An employee of an Asbury Hotel in Asbury Park was arrested and charged with theft after stealing over $400,000 from the business.
Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said Larry Dembrun,Jr. 61, of Montclair was arrested by members of the Asbury Park Police Department and the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office following an investigation. He was charged with theft of over $400,000 from his employer Salt Hotels, the owner of the Asbury Hotel, Asbury Lanes, and the Asbury Ocean Club, all located in Asbury Park.
Dembrun’s most recent position with the company was as regional manager, which gave him responsibility for managing all three facilities. He has since been terminated.
The investigation began when the Asbury Park Police Department was initially contacted by hotel executives on June 27 after an internal audit revealed that Dembrun had written numerous checks to pay a personal credit card bill, and had also issued unauthorized checks to himself and to members of the hotel staff. Following a thorough review of the operating/expense accounts for the hotel, as well as Dembrun’s personal bank accounts, the investigators determined that between January of 2018 and June of 2020, he stole $486,882.17 from the company.
Dembrun accomplished the theft in a variety of ways, police said. Unauthorized checks written from the Asbury Hotel‘s operating account to pay his personal American Express bills totaled $159,898.32. He made cash withdrawals from the operating account that totaled $165,144.25. He then deposited the withdrawn cash in incremental amounts into his personal checking account. He also issued unauthorized payroll checks to himself in the amount of $12,603.00. During the relevant time period Dembrun also took cash from the Asbury Lanes expense account in the amount of $51,150, and kept cash that should have been deposited in the amount of $6,791.25. Finally, he wrote “bonus” and “incentive” checks to hotel staff totaling $91, 295.00. All of these acts were unauthorized and violated established corporate policy.
If convicted of second degree theft, Dembrun faces up to 10 years in prison.