A former employee is accused of pocketing more than $23,000 from cash registers at the Walmart at the Butler Commons shopping plaza in Butler Township last fall.

Samrajya B. Khadka, 20, of Oakland Township, took the money between Oct. 30 and Nov. 23, 2019, Butler Township police said.

Police on Tuesday charged Khadka with felony counts of theft and receiving stolen property.

The defendant, a native of Nepal, is being held in the Cambria County Jail on an immigration detainer.

He also is facing unrelated charges in Butler County court stemming from the alleged sexual assault of a Slippery Rock University student earlier this year at an off-campus apartment complex.

The latest charges followed a Butler Township police investigation that began Nov. 23 when Walmart reported an employee theft. Store officials suspected Khadka, who worked in the electronics department, police said.

“While doing transactions,” according to charging documents, “Khadka would open the register and fiddle with the cash in the drawer. (He) would turn his body, hiding from view, and place his hand in his pocket.”

He worked with two registers in the department.

The store's regional asset protection manager told police that the defendant eventually admitted to taking between $5,000 and $10,000 from the registers, investigators said.

Walmart officials, however, placed the loss much higher following a review of the store's cash register audit system. The total value of the theft was set at $23,060.92.

Khadka was terminated from his employment Nov. 23.

Lt. Matthew Pearson on Wednesday said the reason for the delay in charging Khadka was that police had to wait for store officials to provide evidence, including surveillance video and an itemized list of the thefts.

State police in January arrested the defendant in the alleged assault of a 20-year-old SRU student at her off-campus apartment complex in Slippery Rock Township. The apartment is not affiliated with the university.

The woman told police that Khadka and another man came to her apartment Jan. 16, and the three of them were watching movies when she believed she fell asleep on the couch.

Around 4:45 a.m., she recounted that she awakened to find her pants pulled down and the defendant sexually assaulting her, a trooper testified at the defendant's preliminary hearing Jan. 29.

He subsequently was ordered held for trial on charges of rape of an unconscious person, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of an unconscious person, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault of an unconscious person, and indecent assault of an unconscious person.

Khadka, who had been in the Butler County Prison in lieu of $200,000 bond following his arrest, was released Aug. 21 on house arrest with electronic monitoring, and ordered to have no contact with the victim. He previously surrendered his Nepalese passport to state police.

The release came after Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCune granted a motion filed by Khadka's attorney, T. Brent McCune of Pittsburgh, under the state's “speedy trial” law, which states that defendants cannot be held in prison longer than 180 days without a trial.

But on Aug. 26, he was booked into the Cambria County Jail, officials at the jail said, on the detainer filed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Wednesday, McCune confirmed the ICE detainer. He said he advised his client's family to get an immigration attorney, but he declined further comment on the matter.

He said he was unaware of the latest theft charges against Khadka.