American LibrariesSearch American Libraries  |
||
Site Navigation
Left Sidebar Items |
||
Cookbook Thief Sentenced to ProbationA woman convicted of second-degree felony theft for stealing more than 100 cookbooks worth some $1,400 from the Bettendorf (Iowa) Public Library was sentenced to three years’ probation February 26 by the Scott County District Court. Kristin Grace, 37, is also required to make financial restitution to the library. “I’m just glad it has stopped,” Bettendorf Library Director Faye Clow said in the March 3 Davenport Quad-City Times. “We’re hired to responsibly use the taxpayers’ money and we take that very seriously.” Because the library has already replaced the stolen books, the restitution funds will be added to the acquisitions budget, Clow explained. Bettendorf police arrested Grace in November after discovering in her apartment hundreds of cookbooks that bore library markings. The find ended a mystery that began nearly two years earlier when a library inventory first revealed the losses. Bettendorf staffers subsequently gave law enforcement the results of a painstaking cross-check of circulation records, which led to the search of Grace’s residence. “She didn’t have very many other outlets,” Assistant County Attorney Jerald Feuerbach told Court TV March 4, explaining that authorities believe Grace would first borrow the book and then return it after removing the barcode, only to subsequently sneak the item back out of the library with other materials she had checked out. Grace, who pleaded guilty to the Iowa crimes in January, faces a pretrial hearing in April for allegedly stealing almost 192 books from the city libraries of nearby Moline and Rock Island, Illinois. Posted March 5, 2004. |
Right Sidebar
|
|
