If you saw her, you likely wouldn’t suspect that the 86-year-old, elegant and well-spoken woman with white hair is a major criminal. But Doris Payne, who was arrested in Atlanta on Tuesday, is one of the most prolific jewel thieves of all time.

Payne was just arrested for trying to steal a $2,000 necklace from a department store by slipping it into her back pocket. But she has been an active thief since she was a teenager, and by the early 1970’s she was a jet-setting criminal touring the world. She has stolen expensive diamonds from Paris, Milan, London, and Tokyo, and has a rap sheet longer than most. In 2013 she was arrested for stealing a pricey ring in Los Angeles. The president of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance, John Kennedy, said to the LA Times at the time that he had seen her list of accomplishments. “It was so long. You can’t believe how long it was–it was like 50 pages.”

In 2013 she got away with stealing a $22,500 diamond ring in a shop on the exclusive El Paseo row in Palm Desert, Los Angeles. But the next day a security alert was released, saying that Payne had been spotted at the local Saks Fifth Avenue store, and the store’s staff figured out that she had been there the previous day. They then realized that the ring she had tried on was missing. When she was arrested, she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in jail and two years under supervision. The judge also ordered her to stay away from all jewelry stores.

Doris Payne, 86, legendary jewel thief with six decade career, strikes again outside Atlanta https://t.co/LEwjdw2fce

— Joseph L. Savitz III (@JoeySavitz) December 14, 2016

Due to her age and long “career,” Payne has become something of a celebrity thief, starring in a 2013 documentary called “The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne.” She has also been featured on TV and in newspapers countless times. The jeweler in the store that she stole from in 2013, Raju Mehta, mainly laughed about the incident. According to the LA Times, he said: “I was laughing because we have a lot of celebrities come by. And now we say we’ve got a celebrated thief too.”

At this point, it’s an honor to have your jewelry stolen by Doris Payne, tbqfh

— My Prez Is Still Blk (@FeministaJones) December 14, 2016

Payne is currently being held at DeKalb county jail in Atlanta. Sonjia Williams, a spokeswoman for Payne, said that she was shocked to hear the news of the arrest: “I have no idea why she would go out and do this. She knows better.” But Matthew Pond, who co-directed and co-produced the documentary about her, said that he was not very surprised. He stated:

The documentary we made about her focused on a crime she was accused of in San Diego and during her sentencing, as sad as he was to have to send her to prison, the judge said, ‘She’s the Terminator. She won’t stop,’

He added that Payne is a bit of an actress who loves the attention and easily gets bored. Sometimes she admits to stealing but sometimes she totally denies it. He described her as a person who started doing bad things for a good reason and then started liking it. And that seems true. “I don’t have any regrets about stealing jewelry,” she said in the documentary. “I regret getting caught.”

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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If I were to ever become a thief, my first choice of items to steal probably would not be pasta. I suppose perhaps if I was a really hungry thief and there was a plate of spaghetti sitting right there on a counter with nobody looking at me it would be a different story. But in general, I cannot see myself ever joining the illegal pasta game. So I feel it is pretty safe for me to say that I would definitely never try to steal a trailer filled with thousands of dollars worth of pasta. (Aside: is there some sort of black market for pasta that would make this worth it? I could always be convinced to change my mind if I had the right motivation.)

Apparently, though, these four guys from New Jersey do not have the same life goals as me. Because they were recently arrested for doing just what I would never do: stealing a trailer full of pasta.

Now, if I just had a need to discuss pasta-related crimes, I could have talked about the guys who got caught after robbing a Build-a-Burger in New York when the police followed their trail of macaroni salad, which I’m sure they left in a Hansel-and-Gretel-type plan to eventually find their way back to the Build-a-Burger and return their steal. So, thanks for ruining that act of conscience, police.

However, I’m not as interested in how pasta can foil your robbery attempts as I am in how it might influence you to start a life of crime. Thus, the trailer full of pasta theft.

Here is what happened:

Four men stole a trailer of pasta. Said trailer was parked on the street. Said street contained police doing surveillance. The thieves pulled up to the trailer in a car and a tractor. They hooked the trailer to the tractor and tried to drive away where they were no doubt going to fence the pasta for big bucks.

However, this is where the whole “police surveillance” hurt them: this particular trailer had been reported stolen a few days before the tractor pulled up to haul it away. Ergo why a pasta trailer was getting so much cop scrutiny and why it was so suspicious to see four guys attempt to remove it from its parking spot.

The tractor was pulled over and the men were arrested. Police ask that anyone with more information on this crime come forth with it by calling 908-474-8538. But even if you do not have information on this particular crime, if you just have any information on the pasta theft world in general, please contact me. Because it is really a confusing matter to me. I have to ask again, is there a thriving underground pasta ring out there that would make stealing this many carbs worth it? And if so, why? You know you can buy that stuff fairly inexpensively at most grocery stores, right? It just does not seem worth the jail time, if you ask me.

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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