WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman convicted of pilfering perfume from a K-Mart store is headed to prison.
Lycoming County Judge Marc Lovecchio sentenced Cheryl Dowling to between 1 1/2 to 4 years in prison after she was convicted of retail theft, a felony, for the thefts.
Dowling, 42, apologized to the judge and said she stole the fragrances so she could sell them to buy food for her children and not her drug addiction.
But Lovecchio cited her history of 17 separate arrests and decided to send her to state prison instead of the county jail.
Besides the prison term, Dowling was sentenced to 2 years of probation and ordered to pay $271 in restitution.
Comments
The high cost of justice here will be someone caring for her children while she is in prison . The taxpayer gets heavily penalized and prison space is wasted on a petty theft . Meanwhile her drug pusher is probably still free and selling thus causing more thefts so people can buy his wares .
So what are you saying Stan? She shouldn't go to jail? After 17 arrests she obviously needs jail time. She should have gotten jail before now. And those arrests don't even count the times she wasn't caught.
Eric :
"So what are you saying Stan? She shouldn't go to jail? "
Only if her pusher was arrested and got several years of hard time . She is not the cause of the problem only the symptom . If there was no cause to arrest the pusher then she should get the same pass .
If they got her to rat on the pusher then she should be shown some leniency . The children have to enter into the equation also . Keeping them in foster care is very costly .