Shmuck: Judge Throws the Book at Thomas Pilaar

The very first historic evidence of libraries comes from Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C. After that, Greeks, Persians and Europeans continued to build and develop more sophisticated versions. All of this information is likely contained in books at your own local public library – unless, of course, they were stolen by...
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The very first historic evidence of libraries comes from Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C. After that, Greeks, Persians and Europeans continued to build and develop more sophisticated versions. All of this information is likely contained in books at your own local public library – unless, of course, they were stolen by Thomas Pilaar.

On July 8, the 34-year-old Denver man was sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay $53,549 in (library?) fines for checking out about 1,400 books, tapes, CDs and DVDs from libraries in Denver and Douglas counties, Aurora and Littleton, and then selling them or trying to sell them on Craigslist and elsewhere online.

When Pilaar was arrested in 2007, he had about 500 items in his possession and seven different library cards under his name and various others, police said.

That’s a lot of reading material, and he’ll need it in the slammer.

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For previous Shmucks, click here.

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