Dear Robin: I’m Shocked By A Friend’s Criminal Actions

Monday, January 12, 2015

Robin DesCamp, GoLocalPDX Advice Columnist

Dear Robin,

I am furious. A few weeks ago a good friend of mine asked me to go through my closets and my kids’ closets and donate anything we could spare to a holiday clothing drive she was organizing for veterans and their families. I did just that and gave her dozens of very nice items for this “charity.”

Because I donated what used to be my favorite leather jacket, I went on eBay to see if I could find the same brand locally but a newer version. Imagine my surprise when I found my old jacket along with several other items my family donated on her eBay site.

Hoping I was jumping to the wrong conclusion and that maybe she was selling the clothes to raise money for charity, I emailed her with a fake name and asked where a few items came from knowing they came from me. She emailed back saying she had finally gotten around to cleaning out her closets and was selling things to declutter and raise extra money for a trip to Hawaii.

This is not a poor woman. She lives off her ex-husband in a beautiful home and drives a very expensive car. I am absolutely seething. My husband thinks we should press charges. A friend of mine says I should let it go and just dump her. I am not sure. What do you think?

Signed,

June in Portland

Dear Rainy:

Let’s call your friend Shady, because she is.

Apparently Shady has taken the whole “charity begins at home” thing a bit too far. Stealing from friends is low, but theft under the guise of helping the unfortunate is downright odious.

I wanted to make certain before I delivered the advice you see below that I examined the possibility Shady might be going through some sort of traumatic period that can explain this bizarre turn of events. I’m very kind and open-minded that way!

We emailed last week and you told me that she’s always been sort of sketchy (she brags about cheating on her taxes, for example) and tends to be a very selfish and self-absorbed entitlement-minded woman. It’s shocking (shocking I tell you!) that her husband jumped ship.

Rainy, you need to find yourself some better “good friends.”

Let’s take that subject offline and jump into your current problem, which as I see it boils down to this: do you tattle or don’t you? Clearly you should cut this woman from your posse but should you go the extra mile and report her to the police?

I emphatically vote “yes” for this option.

My quick reading of ORS 164.085 tells me that in addition to being a grade “A” horrible person, Shady has committed the crime of “theft by deception.” While in the end I suspect this crime won’t be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, people must be held accountable for their bad behavior in order for us all to get along in what we loosely label a “society.”

If you don’t take any action, Shady is sure to continue ripping people off so she can further solidify her position as a greedy, shifty, lazy liar. I know many people would just let this go, perhaps with a strongly-worded message of reprimand, but I don’t think you should.

Call the Portland Police non-emergency line at 503-823-3333 and tell them what you told me. They should interview you and escalate the matter to the District Attorney.

From there, I can’t say where this case will go – it could be prosecuted or it could be dropped – but at the least Shady will have the lovely experience of trying to explain to the authorities why she steals from friends in the name of charity while driving her BMW around Dunthorpe.

Another option you can pursue simultaneously is to sue her in small claims court. Again, this is less about making you whole than making her answer for her crime.

You told me she solicited these items verbally and you did not have any paperwork so it’s really her word against yours. For that reason, I don’t want you to expect too much from the criminal or civil judicial system, but rather to look at your efforts as a way to hold Shady answerable for her behavior.

In addition, stop mucking around with fake email accounts and confront her directly in writing via your own email. There are two reasons for this:

1. You will need to prove you attempted to resolve the matter before bringing it to small claims court; and
2. You may elicit an admission from her in response to your email that you can give to the police and the small claims court.

Here’s some additional advice that you didn’t ask for but I’ll give you anyway: next time you make a charitable donation, put some thought and research into it. There has been a significant rise in charity rackets in the past few years, especially related to “charities” that purport to help veterans.

Some are out-and-out scams, while others are technically legitimate but spend an obscenely low number of pennies per donated dollar on the intended beneficiaries.

Any charity that spends more than 30-35% of your donation on its own costs should give you pause. Oregon Food Bank, Oregon Community Foundation, Mercy Corp, and the Oregon Humane Society are all great examples of charitable organizations that spend much more money on the causes they support than they do on overhead such as salaries, rent, travel and the like.

If you are able to recover anything from Shady, I think it would be nice for you to donate those proceeds to a highly reputable organization in a make-the-universe-right sort of gesture.

Lastly, when considering how to be altruistic consider donating something that no organization, valid or otherwise, can ever really squander: your time. There are countless ways you can help others in a more direct and present manner than just writing a check or donating items.

I recently spent a Saturday morning at the Oregon Food Bank and I spend several uncompensated hours every week assisting people with issues associated with divorce…except it isn’t uncompensated, because the pride and joy I feel when I do this work holds far more value than any check I could take to the bank.

Poet Khalil Gibran touched upon this in his poem “Giving.”

“Then said a rich man, ‘Speak to us of Giving.’ And he answered: You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.'”

Former Portland lawyer and current Portland big mouth Robin DesCamp, is the Velvet Sledgehammer of Truth, smashing through socially acceptable niceties to tell you how to live your life, and why. She blogs at www.askdescamp.com. Write to her at [email protected]. Photo credit: Andrea Doolittle