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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
‘Princess’ showed
royal touch in crimeWHEN I covered crime for a living I really hated petty criminals. The way I figured it, once you've made the decision to become a criminal, you should pursue it with all of the energy and commitment of pursuing a career in the law-abiding world.
It bothered me how little appreciation many criminals had for their vocation; how little they understood the grand history and traditions of the criminal lifestyle; and their lack of recognition of legendary wrong-doers who came before them.
To make the decision to toil in the underworld and then become someone who knocks over gas stations or old ladies at bus stops is like getting a degree in finance and becoming a toll-booth operator. It shows a aggravating lack of initiative.
That's why, in a weird, twisted way, I admired Ronald Rewald, the polo-playing rake who took mostly greedy and gullible Honolulans for more than $20 million in a run-of-the-mill Ponzi scheme in the 1980s.
And that's why Abigail Roberts, a cafeteria worker from Chester, Pa., has won a place in this old police reporter's heart.
Willie Sutton, the 1930s gardener-turned-criminal, said he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." Abigail Roberts (nee Kuheana) looked around and decided that the IRS, not banks, is where the money is today. In a move that would have wowed Willie and regaled Rewald, she got the IRS to write her a refund check for more than $2 million. That, on a joint tax return showing she and her husband had only earned $4,715 for the year.
THE WAY SHE did it was to file her return using the social security number of Abigail Kawananakoa, the wealthy Hawaiian heiress to the Campbell Estate.
Roberts, who waits tables at a small Pennsylvania university cafeteria, claims to be a Hawaiian princess and is entitled to proceeds from Campbell Estate and the former Bishop Estate. She was caught earlier after getting a fraudulent tax refund from Bishop Estate for $38,000.
Roberts may have a mental problem and an obsessive compulsion to illegally appropriate large amounts of money from native Hawaiian institutions via the IRS, sccording to reports, but you have to hand it to her, she is no petty criminal. The energy and commitment she's put into her chosen occupation on the wrong side of the law is amazing. Had she employed that kind of entrepreneurial zeal to the cafeteria business, I bet we'd see Abigail Robert's Royal Hawaiian Restaurants across the country today.
Look. Thievery is a bad thing. I'm not condoning it. All I'm saying is that you have to admire, in a weird way, someone trying to be the best that they can be, even if that involves stealing a couple of million dollars that you know you are going to have to give back. I don't know if Abigail Roberts is a princess or not, but I suspect she'd be treated like criminal royalty on her cellblock.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com