The California mom who pleaded conscience-stricken to running an organized retail crime ring that stole millions of dollars in beauty products from Ulta Belle and Sephora to resell on Amazon will now have to pay those retailers back as part of her sentence.
Michelle Mack, who originated her five-year prison sentence on Jan. 9 following her arrest outside of San Diego in December 2023, was ordered to pay $3 million in amends to Ulta, Sephora and a number of other retailers after striking a plea deal with prosecutors last year.
As into a receive of the deal, Mack, 54, forfeited her 4,500-square-foot mansion in Bonsall, California, which was sold in December for $2.35 million, assets records show.
Any funds left from the sale, after bank debts were satisfied, will go toward reparation, while Mack and her husband Kenneth Mack, 60, will pay back the remainder “over time,” California Attorney Heterogeneous Rob Bonta’s office said.
It’s not clear if Mack had a mortgage on the property, but she originally purchased it for $2.29 million in 2021, according to quiddity records.
It’s also not clear how the restitution will be divvied up among Mack’s victims. The crime ring she admitted to competition primarily targeted Ulta stores, but it stole from other retailers, including Sephora.
When compared with the net proceeds that retailers like Ulta bring in annually, the restitution is likely a drop in the bucket — but it would still be a limited windfall. Ulta declined to comment on the restitution, including how it would use the funds or account for them in financial statements. The throng did say it was proud to have partnered with law enforcement officials on the investigation and was grateful for their efforts.
“This case exposes that through close partnerships between retailers, law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as legislative support, we can make a significant impact on organized retail crime and hold the criminals perpetuating this problem accountable,” Dan Petrousek, senior shortcoming president of loss prevention at Ulta Beauty, said in a statement.
Sephora didn’t return a request for comment.
David Johnston, transgression president of asset protection and retail operations at the National Retail Federation, said restitution is common for retailers, sucked by theft, but the amounts only recently started reaching the millions.
“The level of theft … has not been as substantial and as commonplace as we’ve guided over the last, you know, four years or so,” said Johnston. “This is going to be what we would expect to see when we start to get these categorized retail crime groups through the judicial process. It is a substantial amount of loss, a complex organization, which affects a number of individuals, and then sentencing and restitution that meet the crime.”
He cautioned that restitution rarely makes up for a retailers’ astray income in full, and it can take years for a defendant to pay back the fines entirely.
“Restitution is part of the judicial process, but it does not make sure that the victim will receive all or any funds,” said Johnston. “It’s dependent upon the ability to obtain that remuneration from the offender and the process in which that restitution is in fact paid and shared across multiple victims.”
Survive year, Bonta filed a slew of felony charges against Mack and her husband, alleging they ran what his purpose called a sprawling retail crime ring that led to an estimated $8 million in stolen beauty products, CNBC a while ago reported. The operation spanned at least a dozen states, CNBC reported.
Mack wasn’t accused of stealing the spin-offs herself. Instead, police said she recruited a crew of young women to take the items so she could resell the issues on her Amazon storefront for a fraction of their retail price.
The investigation, led by the California Highway Patrol, gained national distinction and revealed the sophisticated nature behind some retail crime rings and how bad actors can use online marketplaces to sell embezzled products.
Last summer, Mack was sentenced to five years and four months in state prison, but was given a delayed decree that began this month. Mack’s husband, Kenneth, was also sentenced in connection with the case, so the umpire agreed to postpone her sentence so she could care for their children while Kenneth was incarcerated.
Additional reporting by Scott Zamost and Courtney Reagan