Food Network chef Paula Deen’s former housekeeper Mary Alice White has received an 18-month prison sentence followed by six years of probation after pleading guilty of stealing jewelry from the the home.
According to the Savannah Morning News, White was arrested on May 5th by trying to pawn $18,000 earrings to a pawn shop in Savannah and was arrested the following week for trying to pawn a $7,000 Rolex and a $2,500 bracelet.
Paula Deen’s husband Michael Groover told officers that $100,000 worth of men and women’s jewelry had disappeared from their home from August 1, 2009 through May 1st.
Deen told the judge, “The scars she left behind emotionally can’t begin to be measured. Our hearts are sad. Mary White is the most feared and destroying kind of thief you may ever run up against. Mary was a master at making you think she cares about you. … She used our love and kindness against us”.