A now fired employee of Florida medical marijuana giant Trulieve was arrested when it was discovered she stole pot from the company’s Midway processing facility and was selling it illegally.

Sonya Hammerberg, 53, was charged Jan 16 with grand theft and marijuana distribution, a third-degree felony after she admitted to Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office investigators she’d illegally sold marijuana she took from work.

Hammerberg worked as an employee in Trulieve’s Research and Development division and was also a legal medical marijuana patient.

She said she made a sale of marijuana she got through her work at Trulieve in September for $50 and again in January for $100, according to GCSO arrest records.

It is unclear how much marijuana Hammerberg stole, but whatever she had remaining was returned to Trulieve, deputies wrote.

In a letter to Florida Department of Health Chief of Staff and Marijuana Coordinator Courtney Coppola, Trulieve’s compliance manager briefly detailed the incident, calling it a theft of a returned product and indicating that others were involved and likely facing charges.

“Trulieve’s security manager, Timothy Hightower, discovered that several Trulieve employees attempted to divert a returned marijuana product,” wrote Trulieve's Sarah Oglesby in a Jan. 21 letter to DOH, which administers the state’s medical marijuana program. “The product was recovered by Trulieve security.”

Officials with Trulieve, Florida’s largest medical marijuana company, alerted DOH officials within 24 hours of the incident, per state law.

Steve Vancore, whose firm VancoreJones provides strategic communications for Trulieve, said the company could not say how much marijuana was stolen, citing the active investigation.

Trulieve’s CEO Kim Rivers said the company’s security controls led to the discovery and it was pursuing additional arrests.

“The employee in question was caught as a direct result of our internal controls and upon our findings, we notified the police,” Rivers said in a statement. “We, of course, will continue working with authorities to ensure those who are responsible are held fully accountable.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.

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