A former Home Depot store manager in South Florida is facing felony charges after allegedly handing out more than $4 million in unauthorized discounts over a two-year period.
Mauricio Jimenez, 48, was arrested on April 21 following an internal investigation into thousands of suspicious transactions at his retail location.
According to investigators with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, Jimenez orchestrated a “systemic” scheme between December 2023 and April 2026. Prosecutors allege that he issued more than 4,500 unauthorized discounts to a group of repeat customers, resulting in a total loss of roughly $4.3 million for the company.
During a bond hearing last Wednesday, the defense and prosecution clashed over Jimenez’s actual motive. His attorney, Melissa Ramos, argued that there was no evidence her client personally profited from the price cuts.
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“There’s nothing that says that he was receiving any kickbacks, like he was getting any benefit from this,” Ramos told Judge Mindy Glazer. “It just says that he was issuing discounts to different companies.”
Florida state prosecutors quickly countered that claim. They argued that while Jimenez may not have received direct cash payments from customers, the artificial boost in sales figures allowed him to secure significantly higher corporate bonuses. “By increasing his sales using those discounts, he was compensated with larger bonuses,” a prosecutor stated during the proceedings.
The discrepancy was first caught by Home Depot’s “Assurance & Advisory Management Program.” Internal auditors reportedly flagged a series of “high quality, high value, high markdown” orders. A deeper dive into the records allegedly revealed that these specific transactions required approvals that only Jimenez had the authority to provide.
Judge Glazer agreed that the link between the discounts and Jimenez’s performance bonuses provided sufficient probable cause for the charges. Jimenez faces counts of organized fraud of $50,000 or more and first-degree grand theft.
Because Jimenez has no prior criminal history, he was released from the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on April 24 on a $15,000 bond. As a condition of his release, he is legally barred from returning to the Home Depot store where he formerly worked.
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