An Austin woman accused of a total of 15 charges at a local bar will be sentenced to prison.

Shelley Marie Thompson, 53, was sentenced Thursday in Mower County District Court to 364 days in prison for gross misdemeanor statutory gambling fraud, with 164 days of that sentence to be served on probation for two years. This leaves him with a total of 200 days in prison.

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

Thompson was also found guilty of misdemeanor gambling – he may not participate – and was given one year of supervised probation 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 in the case.

Of the 10 felonies, eight were aggravated forgery, one was identity theft and one was gambling fraud.

According to the court complaint, the Minnesota Alcohol and Gaming Enforcement Agency (AGE) received a referral from the Gaming Control Board (GCB) on December 20, 2023, regarding fraudulent prize receipts claimed at B&J Bar in Austin.

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

An inspector from GCB was notified that during the inspection, three pull handle reward receipts were found with the date and time torn off, totaling $450, with the same name on the receipt.

However, when the person was asked about this, he was able to tell the researcher that the name was not written by him and that he did not spell some letters as they were written.

Later on March 5 of this year, an agent from AGE and a GCB investigator confirmed that Thompson had worked for the organization but was fired in late October 2023.

It was also noted that since the firing the boxes with pull handles are no longer short and there are noticeably more coins in their games than before.

The complaint states that the AGE agent spoke with Thompson the same day and Thompson admitted that he had spoofed the same person’s name.

Thompson said he struggled with drinking and gambling problems for about six months, began gambling for no reason, and admitted what he did was wrong.

He also stated that he bought the pull rings he was playing with and did not steal them from the bar. After reviewing several pull tab games, the GCB investigator determined that Thompson stole the identities of eight people to forge 24 reward receipts, resulting in $4,611 in illegally claimed reward money.

All reward receipts showed Thompson as the seller and, in some cases, the receipts were printed before the bar opened at 11am.

Before that, Thompson was sentenced to one year of probation in September and fined $100 for disorderly conduct.