The police caught a thief who specialized in teddy bears (5 photos)

51-year-old woman who stole rare plush from her boss bears worth approximately $120,000, sentenced to one year imprisonment. As the convict admitted, she sold the bears for eBay to fund her gambling addiction developed during the isolation during the coronavirus epidemic.







51-year-old gambling addict stole more than 1,000 collectible teddy bears from your boss to sell at Internet at bargain prices, was sentenced to a year in prison. Hearing verdict, she burst into tears.

51-year-old Lisa Noriega looted a collection of rare bears, each of which costs about $120 working at a craft center, and sold them on eBay using her ex-husband's account. Besides time when employees of the Cheshire Bear Company, based near Nantwich and specializing in the trade in collectibles toys, discovered the theft, teddy bears worth more than $120,000 have already was impossible to detect. The losses were so severe that to the head of the firm, John Richards, who himself remained without salaries, leaving Noriega on a full salary, had to close one of its branches.

Lisa Noriega from Tamworth, Staffordshire, said she was infatuated online gambling after lockdown during the epidemic Covid-19 made it impossible for her to visit her daughter at university.

Sentencing her at Chester Crown Court on Friday morning, Judge Alistair MacDonald said: "You knew that your actions had caused serious harm to your boss and three other employees of your company. Mr. Richards trusted you and left you on holiday with full pay. throughout quarantine, and this is how you repay him. You used their husband's account to sell these bears, and for what? Just to get some cheap gambling fun through online sites - not even for something worthwhile, or at least real."





Noriega managed to plunder the collection collection, alone mailing orders while other colleagues were at vacation. She worked for another Richards company for 14 years, and Moved to Cheshire Bear in 2019.

Paul Wood, the prosecutor, said: “When the pandemic hit, the defendant told Mr Richards that she would like to work all this time, and can arrange delivery of orders by mail in three branches companies. Mr Richards let her do it and she stayed full salary, while three other employees were on unpaid vacation. Over the course of 18 months, Noriega stole 101 worth of rare bears. £670. But one day the attention of Mr. Richards was attracted an eBay page that a colleague found on the Internet. A colleague asked him, did he see that the owner of the page sells exactly the same bears, which, as Mr. Richards remarked, were absent from the recent their inventory. Among the items in question, there were several rare toys, including bears from Star Wars.



"Mr Richards believed that only one person could have access to these rare bears - the defendant, - said the prosecutor. - Therefore, in August 2021, he asked the accused if she knew the account on eBay, under which bears were sold. She said she didn't know anything about the account, but then Mr. Richards showed her a picture of Google Street View, which was the house where the account was registered record. It was her husband's house. After that, the defendant fully admitted theft. When asked why she did this, the defendant said that she problems with gambling, and that this problem led her to such actions."

The court learned that the thefts had a huge impact on the family a company that had to survive on loans, while Richards was forced to forfeit his salary for more than a year. According to Richards, his entire family lived in suspense because of this ordeal.



Defendant's lawyer Oliver King urged the court to step in defendant, stating: “We must take into account the difficult personal circumstances, with which she faced at the time. Her longtime partner recently left her, and her only daughter had just entered the university. it left her at home alone for a long time, and the pandemic meantthat she didn't could visit her daughter. This led to her becoming very lonely. It was during this time that she discovered online gambling. She started with small stakes, but over time it became a habit and a way to make her feel a little better about her situation. However, the habit grew and needed a way to fund it. At that time she worked at Cheshire Bear and saw in the theft an opportunity to earn some money by stealing and selling bears. These actions were completely out of character, as evidenced by her age and no criminal record. She is deeply ashamed and remorseful their actions. She told me she even considered selling her house to pay off Mr. Richards, but she couldn't because she owned real estate with her ex-husband. She applied efforts to get your life back on track. She applied for consulting with the Salvation Army and signed up for the GameStop program, to get rid of gambling addiction. Her family is also trying prevent her from using the apps. This lady did her best to make amends."

However, at sentencing, Judge McDonald stated that defense arguments are not entirely sound, adding: “Theft from employer is always a serious crime, especially considering the value of what was stolen. It wasn't instant theft, it was a continuous scheme that ran for 18 months, and the defendant was able to carry it out only thanks to the trust that rendered to her by Mr. Richards. How will he now trust someone else in the future?"