Jury pays maid’s fine after convicting her of stealing rings

FAIRFAX, Va. – A Virginia jury has chipped in to pay the fine of a maid it convicted of stealing three rings from a house she was cleaning.

Jury foreman Jeffery Memmott tells The Washington Post that he gave 19-year-old mother of two Sandra Mendez Ortega $80 the jury collected after it convicted her of felony grand larceny. The trial was in July. Sentencing was Dec. 8 in a Fairfax County court.

The jury fined Mendez Ortega $60, her daily pay as a maid. Memmott says “the general sentiment was she was a victim, too,” and had made a youthful mistake.

The case began when Lisa Copeland discovered her rings, worth at least $5,000, missing in September 2016. Copeland says she was outraged, and “I didn’t think $60 equated to the crime at all.”

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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com