Notorious 86-year old jewel thief pleads guilty to stealing a diamond necklace in Georgia
An 86-year-old jewel thief whose decades of exploits include crimes at home and abroad — including the 2013 theft of a diamond ring from a Palm Desert store — pleaded guilty today to a shoplifting charge for trying to steal a diamond necklace from a Georgia mall.
Doris Payne’s latest arrest came in December when she tried to steal the necklace valued at nearly $2,000 from the Von Maur jewelry store at the Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody. Payne was sentenced in Dekalb County Superior Court to three years probation in addition to house arrest and was banned from malls in the Atlanta area.
Payne’s six-decade criminal career, which was detailed in a 2013 documentary, “The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne,” includes a conviction for swiping a 3.5-carat, $22,500 ring from El Paseo Jewelers.
She had been on probation for felony theft in a Los Angeles case when the crime in Palm Desert occurred on Oct. 21, 2013. The ring she stole was recovered at a second-hand jewelry dealer in Palm Desert the following month.
Riverside County sheriff’s detectives identified Payne in the El Paseo case using images captured a few days before at a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Palm Desert, where a security guard recognized her from a 2010 theft arrest.
In April 2014, Payne pleaded guilty to one count each of burglary and grand theft and was sentenced to four years in custody and was to serve half of the time in jail and the other half under supervision. However, Payne met the criteria to be “fed-kicked” — released because of jail overcrowding — and was let out of a Riverside County jail on July 8, 2014, and turned over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
She last appeared in a Riverside County courtroom in October 2014 for violating the terms of her probation, with her lawyer claiming Payne did not intentionally fail to report to a probation officer but was confused between the terms of her two probations.
She was also scheduled for an Indio court hearing in August 2015 for again violating her probation but failed to appear, leading a judge to issue a warrant for her arrest.
Along with thefts in Greece, France, Britain and Switzerland, Payne has convictions for crimes committed in Santa Monica, San Diego, and Costa Mesa.
