Theater Thief Stole $70,000 a Week

The Hartford Courant reports Anthony Johnson, a man who wormed around in movie theaters stealing women’s credit cards, has been convicted of fraud and identity theft. He’d been doing it with accomplices since at least 2007, when he got out of prison after a case involving a stolen diamond. Here’s how…

The accomplice, who agreed to cooperate with authorities, said Johnson, of Philadelphia, typically worked with women accomplices. They bought tickets to motion pictures likely to be popular with female audiences and chose seats from which they could watch how women in the audience stored their pocketbooks.

Then they’d slip under the seats, snatch cards from wallets, and put them back in their purses. Accomplices told the court “he had to settle for $30,000 or $40,000 on a bad weekend.” He could face decades in jail.