Authorities are seeking the arrest of a Super 8 employee who allegedly stole roughly $2,000 in cash from the Powell hotel. A warrant was issued for Juan J. Medina last week on a felony count of theft.

Medina, 48, is alleged to have emptied the Super 8’s lock box multiple times between mid-November and mid-December.

Hotel records showed that $1,999.23 in cash had been received from customers between Nov. 14 and Dec. 19, but when the lock box was opened on Dec. 20, it was “completely empty,” charging documents say. A subsequent review of the office’s surveillance camera footage identified Medina as a suspect.

“There were several videos showing different days of Juan [Medina] picking up the lock box, turning it upside down and shaking the contents out like he was getting money out of a piggy bank,” Powell Police Sgt. Paul Sapp wrote in an affidavit.

Another Super 8 staffer told police Medina had also gone into her room for unknown reasons and that she was scared of him.

Medina resented his job and the hotel’s owners, the employee reportedly told Sapp, and “has made threats to burn the place down if they fired him.” The Super 8’s owner similarly told police that he was “afraid to fire Juan [Medina] because he has made threats to burn the place down and to kill his family, and the employees,” Sapp recounted.

Medina didn’t return to work after the thefts were reported Dec. 21 and Sapp was unable to reach him. The Park County Attorney’s Office filed the felony charge Jan. 17, with a warrant issued by Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah that same day.