Thin Line Between Crime and Sloth

From out of the Tampa Bay area in Florida comes a story of a young man who appeared to be embezzling money from his employer, a phone company called MetroPCS. He was responsible for taking MetroPCS' deposits to the bank, but after a while it became apparent they weren't getting there. Investigators soon found a total of $18,000 in bank deposits stashed in the young man's closet. That represented two weeks' worth of deposits for the company.

He was charged with grand theft, a felony. But at his trial, he came up with an excuse: It wasn't that he was stealing the money, it was simply that he hadn't had a chance to get to the bank yet. We've all had days like that, haven't we? Or weeks like that, as in this case.

The judge apparently had, because the man pleaded his case down to the misdemeanor charge of petit theft. He got away with a year's probation and 50 hours community service. And, presumably, a new habit of going to the bank on time.