A former parking tollbooth operator has been charged with felony grand theft after authorities said she stole $57,000 in four months from people parking at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) last year.

Zillah Bell took drivers’ credit cards into her booth and rang up the parking fees to her personal Square account that she had named “Orange County Convention Center.” Except it wasn’t an authorized account, according to Orange County Sheriff’s records.

Bell said she used the Square account to provide for her children, according to her arrest warrant affidavit.

The Convention Center first realized something was wrong in August 2024 when a visitor asked for a parking refund with a receipt that didn’t look like the official one normally given out, the affidavit said. 

“The theft, which occurred on nearly every shift worked by Ms. Bell was conducted in a manner which showed a systematic, ongoing course of criminal conduct, with the sole intent of defrauding the Orange County Convention Center out of their funds,” according to the affidavit after authorities pulled surveillance video and looked at Bell’s bank records.

Bell, 29, of Orlando, pleaded not guilty, according to court records. Her attorney declined to comment.

Bell’s arrest was a revelation brought up publicly for the first time Wednesday in a follow-up audit released by Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond.

Diamond previously warned about the potential for theft at OCCC in his 2017 audit.

Auditors had previously recognized Bell as one of the tollbooth operators not properly recording parking transactions in that original audit.

Bell was later fired, but the county rehired her in 2024. She was fired a second time after the $57,000 theft investigation, according to Diamond’s office.

For the 2017 audit, Diamond’s office counted cars parking at OCCC and calculated $2,000 in unaccounted parking fees in just four hours. At the time, Diamond said drivers either parked for free, although no records existed to prove that, or the parking fees had been stolen.

“The old convention center management was skeptical of our concerns about theft back in 2017. The new management, luckily, took these concerns seriously,” Diamond said in an interview Wednesday.

The OCCC later installed security cameras in the tollbooths and went to cashless parking. The video surveillance helped OCCC investigate and catch Bell stealing after she was back in the parking tollbooth last year, Diamond said.

OCCC Executive Director Mark Tester, who took over in 2020, called the $57,000 theft an “isolated incident.”

“The OCCC appreciates the work of the Comptroller’s Office and the opportunity to participate in the follow-up audit of our Parking division. The report confirms that the OCCC has taken major steps to enhance oversight and security, with a clear plan to further strengthen internal controls and safeguard public assets,” Tester said in a statement. “Since the original 2017 audit, three of four recommendations have been fully implemented, including the installation of cameras in every tollbooth and lane, revised sales tax calculation methods, and stronger controls for canceled transactions. In 2023, the OCCC also became a cashless facility and transitioned to a new point-of-sale (POS) system designed for parking operations. Both enhancements have reduced opportunities for theft and ensured accurate accounting of service fees.”

With 6,600 parking spaces, OCCC employs more than 40 employees. It’s big business: Parking fees generated about $11 million in the 2024 fiscal year.

“That should be important to Orange County taxpayers because the more parking revenue the convention center gets, the less that Orange County has to give to the convention center to keep its doors open,” Diamond said.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings wants to update the county’s system in order to flag terminated employees so the county doesn’t rehire them again, Diamond said after he briefed Demings on the latest audit.

Demings was not available for comment Wednesday afternoon.