Mom Accused Of Being Grinch: Returns Shop With A Cop Merchandise For Cash

The mother's actions are deplorable, selfish and reprehensible, but they are not against the law. Unless she signed something stating that she was not to sell or return these gifts, then the police have no legal recourse.

You can't be guilty of stealing something that was given to you freely. If the police were concerned that this might happen, then maybe they could have worked out some arrangement with the stores that participated in that they would not accept returns (exchanges for clothing permitted) for cash on these items.

I think it's a bit much to charge the woman with theft by deception. Could be that when they got that stuff, it was all good and dandy, but then mom got the notice that she comes up with some money or they get booted onto the streets. Maybe mom had to choose between having heat in the house and some toys. I don't blame the guy for being angry, but I'm sure that things like this happen literally all the time. When you've got very little, everything is a bartering chip. Been there, done that, sold more than one t-shirt at a yard sale.

I'm not saying that what she did was right, but I'm saying that maybe the cops shouldn't have been so quick to judge when they're not in her position.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


Theft by deception is a crime look it up! In my opinion she's disgusting for returning her children's gifts.

I have just come across an article that explains the mother's side of the story. This is a very interesting case, which in my opinion the mother's actions are morally wrong. Legally, the merchandise was a gift to her children and the mother is the custodian to that gift. Under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (also see Uniform Gifts to Minors Act) the custodian of a minors property has a duty to preserve that property until a minor is of age. Essentially this protects a parent/guardian/custodian from selling or damaging a minors property. So in essence she can take the property, but she must give that property back to the minor once he/she is of age (whether that property is in its original form or in a money equivalent decided by a court of law is debatable).

I have posted a snippet of the article as well as a link below


www.wlky.com...

Police said each of Beard's four children picked out $150 worth of presents. But they said Beard then returned some of those gifts and pocketed more than $100 in cash. But Beard tells a different story. She said when she pooled all the kids' gifts with those from other family members, there were duplicates. "We were getting ready to start wrapping them. We had seen two of the same Barbie dolls, two of the same little tractors," Beard said. So she said she returned some of the gits and got back about $160. She said she was going to use the money to buy her kids another gift -- a scooter. But she reported to police that her wallet was stolen in Louisville -- with $100 inside. She said the other $60 helped pay for the scooter. So she said she returned some of the gits and got back about $160. She said she was going to use the money to buy her kids another gift -- a scooter. But she reported to police that her wallet was stolen in Louisville -- with $100 inside. She said the other $60 helped pay for the scooter. Then came a knock at the door. It was the same cop who shopped with Beard's kids. "They then said, 'We have a warrant out for your arrest for theft by deception,' which blew me away. I was completely dumb founded," Beard said.

Polite Mod Request


Hi People,


Just to request that we don't use the derogatory term pigs to refer to the Police.

I'm sure few, if any, of us would tolerate the usage of terms like 'hoe' or 'tart' to refer to Women, or 'dog' or so forth to refer to Men.

Nor would we tolerate the usage of other derogatory terms to define others in relation to their Race, Creed, Religion, Orientation or otherwise...

...so too the derogatory term, Pig, will not be tolerated.



Please refrain from using it here



Thanks people.

reply to post by MCEXPRESS


Well that act does justify the arrest I guess. It probably shouldn't have been acted on, but I doubt her story because she couldn't account for the money. Though that could be explained if her money was really taken. I guess all we have to know is if that is really how the police found out she had sold the gifts. It doesn't seem to me like they would question where the 100 dollars she had stolen came from unless she just spilled all that info. Also would she be reporting the missing money to the same police if she was in a different city (that is if the 100 dollars was stolen in louisville and not her town brandenburg)?

A woman takes advantage uses the police than goes to return the gifts, lets' be honest probably for drug money and than is surprised she gets arrested?

I don't see a problem here.

reply to post by hotbakedtater


I know what you're saying but what if this mother wanted the money for alcohol, cigarettes or illegal substances?

You would be surprised to know how often this actually occurs.

I know someone who worked with the Boys & Girls club and they would take donations from stores to give out to the kids. One year it was backpacks from target. Since target had donated the merchandise they were aware of the barcodes associated with the donation and had accounted for them in their inventory system. They called the B&G's club the same day they were handed out to let them know that about a dozen people had tried to return the items and that they should remove the tags before handing them out.

