I was stealing 100s of dollars worth of food from my grocery store job and got caught but the police said to let me go

This happened to me when I was 16 and my sister was 15. We both got jobs working in this grocery store owned by a man who had stores all over the metro area. At first he seemed super nice in the training and interviews and everything they seemed really understanding, but I found out my mom used to work for him at a different store in the 90s and he’s a total tyrant <br><br>I never was stealing much at first, but for Christmas we got paid double which was a nice Christmas present essentially for me. I was a minor so I wasn’t expecting it but the owner said he had to do that for everyone every year. Well, come January he started “checking” peoples bags at the end of their shifts to try to prevent employee theft. It was humiliating and in the break room everyone had a big discussion because it was such an invasion of privacy, we didn’t care if he checked for store products, but some people were bringing in purses and stuff and it just didn’t feel right. <br><br>Well, my sister worked in the deli with a few other teenage girls and us and one other girl who worked in produce all met up after work one day. She stole deli meat and cheese, some wine. The girl working produce had access to all of the electronics because produce was in charge of all the displays in the store and doing all the flower arrangements and decorations and stuff. The owner wanted the stores to look more high end so he wanted all the displays to look good. <br><br>She had access to the safe that had all the smart codes for the displays in the store. So she started unlocking displays for us and we would steal as much as we could while we were all working. I stole so much liquor and wine, but one time when my sister and I had closed for the night the manager on duty was a young girl so we asked her if we could take all of the opened wine and liquor bottles that were just going to be dumped anyway and she let us. So for the rest of the time we worked their my sister and I never paid for alcohol and we had so much we took some to parties and let our friends take some back to their houses from parties and stuff and no one ever knew <br><br>I stole so much jewelry and makeup and clothing and shoes and expensive perfumes. I went into the back office and changed the prices of my favorite candies and snacks to like 10 cents so I would just buy it at the end of my shift and never get caught. <br><br>The owner started getting really suspicious after a few months because he had some cameras in the store and we were getting really cocky and he confronted my sister in the back office. She just denied it and cried and he believed her. I left as soon as he started being suspicious. He never confronted me but I just knew I needed to quit before I got fired and couldn’t find another job. <br><br>I think about this all the time, it went on for like 2 years and we stole 1000s of dollars worth of stuff and one time when my sister and I were stocking the beer cooler my sister just opened up a bottle of liquor and we started drinking during work hours. I don’t know how we got away with it. I just know if I was in his position I would have pressed charges but lucky for us we were minors