86-Year-Old Shoplifter Gets 2 Days
Where are you now, Morty and Helen Seinfeld? Having famously defended the rights of senior citizens to
shoplift batteries
and other things that seem to need constant replacement, Jerry's
fictional TV parents might enjoy the story of Ella Orko, who, according
to the Chicago Sun-Times, got
sentenced Monday to time served -- two days -- after her arrest for shoplifting at a Chicago grocery store on August 2.
Thing
is, she wasn't exactly a naive first-timer. Authorities say that the
86-year-old has a petty-crime history going back half a century,
beginning with her first shoplifting arrest back in 1956. In total,
Orko has been pinched 61 times, and convicted on more than a dozen
occasions.
The Sun-Times suggests that she was not exactly a
subtle thief, either: "Orko allegedly took five packs of salmon, 11
packs of AA batteries, two
packs of L'Oreal RevitaLift anti-wrinkle cream, eight boxed jars of
Olay face cream and four jars of instant coffee." That's a fair amount
to shove into one's shirt, but then again, with 50 years' practice,
perhaps it was done more smoothly than one would assume.
For
good measure, Orko went all-out with the sympathy play at her court
date this week, appearing in a wheelchair and neck brace, and insisting
that she was too hard of hearing to understand what was going on. Judge
Marvin P. Luckman was not exactly convinced, referring to Orko as "an
actress," though rather than throw the book at her, he did accept her
guilty plea to a misdemeanor.
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