They also explained to me how the foster child system worked....with the state giving these people money for each foster child they host. Some had 4 or 5 kids in their home and the kids would show up there starving...having not been fed and wore filthy clothes. The foster parents didn't work and would use the money on everything but the foster children. They weren't all like that, but there apparently were quite a few.

Its very sad...

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow


Well, I think it all depends on what she actually used the money for. If she did indeed use it on a gift for her children, then personally, I really see no problem with it. If she used any part of the money for anything regarding her own personal accord, well then that would be both immoral and illegal.

I think the main idea through this whole debacle is that the "shop with a cop" event was meant to be a benefit to the children. If the children wanted a different item for Christmas then I see it as acceptable to exchange those items for something else. It's all about bringing a little bit of joy to a child's life and trying to improve their current state and well being (even if only a little).

Originally posted by MCEXPRESS
reply to post by GogoVicMorrow

 

Well, I think it all depends on what she actually used the money for. If she did indeed use it on a gift for her children, then personally, I really see no problem with it. If she used any part of the money for anything regarding her own personal accord, well then that would be both immoral and illegal.

I think the main idea through this whole debacle is that the "shop with a cop" event was meant to be a benefit to the children. If the children wanted a different item for Christmas then I see it as acceptable to exchange those items for something else. It's all about bringing a little bit of joy to a child's life and trying to improve their current state and well being (even if only a little).

If they wanted a scooter - - then why didn't they get it when they went shopping.

Wallet stolen? Anything is possible - - - but that is way too convenient.

reply to post by cycondra

Edit: Posted on a whim. I don't think the post added anything.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by hotbakedtater

 

As far as I can tell the cop bought gifts for her children and she took them and got the cop's money.
I'm siding with the cops, arrest is ridiculous, but not out of the question irrational. I doubt she will be in jail long.
This is a lot coming from me too, because I really don't care for cops.

I feel the need to clarify that the cops don't buy the gifts out of thier own pockets, Walmart donates the gift cards and gets tons of free advertising and publicity for it.
A couple of years ago in a neighboring county a cop used a bunch of these gift cards for personal use. Gave some to his friends as gifts, gave one to his mother... total was close to $11,000. He was suspended with pay, then fired. Collected unemployment for six months after that, then was rehired by the same police department. It didn't make the news, but my mother knows his mother, so she told us what happened.
I'm not personally on assistance, but I know lots of people who are. Most of them sell some of thier food stamps at 50 cents on the dollar to people who get turned down by the poverty nazis who run these programs so they can buy other things they need like gas or diapers or firewood. There aren't any programs here that provide those. They don't feel good about it, but don't know what else to do. But it's not for drug money.
So maybe it was a sleazy thing to do, but maybe she kept some of the gifts and just returned enough to get what she needed.

Man...it appears that just because this mother is apparently in need of/on assistance she is a "grinch" and a "druggie"....and just like the "officer" whose feelings were hurt she is the lowest of the low...a terrible mother and person....so it appears the bb consensus is.

She even gave her side of the story, if it is true....I came up with that possibility of duplicate gifts, etc. a few days ago...it still doesn't matter, eh?

This is the attitude that truly sickens me. Guilty until proven innocent. That simple, or is it? Any one of you could be next. This is what happens when people talk to be heard instead of communicating with one another...and it is on this action TPTB will call to boink anyone they can.

Sad...very very sad...

My first post was emotional, but valid I believe. And I do agree that there is a descent chance she was totally selfish in her actions. But I will just come out and say that I think people do horrible things (and wonderful things) all the time. And these things, if these horrible things are socially acceptable or just happen to have negative effects outside of the consequences that people can perceive, nobody bats an eye. Naturally, of course, but still lamentable. Plus, everybody is in different life situations, and they simply don't know how they would behave if they were in somebody else's shoes. And this is ironic that I type this, I know, but they then go on websites like this and formulate some manufactured paragraph casting judgment from an ivory tower. So cliche that it is almost like web-bot could have written it. Shoot fiery arrows at the police or at the woman. Doesn't matter. I guess we just have to blame somebody for the ills of this world. All of us, at least in part, thinks we could maybe have done better, or have lived in a better world. So what better way to prop up our egos than to discuss something that lets us blame somebody, and for something relatively petty at that. If it weren't for so and so's behavior, and the ramifications thereof, we would be one step closer to utopia. Brand someone with a scarlet letter, and you think their behavior will ever change? Of course not. But then we couldn't keep up the drama of tragedy for our own personal amusement, could we?

