He needed to be stripped of more.  He should have had a jail sentence.  That is theft in my opinion.

Simboli, who maintains addresses in Beverly and North Andover, pleaded guilty in Lawrence District Court on Tuesday to a charge of larceny. He was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and write a letter of apology to Gelarderes, a North Andover High School teacher's aide.

Judge Thomas Brennan also sentenced him to one year of probation.

Simboli already paid back the $32,480 winnings to the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission and the money has been rewarded to Gelarderes, a lottery spokeswoman said.

Stealing $32K represents a fairly serious offence a lot of places.  NM prisons are loaded up with prisoners getting free room and board for getting caught with a few grams of this or that powder, or a kilo of this or that herb, so it might well be they guy would have gotten off that light here, too.

Mostly a person has to kill someone or get caught with an illicit drug to have to do hard time these days.  Probably true in Massachusetts, as well.

Jack

Boy, did that guy get away with murder or what!  One year of probation, an apology letter and some community service for stealing $50,000? (which is what the lady won).  What he did was similar to robbing a bank for $50,000 in my opinion.  Everyone is going to hope to get that judge!  If he heard how easy they were going to go on him, no wonder he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty.  The lottery winner must be upset.

No War on Grand Larceny going on, BabyJC. 

No sexy photo ops of the cop crew standing around bags of what he stole.

No Federal money, sniffer dogs, fancy weaponry, fast cars, property confiscated for the Department gonna come out of imprisoning some larcen.

Guy just stole a piece of paper cost someone maybe a buck.  Petty theft.

Jack

He had a good Attorney and showed remorse: got him probation instead of jail time.

It doesn't matter what the customer paid for the ticket, but how much her ticket was worth ($50K).  Also, the creep showed no remorse and further lied by pleading "not guilty" initially (then changed his plea weeks later).  Boy, did he deserve some serious jail time!  The judge's decision is laughable.

Good point on the first part.  But the prisons are full of druggies who showed remorse, minus the good attorney.  The streets, however, are replete with larceny felons who needed neither one.

When a juicy homicide will get a person two to five with good behavior you have to work downward from there for less serious offenses, provided there are no drugs involved..... (some of those have mandatory life w/o parole). 

This guy probably came out way ahead in the game.... might have been doing this for years before someone caught him at it.

Jack

Likely has nothing to do with the judge, BabyJC..... judge is part of a criminal justice system in a state of near-collapse because of the War on Drugs, front loaded with mandatory sentencing, repeat offenders, federal grants, bias in favor of drug cases over crimes with victims.

We wanted a war on drugs.  We got what we asked for.  If we want a war on crimes and criminals involving victims, we're going to have to ask a lot harder because there's no river of money involved.

However, I doubt you and I might begin an impromptu lottery in either of our states but they'd almost certainly find a niche for us in there among the drug offenders.  All a matter of priorities, fundamentally the extension of the wishes of the voters.

Ahem.

Jack

l

the thing i don't understand is how someone who murders someone can get out of jail before someone who does drugs and was caught with them...

As long as the homicide doesn't involve drugs, it's all just a matter of where the citizenry want their criminal justice priorities (dollars) spent. 

An old New Mexico judge a long time ago fined a man $5 and turned him loose for killing another man who'd been threatening him.  Next case a moment later he sentenced horse-thief to hang.  Horse thief pointed this apparent incongruity out to him.

Judge:  "There are men who need killing, but there aren't any horses that need stealing."

Nowadays there aren't any men who need killing, but there are lots of horses that need stealing, so long as neither man, nor horse is involved with forbidden substances.

Jack

Actually, now I think about it, there are a lot of horses that need killing.

And I've heard from reliable sources that some women believe there are men who need stealing.

Maybe there's something 21st century about all this.

Someone besides me will have to decide what judges need. 

If he had pleaded guilty he probably would have gotten serious jail time, however the legal system dictates that he plead not-guilty inorder to get offered some kind of deal with lessor penalties. His attorney and the prosecuter negotiated a plea agreement, which the judge generally rubber stamps inorder to clear the case from his docket.

Not a happy story, although it did not involve an annuity-only game.