Bookstore worker accused of lifting $348,975

RALEIGH -- A former bookkeeper with Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh was arrested over the weekend and charged with embezzling $348,975 from the popular independent bookstore.

Anna Susan Kosak, 43, of Raleigh is charged with taking the money over several years, according to court records. Quail Ridge General Manager Sarah Goddin said Sunday that Kosak was employed as the store's bookkeeper twice, from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2004 until September. Goddin said Kosak's departure in September was not related to the embezzlement charge.

Goddin said the missing money went undetected because it disappeared over a long period of time. Quail Ridge does about $3.4 million in sales a year, according to Nancy Olsen, who owns the 24-year-old store with her husband, Jim.

"We're shocked," Nancy Olsen said Sunday. "We felt a professional closeness with her. We thought a lot of her."

According to Kosak's page on Facebook.com, she's a 1983 graduate of Oakton High School in Vienna, Va., and is active in her church, Kiwanis and other "civic work."

Olsen declined to speculate on a motive. But she said Kosak underwent gastric bypass surgery last year. This procedure typically costs $25,000 to $35,000, according to the National Institutes of Health, and is intended to help patients lose weight by reducing the size of their stomach and sometimes the length of the small intestine.

Olsen said that despite the economy and the embezzlement charge, the bookstore is in no danger of closing.

"We are in very good shape," Olsen said. "I would call our sales flat, which is a good thing these days."

Independent bookstores buy books from publishers and distributors at the same cost as the bigger chains, Olsen said.

"Where they have the advantage is with branding," she said. "Everyone has heard of Barnes & Noble and Borders -- no one has heard of Quail Ridge Books & Music."

Still, though the store isn't in financial danger, the threat of a bad economy, competition from larger booksellers -- including online giant Amazon.com -- and now the embezzlement charge, the store is trying to be more financially diligent than ever.

"We thought we were watching our every dollar," Olsen said. "I guess we weren't."

Kosak is being held in the Wake County jail in lieu of $200,000 bail. She's scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. today.