Courtesy of Newsday

 

Diane McCloud's 15-month jail sentence was suspended so she could get a life saving heart transplant, but the judge's sympathy ended after McCloud plead guilty to shoplifting.

A sticky-fingered Long Island woman who had been freed from jail so she could get a heart transplant may have given up a second chance at life - all for some diet pills and Crest Whitestrips.

Diane McCloud, 47, of Hempstead, showed up at court Friday for a hearing in her previous case and was arrested and jailed for stealing about $500 in toiletry items from a CVS store in July.

The CVS caper came after a judge halted a previous 15-month sentence for a petit larceny rap in January so she could get on a waiting list for a transplant.

It seemed like McCloud, who has end-stage heart disease, had gotten away with the CVS theft - until the stunning and potentially life-threatening reversal of fortune in Nassau County District Court.

Judge Francis Ricigliano, who had sprung her on the previous sentence, was furious she had shown him up a second time - and tossed her in jail.

"The heart transplant is off the table," said her lawyer, Leonard Isaacs, explaining that as an inmate, she no longer qualifies for the Medicaid that would have covered a transplant.

McCloud, who could be heard sobbing in court, travels with an I.V. drip that keeps her heart pumping.

She had been going to screenings at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan to get on a heart transplant list there.

"I don't know if she can medically survive another year. I hope she does, but it looks bleak," Isaacs said. "It's not the judge's fault. He was kind by giving her an opportunity to get a heart transplant."

After Ricigliano let McCloud out of jail, he had a change of tune in the spring when her doctors told the district attorney she was still smoking, a habit she had picked up when she was 13.

"I will resentence you to the maximum amount of jail, without any problem," he said then.

She was due in court Friday to present an affidavit from her cardiologist saying she was cigarette-free and participating in a smoking cessation program.

She pleaded guilty to the CVS theft and will have another six months tacked onto the remainder of her 15-month sentence, her lawyer said.

McCloud was taken to Winthrop-University Hospital when she complained of chest pains after the court appearance Friday. But she was expected to be rerouted to jail, her lawyer said.