It looks like former Merry Maid Deborah Ann Diedrich, 38, really did show up for her Nov. 1 sentencing hearing on theft charges with a stolen purse in her hand.
So ruled Judge Brooke Jackson of the state district court in Jefferson County on Monday, slapping Diedrich with three years in state prison.
Diedrich claimed she bought the black-leather Libaire handbag at Goodwill for about $5.
But one of her theft victims, Beth Schroppel, 48, said it came from her closet. And Diedrich previously confessed to stealing other items from Schroppel’s home.
Schroppel provided a Nordstrom receipt for the purse, which cost $160. Nordstrom provided a statement saying it sold the handbag exclusively in Colorado in 2001. How’s that for customer service?
Diedrich’s boyfriend and daughter testified that they saw her buy the purse at Goodwill in Golden.
Unfortunately, the receipt Diedrich provided to the court was from Goodwill in Colorado Springs, not exactly bolstering their testimony.
Diedrich already had pleaded guilty to stealing from nearly a dozen Merry Maid customers in Conifer, Evergreen and Golden. But somehow, she just couldn’t come clean on this one purse. Maybe she really believed it was hers.
“I think she has stolen so much stuff, she just can’t keep track of it all,” Schroppel told me after the hearing.
Too bad she had to bring that purse to court Nov. 1. Judge Jackson sentenced her then to only eight months in the county jail with work release.
At that hearing, Diedrich tearfully told the judge that she could not return thousands of dollars’ worth of goods she’d stolen from Merry Maids customers because she’d pawned it all to feed her family.
The judge ordered Diedrich to pay restitution and then sent her on her not-so- merry way to the county jail.
As a deputy clicked on the cuffs, Diedrich asked permission to hand her purse to her mother. Apparently, the county jail is no place for a stylish handbag. The deputy allowed Diedrich to make the handoff. That’s when the screaming started.
“That’s my purse!” cried Schroppel, a retired schoolteacher. “Excuse me, your honor, that’s my purse! That’s my purse! Out of my closet! God, I can’t believe this!”
The judge rescinded Diedrich’s sentence before she could be hauled away.
He then reopened testimony Monday to determine whose purse it was.
It’s an unfortunate incident for Memphis, Tenn.-based Merry Maids,the nation’s largest chain of housecleaners. The company sends 8,000 maids into more than 300,000 homes in North America each month, and it advertises that its employees are carefully screened.
At the initial sentencing hearing, Karen Jahla, 61, manager of the Merry Maids division in Evergreen, asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence. She said Diedrich robbed the company of its trust and reputation.
Don Slifer, vice president of market development for Merry Maids, told me then that the company does everything that can be done to prevent theft.
Diedrich did not have a prior criminal record.
Diedrich’s customers even said she did a pretty good job … cleaning, that is. One couple even testified that they were so pleased with Diedrich’s work that they gave her a tip. She gratefully accepted, they said. A few hours later, they realized their jewelry was missing.
As a columnist, I often turn to experts to help me put these sorts of things in perspective. On Monday, I called Mac Clouse, director of the Reiman School of Finance at the University of Denver.
I thought I would get Clouse to say something about business ethics, the damage a dishonest employee can do to a reputable business or whether there is anything business-page readers might learn from this one isolated Merry Maids case.
“We used to use Merry Maids,” Clouse told me. But then, one day, a bag full of coins disappeared from his closet.
“We had to ask ourselves,” he said, “‘Who else had been in here but the Merry Maids people?”‘
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to Al at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-820-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
