SUMMERFIELD, Fla. — A Florida teenager is facing charges after police said she stole money from her grandmother’s safe and handed it out to her friends at school.
The 14-year-old girl, who was not identified due to her age, is charged with grand theft after police said that she broke into her grandmother’s house and stole $13,500 from the woman’s safe, The Associated Press reported.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Office told the AP that its deputies were called to Lake Weir Middle School on Oct. 20 for a report of a student giving classmates hundreds of dollars each.
An arrest report obtained by the AP does not offer an explanation as to why she took the money and handed it out to friends, but school officials said that when they searched her backpack they found approximately $2,500.
The girl allegedly told deputies that she had been given the money by an unknown former student, NBC News reported.
Investigators told the AP they had successfully recovered approximately $700 of the money, along with the $2,500 that was in the girl’s backpack.
The teenager’s grandmother told investigators that the money was from the sale of a house and that losing it was “devastating,” NBC News reported.