If I stole a million dollars, I'd spend it on better stuff...

So last weekend, I was doing what I do every weekend - reading the auction listings in the Baltimore Sun while drinking my morning coffee. And I came across an ad for a "court-ordered auction to recover assets for criminal restitution". The auction company conducting the auction has done a few other auctions I've been to, and I've scored some good deals at them. So with visions of drug-dealer type property coming up for auction - gold chains, giant flat screens, Range Rovers on twenty-six inch rims - i went to the website. And what I found wasn't drug dealer bling at all. It looked like a hoarder's house full of old-lady stuff. The only TV's were ancient CRT's. So why was some old lady's crap being sold at auction?

The auction listing gave a case number, which I plugged into the Maryland Judiciary Case Search, which gave me little except that the crime was embezzlement - and the name of the embezzler. Which I googled, and found out that the criminal was a 69-year old woman who ripped off close to a million dollars from an Alzheimer's patient. And, with the exception of a couple cars, spent most of that million dollars on crap she mail-ordered from QVC. Crap that, if you feel like going to an auction in a couple weeks, you can probably buy for pennies on the dollar.

I'm coming back from Vegas the night before, so I'll probably sit this one out, although otherwise I'd probably go just for morbid curiosity. But it does make you think - who steals from the elderly so they can buy crap from QVC? I can understand and agree with stealing bread to feed your starving kid. I can understand - but not agree - with stealing to live like some kind of rap video superstar, with blinged out cars and chicks in bikinis. But stealing to have a housefull of ugly clothes and "collectible" dolls? I think that there has to be something deeply psychologically wrong with you. I haven't been too sympathetic to critics who have accused QVC of, well, selling people crap they shouldn't be buying- but maybe there is something to it. Not that I think QVC is doing something wrong, anymore than Anheiser-Busch is doing something wrong by selling beer - but that, like alcoholics, there are really shopaholics, people who feel a deep compulsion to buy stuff, and will go to any length to get their fix - including stealing from helpless old ladies.