Walmart has released a statement apologizing to Khalil Mack for allegedly misspending a portion of the generous $80,000 donation he made to a Florida outlet in December.

Through his Khalil Mack Foundation, Mack decided to spread some holiday cheer on December 6 by paying off more than 300 layaway accounts at a Walmart store in his hometown Fort Pierce, Florida.

But on December 19, Fox32 Chicago reported that Walmart had started an investigation into how the money was spent after an angry Walmart employee tipped off management. Sources told the local news outlet that Mack's foundation wrote an $80,000 check but the layaway accounts only added up to about $60,000.

There are competing claims of what happened next, but managers at the store either gave the remaining $20,000 to the store's employees, allowed store employees to pay off their own layaway accounts or allowed them all to put $20,000 worth of goods on layaway.

"We have determined the store did not handle the transaction in keeping with Walmart's guidelines and have taken corrective action," Walmart spokesperson Delia Garcia told TCPalm.

Garcia would not speak further about the issue, and Mack's foundation did not respond to requests for comment. Garcia only said that the money was not misused but that the transaction was flawed.

The spokesperson added that while Mack did not know about the discrepancy, someone from the foundation knew that there was money left and was OK with it being shared between the store's employees, many of whom work for minimum wage.

Fox32 Chicago claims an employee who was left out of a share of the donation is the one who notified upper management about the excess money.

In her statement, Garcia did not say how many employees were punished or for how long. But many were suspended, according to her interview with Fox32 Chicago.

"We appreciate Khalil Mack's generosity in paying off layaway items for hundreds of customers in the Ft. Pierce community and are looking into how the store handled the transaction to ensure it was appropriate and in keeping with Walmart's guidelines," a Walmart spokesperson told Fox32 Chicago.

Khalil-Mack

Get relevant content delivered to you once a week