Ex-Dotty's employee sentenced to 30 years over $700K embezzlement

• A former Dotty’s employee from Reno ended up receiving a 30-year sentence over embezzlement of more than $700,000 of company funds
• The man went to several of the company’s locations and was caught on videotape taking off with the money
• His actions caused significant financial hardships for fellow employees

A former employee of Dotty’s, a chain of slot machine parlors in Nevada, has been sentenced to three decades in prison. The person in question, one Thomas Tonar, 61, embezzled a total of $714,713 and pleaded guilty to various charges against him.

Dotty’s employees suffered financially because of Tonar’s actions

He was sentenced to two terms, six to 20 years and two to 10 years, for multiple embezzlement charges. Tonar would be 69 when he becomes eligible for parole, as per District Judge Barry Breslow’s verdict.

Tonar’s actions led to the financial degradation of colleagues who struggled because of the embezzlement, and faced pressure to meet rent as well as mortgage payments, causing wider disruptions across the company.

Dotty has a reputation for offering fair working conditions, including health insurance, flexible schedules, a comfortable onboarding process, as well as a 401K portfolio. The minimum wage posted by a Dotty’s property publicly is $11.

A quick check with Glassdoor, a website that hosts job offers, indicates that hosts are the lowest-paid positions with the company, earning anything between $29,000 $38,000 a year, while a bartender could easily rake in $48,000 to $79,000. It is unclear what position Tonar held with Dotty’s based on the available reporting.
No motif identified by police, investigators

Tonar was caught on camera after police from Sparks and Reno were called to investigate, with the man going to the backrooms of several slot parlors and putting cash into bags before moving on to the next property.

Tonar had planned his escape, probably suspecting that he would be pinned as the culprit behind the thievery, and for a while, he managed to elude police, who finally tracked him down to a motel in Sacramento, California, with police recovering $677,069 of the missing money. He was arrested in possession of three firearms.

Tonar perpetrated the crime in June, with the company moving swiftly to discover who was responsible for the theft, and the employee was swiftly identified.

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