Prosecutor: Asbury Hotel, Lanes & Ocean Club Manager Indicted on $486K Theft Charge

A former employee of noted Asbury Park hotels has been indicted on theft charges alleging he pilfered more than $400,000 from the business between 2018 and 2020, Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey announced.

Larry Dembrun, 41, of Montclair, was indicted on one count of second-degree theft. He was arrested on Sept. 22, 2020, by members of the Asbury Park Police Department and the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office following an investigation.

Dembrun was charged with the theft of more than $400,000 while working as a general manager of the Asbury Hotel, Asbury Lanes, and the Asbury Ocean Club, Asbury Park. He was terminated from his position when the alleged theft was discovered during a routine audit.

The Asbury Park Police Department was initially contacted by hotel executives on June 27, 2020 after they discovered that Dembrun had written numerous checks to pay a personal credit card bill, and had also issued unauthorized checks to himself and to other members of the hotel staff.

Following a thorough review of the operating and payroll accounts for the hotel, and an examination of Dembrun’s personal bank accounts, the investigators determined that between January of 2018 and June of 2020, he stole more than $486,000 from the company.

In addition to using company funds to pay his personal credit card bill and to make unauthorized disbursements to other hotel employees, Dembrun also withdrew cash from the operating account which he deposited into his personal account, and failed to deposit cash receipts collected at the hotel’s entertainment venue, retaining them for his own personal use.

If convicted of second-degree theft, Dembrun faces up to 10 years in prison.

— Edited press release from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office