Michelle Mack is arrested on December 6, 2023.
CNBC
The leader of a nationwide organized retail crime operation that targeted Ulta Beauty and other major retailers face up to five years in California state prison.
Michelle Mack, of Bonsall, California, was given a deferred sentence of five years and four months, which will be officially set in January. It was handed down by a San Diego County Superior Court judge on Thursday.
Her husband, Kenneth, received the same sentence and is already incarcerated. As part of his plea agreement, he will be released after a year and then serve probation and community service for the remainder of his sentence.
The judge allowed Mack to serve her sentence after her husband was released so she could care for their children. She was ordered not to leave the state or go near any Ulta or Sephora stores.
The couple must also pay $3 million in restitution to Ulta and Sephora, according to the sentencing document.
Michelle Mack ran her operation from her 4,500-square-foot mansion in Bonsall, outside San Diego, where authorities say she oversaw a network of about a dozen people who stole millions of dollars worth of merchandise from Ulta, Sephora and other major retailers.
The Macks had pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to commit a felony and organized retail theft, petit larceny and receiving stolen property.
Attorneys for the Macks declined to comment, according to NBC 7 San Diego.
A CNBC investigation in March detailed Mack's operation and showed how police track stolen items from organized retail networks.
Investigators began referring to the group of thieves as the “California Girls” and considered Mack the ringleader. She made millions by reselling the stolen items in Amazon through the “Online Makeup Store” to unsuspecting customers at a fraction of its usual retail price, investigators said, before she and her husband were arrested in December.
Since 2012, Mack had sold nearly $8 million worth of cosmetics through the store before it closed, and grossed $1.89 million in 2022 alone, Amazon sales records provided to investigators show.
The site was shut down after the December arrests.
Earlier this year, Ulta Beauty CEO Dave Kimbell told CNBC in a wide-ranging interview about retail organized crime that “the financial impact is real, but much more important is the human impact, the impact it has on our associates, the impact it has on our guests.”
The Macks and seven crew members were originally charged with 140 felony counts. One of the defendants received a sentence of three years and four months, while cases against the others are pending, according to court records.
— CNBC's Paige Tortorelli, Gabrielle Fonrouge and Courtney Reagan contributed to this story.
