When making $70,000 a year isn't enough....

There's an old truism that people live up to the level of their income. In the United States, the richest country in the world, more than half of the people live "from paycheck to paycheck." If they get laid off, they have no savings to fall back on. (After all, why should they? It's the government's job to help them out, isn't it? And the fact that the government gets the money to do this from us, the taxpayers... so it's we taxpayers who are helping these deadbeats out...all because they couldn't be bothered to save money for emergencies....)

Okay...too soon into my rant.

The point is this. An archivist at the New York State Libary, who made $70,000 a year, has steadiliy been stealing historic documents from that institution and selling them on Ebay.

Archivist: I stole papers to pay bills

An excerpted paragraph:

"I took things on an as-needed basis to pay family bills, such as house renovations, car bills, tuition and my daughter's credit card problem," Lorello wrote.

He said he took many items last year because his daughter "unexpectedly ran up a $10,000 credit card bill."

Well...gee...you don't think your daughter could have returned whatever it was she bought for $10,000 to lessen her debt a bit? Or got a second job so she could pay off her own bill?

But this is one thing I don't understand about the article. According to the quote above - he stole all this stuff. He says so.

Yet:

Lorello, an archives and records management specialist in the New York Department of Education, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and scheme to defraud and was released on his recognizance. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

Why is he pleading "not guilty" when he's already admitted he took the stuff?

Here's how this will probably play out. He'll plead mental illness...the stress of his life in the education system was just too much for him...he needs understanding, not prison time.

Frankly, I doubt if he'll spend a day in prison...it's a "victimless" crime. Indeed, although he'll probably lose his job you can bet he won't lose his pension....