Bakery worker treated ‘like family’ stole $70,000 over five years, Florida police say

A math teacher who worked a weekend job at a Florida bakery is now facing 51 felony charges after police said she stole more than $70,000 from the family business over the course of five years.

“It was shocking and pretty upsetting, especially when I saw the video,” said Philip Alessi Jr., the president and CEO of Alessi Bakery. “I pray for her at night, but she has to deal with the consequences of the decisions she made.”

Rosa Harwell, a 47-year-old math teacher at Tampa Preparatory School, had been working a part-time job at the popular Tampa bakery for about eight years, Alessi told McClatchy News.

She also tutored Alessi’s sons and “was like family” to them, he said.

Harwell told police that she lowered her tutoring costs for Alessi’s family and was supposed to be “reimbursed” in the form of a pay increase at the bakery, according to a March 14 news release from the Tampa Police Department.

“Harwell claimed that the direct deposits never reflected the raise, so she began to pay herself from the register,” police said.

Harwell disguised her self-payments as refunds, but auditors noticed these negative transactions only happened during her weekend shifts, according to police. Investigators said they discovered more than 500 fraudulent transactions over the course of about five years, starting in 2020.

Alessi said he doesn’t wish Harwell any ill will, but “to discover something like this was really disheartening.”

Tampa Prep has also fired Harwell.

“We are very disappointed to learn this morning that a Tampa Preparatory School mathematics teacher was arrested ... and is facing significant criminal allegations of financial fraud,” the school said in a statement shared with McClatchy News.

Harwell turned herself in March 13 and was charged with 50 counts of false entry in books of a business entity and one count of second-degree grand theft, according to police.

This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Bakery worker treated ‘like family’ stole $70,000 over five years, Florida police say."