BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter/drozek@suntimes.com Mar 16, 2011 7:06PM
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Downers Grove PD mugshot of Frederick Tapley: charged with stealing the rings of a deceased woman. Tapley turned himself into authorities. He pleaded guilty March 16, 2011.
Frederick Tapley needed cash, so he stole the wedding and engagement rings off the finger of a deceased patient at the suburban hospital where he worked, then pawned the jewelry.
He used some of the money he collected to pay his cable TV bill, DuPage County prosecutors said Wednesday as the 37-year-old Romeoville man pleaded guilty to felony theft.
Tapley faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced later this year.
Tapley worked at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove when he stole the rings last July after the 72-year-old patient died there. He took the jewelry while transporting the woman’s body to the morgue, prosecutor Mary Cronin said.
He later sold the rings at a Lansing pawn shop, using a share of the money to pay his cable bill, Cronin said.
The rings — valued at more than $3,000 — later were recovered from the business.
Tapley helped police locate the rings, his attorney said,
“He realized he made a huge mistake,” said attorney George Kallas.
Tapley, who was dismissed from the hospital after his arrest, remains free on bond.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4357141-418/hospital-worker-steals-dead-patients-rings-sells-them-to-pay-cable-bill.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d815517c593e6b3%2C0
Editor's note: ProbateShark's investigators are investigating a similar case of theft of a diamond ring off of a living ward, residing in a nursing home, under the supervision of the Probate Court of Cook County. Even after a relative reported the theft to the GAL, nursing home owners and the court, a report to the police has yet to be made.
Anyone you know in Probate Court resemble this "RatDog"?
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