Pregnant restaurant manager fired after armed robbery

Tiffany Craig | KHOU-TV, Houston

Show Caption Hide Caption Pregnant Popeyes worker robbed at gunpoint, then fired Marissa Holcomb was held up by a gunman while working at a Texas Popeyes restaurant. Just days later, the pregnant woman says she was given a choice: pay back the money stolen from her cash register or lose her job.

CHANNELVIEW, Texas — After a fast-food restaurant was robbed, the pregnant shift manager said she was fired for refusing to reimburse the company the money that was stolen.

The heist happened March 31 at a Popeyes (PLKI) fried-chicken restaurant here and was captured on surveillance video. The Harris County Sheriff's Office still has not identified the gunman more than three weeks after the crime.

"I told them I'm not paying nothing," Marissa Holcomb said. "I just had a gun to me. I'm not paying the money."

In the video, a man with ski mask runs in waving a gun. He forced all the employees to the floor.

Then, he turned his attention to Holcomb.

"By the back of my shirt, he pulled me up and he pushed me to the front," she said. "He told me to give him everything out of my safe."

But the only thing Holcomb could open were the registers. The gunman got away with nearly $400.

After the robbery, Holcomb claimed that one of her managers gave her a choice: Pay the money back or be fired. Less than 36 hours later, she was fired.

"I don't think it's right because now I'm struggling for my family," she said. "What I had to do (was) keep my life."

Officials from the Popeyes franchise owner, Z&H Foods of Sugar Land, Texas, wouldn't talk on camera.

However, a spokesman in the company's human resources department said Holcomb was fired because she didn't follow company policy, leaving too much money in the cash register. And this wasn't her first offense.

That spokesman, who refused to be identified, also said that if she were given the option to pay money back, the company knew nothing about it.

Popeyes' corporate office in Georgia initially refused to comment, deferring to the local franchise.

However, by Thursday afternoon the chief executive of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen weighed in.

"We recently became aware of a story in Houston involving a Popeyes restaurant and employee," CEO Cheryl Bachelder said in a statement. "We have spoken to the local franchise owner of the restaurant, and he has taken immediate action to reach out to the employee to apologize and rectify the situation.

While the facts are gathered, we will closely monitor this until it is appropriately resolved," she said. "We deeply regret the distress this situation has caused."

Holcomb said that Tuesday had been busy: The restaurant offers a two-piece chicken meal for $1.19, and she moved money into the safe as fast as she could.

"They got what they got because that's what we made within one hour," she said.

Z&H Foods isn't the only company with this type of policy, according to KHOU-TV research. Other companies also have rules about the amount of money allowed to accumulate in a cash register and how much an employee is liable for when a shortage occurs.

That's little comfort for Holcomb, who is not only unemployed but pregnant with her fourth child. She said she has been filling out applications for other jobs but doesn't expect anyone to hire her now.

"I mean, who's gonna call me? I'm five months pregnant," she said before Bachelder issued her statement. "The fact (is) I got robbed at gunpoint, and it's like nobody cares."