BUTLER TWP — A convenience store employee is suspected of concocting an elaborate ruse to steal more than $5,000.

During the alleged scheme in March, Sherrie L. Stiefel pocketed store receipts she was supposed to deposit and elicited the help of unsuspecting friends to make it look like she was the victim, court documents said.

But good police work, aided by calling records from the suspect’s own cell phone, helped unravel the twisted plot.

Butler Township police Thursday charged the 41-year-old Stiefel of Slippery Rock with a felony count of theft. She also is charged with filing a false report to police.

Police said Stiefel got her friends unwittingly to stage the theft of her purse with the nearly $5,400 in receipts from the Honey Bear store in Butler that she was supposed to deposit.

She recounted the alleged ruse to police, documents said, and admitted that “the theft of the money was all her fault.”