Wichita’s largest pawn broker, A-OK, sues over $1.5 million embezzlement
Wichita's largest pawnbroker, A-OK, is suing its insurers and a local accounting firm over what it says were failures to protect it against an employee embezzlement blamed for its multimillion bankruptcy filing last summer.
A-OK, in separate lawsuits filed
A-OK's attorney,
A-OK's insurers, meanwhile, made mistakes that resulted in A-OK not getting the coverage it asked for -- and then refused to pay out on a claim connected to the embezzlement, Rathbun said. Underwriters at Lloyd's
"We told the agent what we needed (for insurance) and instead Lloyd's
The suits each seek more than
Asked for comment on the lawsuit filed against him and his firm,
Harper didn't comment other than to say that he and Lucke "anticipate presenting a defense to the claims being asserted."
A message left with a
The lawsuits come more than a year after A-OK discovered that a staff accountant whose job duties included running the pawnbroker's online eBay sales was transferring large sums of money from A-OK's PayPal account into his personal bank account. A-OK filed suit in
Sedgwick County prosecutors filed felony theft and computer crime charges against Jelinek last June, court records show.
Around the same time, A-OK's bank,
About a week later, Harris filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He cited Jelinek's embezzlement in the filing.
"It was obviously a horrible incident for us and put him in bankruptcy," Rathbun said of Harris. "But he's come out on the other side."
Harris didn't return a message from The Eagle left at A-OK's corporate office.
A-OK has shops located at 2021 N. Amidon and
Two other A-OK locations in Wichita -- 1547 S. Oliver and
Sheets said Monday both south side stores "are doing extremely well."
"We put in new management and new people in place and we've almost doubled the volume of the stores already," Sheets said. "We're very upbeat about the stores' future."
To date, A-OK hasn't yet recovered any of the embezzled cash from Jelinek -- nor has it seen a payout from its insurance company, Rathbun said.
Last month, Jelinek pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft,
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