash from the Cost Cutters in Menomonee Falls where she worked.
- Jada Ovalle admitted to police that she committed more than 200 thefts by canceling cash transactions.
- The criminal complaint says Ovalle showed “remorse in her statement” to authorities about the crimes.
MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. – A 25-year-old West Bend woman is accused of stealing more than $5,000 in cash from a Menomonee Falls business where she worked. The accused is Jada Ovalle – and she faces a single charge of theft-business setting.
“Employee theft matter”
What we know:
According to the criminal complaint, a Menomonee Falls police officer was dispatched on Monday morning, Feb. 17 to return a phone call from the owners of Cost Cutters located on Appleton Avenue. The call was regarding an employee theft matter tied to defendant Ovalle, who was hired as a hairstylist in February 2022.
When the owners spoke to the officer, they said they “found out that an employee was taking money from the cash register while she was at work at Cost Cutters,” the complaint says. The owners said they discovered the theft on Saturday, Feb. 15, “when a customer came into the store wanting to return a product that they purchased with cash on February 11, 2025. The manager who was working at the time of the attempted return, could not find the transaction anywhere in the store’s transaction system,” the complaint says. The discrepancy caused one of the owners to review video footage, which the complaint says showed the defendant “ring up the customer at the cash register. The customer gave Ovalle cash. Ovalle manipulated the cash register indicating it was a cash transaction. Ovalle shuffled the money with her hands and put it in her pocket instead of the cash register. The transaction that (the owner) observed on the store’s surveillance system was canceled by Ovalle,” the complaint says.…