People On Trial For Shoplifting Steal Lunch From Courthouse Cafeteria During Trial Break

[matcom]

<snip>

Richmond Heights police Sgt. Chuck Duffy has long been convinced Joan Hall is a habitual scammer and stealer.

After all, he is the detective who spearheaded the case charging the 65-year-old Westlake woman and two others with bilking department stores out of millions of dollars through shoplifting and merchandise-return schemes.

But even Duffy could hardly believe what he says he saw on Monday. During the lunch break from Hall's trial on a fat pile of felony counts, she and her paramour/co-defendant stole their lunch from the Justice Center cafeteria.

"I got to watch the machine in action," Duffy said Tuesday.

Here's how he described it:

Hall came into the cafeteria and began loading food into Styrofoam take-out containers and placing them into a plastic bag. She then set the containers atop a newspaper rack near the checkout lanes and walked out to the hallway, where she whispered to longtime boyfriend Roger Neff, 75. (Hall claims they're married, which prosecutors dispute.)

Neff wandered idly into the cafeteria and moved the containers a few feet away, to the top of a trash can. Then he and Hall waited a few minutes before Neff swept past and whisked away the bag.

Bemused but astonished, Duffy reported the incident to cafeteria managers, who summoned sheriff's deputies. Minutes later, they found Hall and Neff lunching at a table - the defense table in Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst's courtroom, where the two are on trial.

Duffy and Assistant County Prosecutor James Gutierrez asked Fuerst to revoke the duo's bond. The judge demurred, but told Hall and Neff she had heard about "irregularities" in the cafeteria and ordered them to stay out of it for the rest of their trial.

"You bring your lunch," Fuerst told them.

Duffy couldn't help but laugh at the brazenness, but said the behavior is proof that Hall and Neff are incorrigible.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/117507072646300.xml&coll=2