This is just one of those threads meant to incite anger anyway. Either blame the cops or blame the woman. It is an unfortunate situation all the way around. The cop has every right to feel wronged. But my intuition tells me this type of thread serves no purpose anyway. It just ends up being a water cooler bitchfest.

Edit: "talk to be heard instead of communicating" That is so well put. I picture a lot of people on these sites pretending they are king or queen of the world yelling from a white megaphone with a response practiced mentally in order to sound like some psuedo-intellectual talking head. Detached and insightless. And I know I am being harsh, but we all come to these sites to have our ideas expressed, and I believe these are valid. Not saying I am perfect by any means either. I fall into these traps all the time. But I can't sit here and read this and not express it how I perceive it.

Once again, this needs to be looked upon on a case-by-case basis as you cannot generalize across the board. There may be some legit people who have done this due to their children starving rather than seeing them ride a new bicycle.

I'm sure that a wise judge would look into past records this woman may have of any similar criminal behavior or substance dependency to serve as better judge of character when rendering a legal decision.

Ironically though, if she is the type that does this kind of selfish acts without regards to her children -- you can rest assured that is the very same type that screams discrimination to obtain free legal representation by a civil liberties lawyer so that in the end, both parties drain more from the "system".

OP, please show some gentlemanly respect for police officers. The terminology used in this thread is common of street hoodlums, not of innocent people who have being unjustly treated by a minority of abusive officers.

reply to post by LadySkadi


I stand 10% corrected!

90% of that code refers to giving a check to an entity knowing you don't have the funds to honor said check. I see no way how this plays a part in this case. The law is far from vague, but it seems like there is no law against what she did so they find one that vaguely fits.

Either way. This happened all the time when I was young. We would get gifts and my parents would exchange them for cash to pay bills or buy food. Sure I didn't understand it too much then, but I am glad they did it now. I would much rather eat than have toys.

I am not saying this is the case, but good god, the "jump to conclusions" in this thread are disgusting.

Victim-less my fanny!

If this person had not entered/registered/signed up for a chance at this program (Im sure they don't just pick folks out of the phone book) then another family would have gotten those gifts. Furthermore lets look a year into the future and see if that program gets yanked over something like this.

I am normally anti establishment but in this case I think she got exactly what was coming to her.

(Reminds me of a job I once had where the boss bought everyone a turkey for Tday and as he was driving home saw turkeys scattered along the freeway.....people wondered why he was a mean boss after that.)

Originally posted by cycondra
Shop with a Cop, haha never thought i'd see those words on this site. I used to work for these programs, traveling to different cities all over the country calling and raising the donations for this specific program. And while i "worked" there the money went like this.

me - 20% of anything I raise

my boss - 10% of anything I raise

my boss's boss - 20% of anything I raise

The F.O.P gets 50% and in all my time doing it I never saw them using the money solely for the kids, it was usually more like buying a new grill for the lodges kitchen take the kids with whatevers left.

The program was usually set up to spend $120 per child, and there were many times we would raise over $100,000 and then a few weeks later watch the cops take 10 kids total shopping.

The woman returning the gifts is probably the last thing to get angry about regarding this program.

Thank you Cycondra! Most people don't know that the most of the money they give to charity goes into an administrators pocket. Although I'm extremely poor myself, I do solicit donations just prior to christmas for a particular organization that's ran by volunteers and does not accept federal funding. Therefore they don't have to throw kids out the second they turn 18, and 100% actually goes to the cause. It's one of the few things I can feel good about.

reply to post by MCEXPRESS


Thanks for that part of the story.

I still doubt her. IF her story is true, she could have returned the duplicates and kept the presents the cops gave her kids. They'd have no recourse. But it's looking to me like she stole these gifts from her kids. They were given to her KIDS, not to her.