Brooklyn Museum Swindler Arrested

We can add to our collection of kick-them-while-they’re-down-museum-thieves this week. Following the arraignment of Ruth Sons early last month, she who swiped around a million dollars from the Tucson Museum of Art, former employee Dwight Newton was recently picked up for stealing almost that much from the Brooklyn Museum. Working as their payroll manager, Newton wrote himself fake paychecks for the past three years, banking a ton in the process from a museum who recently had to lay off a batch of their staff due to troubled finances. Way to go, Dwight. Let’s hope any of your former co-workers that you want to call as character witnesses didn’t get pink slips. Here’s a bit:

Starting in 2005, the complaint said, he created a payroll profile for a fictitious employee with the name “Brooklyn Museum” or “Brooklyn” and subsequently issued checks that went into his personal account. The theft was discovered during a routine annual review of payroll documents, the museum said. Mr. Newton was arrested and charged on Thursday and was released on bond.

People, if you have to thieve, can we ask you to lay off the museums for a little while? They’re having a tough enough time as it is. Just keep it to big corporations, the government, and wealthy, easily-conned widows for now, okay?

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