Man who stole rings from deceased cancer patient gets two years in prison

Man who stole rings from deceased cancer patient gets two years in prison


BY DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter/drozek@suntimes.com July 7, 2011 1:40PM

Updated: July 7, 2011 2:53PM

A former hospital worker who pawned the wedding and engagement rings he stole from the finger of a deceased patient to pay his cable TV bill was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison.
Frederick Tapley, 37, pleaded guilty earlier to felony theft for taking the rings from 72-year-old Dolores Yukness after she died from complications related to cancer last July at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.
Tapley’s attorney sought probation for the Romeoville man--who told police he was overwhelmed by financial problems that included a mortgage foreclosure when he took the rings valued at more than $3,000.
But DuPage County Judge Daniel Guerin rejected that sentence, noting that Tapley had been convicted of a similar theft at an Oak Park hospital a decade ago and been placed on court supervision--a type of probation.
“It’s a moral affront when the deceased are victimized and you’ve victimized the deceased again and again,” Guerin told Tapley as he imposed the prison sentence. “I think you don’t understand the seriousness of this offense.”
Yukness’ daughter said she was satisfied with the prison term.
“I feel the sentence was extremely fair, given the circumstances, given the emotion of the situation and the gravity of what Mr. Tapley did to my mother,” said Kristen Yukness, who recalled how much her mother valued her engagement and wedding rings as symbols of her long and happy marriage.
Her parents were married for 45 years until her father, William, died of cancer in 2001, Kristen Yukness said.
“Those rings were everything to my mother. She never took them off,” said Yukness, a special agent for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service who called the theft a sign of “disrespect.”
Tapley took the rings while he was transporting the woman’s body to the hospital morgue after she died, prosecutors said.
He later sold the rings for $200 at a Lansing pawnshop and used the cash to pay his cable bill, prosecutor Mary K. Cronin said.
Tapley pleaded guilty in March and faced up to five years in prison.
He helped police recover the stolen rings and repaid the money he received from the pawnship, defense attorney George Kallas said as he asked that Tapley be spared a prison term.
Tapley offered a tearful apology before being sentenced, saying he was “truly sorry” for the theft.
“If there was any way I could take this back, I would. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t remember this,” he said, turning in the courtroom to face Kristen Yukness, who looked away.
Tapley was taken into custody immediately to begin serving his sentence, which likely will keep him behind bars for less than a year.

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http://www.suntimes.com/6391673-417/man-who-stole-rings-from-deceased-cancer-patient-gets-two-years-in-prison.html
 
Editor's note: The judges and lawyers of the Probate Court of Cook County loot the assets of the dead, dying and disabled regularly and yet...no one ever prosecutes them. Why not? Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com