Shahra Marsh has been sentenced to 6 years in jail, in the UK, for crimes of fraud, theft and concealing stolen goods. She got away with art, antiques and jewelry totalling around £2million.
Fictional lady thieves abound--a very sexy Marlene Dietrich in Desire, Miriam Hopkins in Trouble in Paradise (directed by Lubitsch in 1932, just before the Production Code strangled film makers), Rosalind Russell with Clark Gable in They Met in Bombay, Barbara Stanwyck as a rather petty criminal (Remember the Night), and Lesley Anne Down in Rough Cut.
But Marsh, who was allegedly born in pre-revolution Iran, had a rather more prosaic method of obtaining her heart's desire--she wrote bad checks to auction houses. Her legal representative said
She is basically an obsessive collector. She understands when she is released from custody she is going to have to earn her living and put up with wearing rather more modest jewellery than she is used to.
And that's really punishment enough, don't you think?
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