Woonsocket man charged with stealing $34K from job, falsely reporting robbery

WOONSOCKET – A man from Woonsocket who manages a Whole Foods in Framingham is accused of stealing more than $34,000 from the store, and then falsely reporting a robbery to mislead police.

David DeCoste, 29, reported the purported crime on Nov. 17, telling police that a man in a hockey mask had robbed the store at gunpoint.

According to a report by Wicked Local Framingham, DeCoste said that two hours after closing, an unidentified man ordered him to give him all of the money in the store, and he emptied the cash from the company safe.

DeCoste later admitted to store security that he had taken money himself, and also reportedly said that he was taking a prescription painkiller called Suboxone daily, and that he had previously been addicted to OxyContin.

The store manager told police he would bring them to where he had stashed the money, and led them to a wooded area near his home in Woonsocket at 301 Oregon Ave., where he gave them a backpack full of cash that had been buried.

The total was less than what was believed to have been stolen from the store, and DeCoste told police he may have misplaced some.

He later brought police more money, turning in a total of $34,600.

DeCoste was charged with filing a false crime report, intimidating a witness, larceny from a building and larceny of more than $250.