An audit into the financial handling at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) has revealed a troubling breach of trust by a former employee who defrauded the center of more than $57,000. Zillah Bell, a 29-year-old former parking tollbooth operator at the OCCC, orchestrated a scheme to reroute parking fees into her own bank account using a Square device named “Orange County Convention Center,” as disclosed in a follow-up audit by Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond, WFTV reported.
Bell was initially terminated for undisclosed performance issues, but Orange County’s human resources system, lack of a structured tracking mechanism for the reasons employees are let go, led to Bell being rehired in 2024 and consequently engaging in the theft. The convention center has brought in more than $11 million in parking fees in the 2024 fiscal year, making the safeguarding of these funds a high priority for the center, Diamond stated, as detailed by Florida Politics. Despite her plea of not guilty, court records and the comptroller’s investigation, which included surveillance footage and scrutiny of Bell’s banking transactions, pointed to a “systematic, ongoing course of criminal conduct.”…