Clearwater man accused of using company card to buy over $31K worth of lottery tickets

LARGO, Fla. - A 47-year-old Clearwater man was arrested on Monday morning after he admitted to buying "a couple thousand dollars" worth of lottery tickets with his company credit card, according to deputies.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office says Warren Alexander Johnson was charged with scheme to defraud ($20,000-$50,000).

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According to officials, Johnson is a truck driver for All Phase Paving. An affidavit revealed that the owner of the company discovered several thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent charges on one of the company's Chase Bank credit cards in September 2023.

According to the owner of All Phase Paving, there were only three people, one being Johnson, that had credit cards to the company's bank account. The cards were only supposed to be for work-related charges.

Courtesy: Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

Deputies say the credit cards had individual numbers and were assigned to each employee.

According to the sheriff's office, after looking at the statements, the owner noticed that the card Johnson was in possession of was used at several convenience stores for a total of $31,693.08.

After seeing the charges, the owner looked at the tracking information for the company vehicle that was only driven by Johnson.

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The owner told officials that the tracking information and stops correlated with the fraudulent credit charges. Deputies say after the owner confronted Johnson he admitted to using the card to purchase lottery tickets.

According to authorities, no surveillance video was available but the store manager at one of the locations Johnson frequented confirmed that Johnson always drove his work truck to the store. 

The manager told law enforcement that Johnson was constantly using a credit card to buy scratch-offs.