Wealthy Dentist’s Wife Who Hired Shoplifter Gets Jail Time

Saying he wanted to teach a lesson in humility, a judge on Friday sentenced the wife of a wealthy dentist to 15 days in jail and 120 hours of service to the poor for her part in a shoplifter-for-hire case.

Judy Dick, convicted of paying a “personal shoplifter” to steal expensive items from a Dayton’s department store, also must pay a $5,000 fine and was placed on five years’ probation.

Dick was accused of paying about $950 for about $7,000 in merchandise stolen from the store. Prosecutors said Dick wrote out a list of items to “order” from the shoplifter, an admitted crack addict who became the state’s star witness.

“For you and your son to give the impression that you’ve been the victims of the press, the victims of police, seems to me a little bit outrageous,” Ramsey Country District Court Judge Salvador Rosas told Dick.

Dick’s husband and two grown children also were arrested after a police sting, in which the admitted shoplifter and an undercover Dayton’s security agent went to the Dicks’ home with stolen goods.

The trial in July ended in a single conviction against Dick, attempting to receive stolen goods. The jury acquitted husband Gerald Dick and daughter Stacy Zehren, and Rosas dismissed charges against the son, James Dick, after ruling that late disclosures of evidence by police prejudiced his defense.

Rosas denied Dick’s attorney’s motion to dismiss the verdict or grant her a new trial and ordered her to begin her sentence Oct. 6. Peter Applebaum, Dick’s attorney, plans to appeal.