You can make a lot of money, apparently, shoplifting DVDs. Even if all you do is stuff them down your pants and walk out the store. Timothy Sherow, Sr. and his son, Timothy Sherow, Jr., probably made a hundred thousand or more doing so. A not insubstantial haul
Of course, you also run a risk. Like here. In which the father gets over 19 years in prison. (Of course, that's his ninth time back there. Which undoubtedly enhanced the sentence quite a bit.)
Good job, I guess, teaching your "skills" to your son, Dad. He only gets 6 years in prison. Way to go.
Parenthetically, I loved the trial court judge here, Craig Riemer (in Riverside). There's a dispute about jury instructions with respect to two counts of "burglary" based upon Sherow's entry into a pawn shop. The prosecution argues that he's guilty because he entered the store with intent to commit a felony (i.e., selling stolen goods). But the defense says that's not true because there was consent, since the pawn shop owner -- who had sold $100,000 worth of DVDs from this one guy -- knew the items were stolen.
The pawn shop owner testified that it "entered his mind" that the DVDs might be stolen, but didn't really know. So the prosecution an instruction on consent isn't necessary because there's no evidence the pawn shop owners knew that the DVDs were stolen. To which Judge Riemer responds: "Oh sure they did. . . . Was there any direct testimony of that? Of course not. Do I have any doubt of that fact? None whatsoever. Could I think that the jury has any doubt of that fact? I don't think any whatsoever."
Totally true.
