Stealing company property is bad enough. But what did this employee plan on doing with her major haul?

Debra Gottrell, former employee of Directory Plus, in Las Cruces, NM, has been indicted for fraud for allegedly stealing company property. It wasn’t computers or fax machines, though — Gottrell hoarded over 100,000 phone directories over the course of four years.

Instead of delivering the phone books, she put the goods into three Las Cruces storage units that were taken out in her name. An attentive worker at the storage facility noticed something was a little off and contacted Directory Plus, who came down hard on Gottrell.

Although she provided no explanation of why she stole so many phone books, Directory Plus owner Hugh Riddle estimates his company lost more than $500,000 from the missing directories.

Ironically, a telephone listing for Gottrell was unavailable.

Tags: Directory plus, Employee theft, fraud, Phone book, Storage facility