LUXURY LIFE BY CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 23

LUXURY LIFE BY CRIME.

ADVENTURESS AND BIGAMIST. Described as an adventuress and a bigamist, Dora Rigley, 23, a servant, pleaded guilty at Marylebone to stealing £375 belonging to her employer, Mr. Laurie Cohen, commission agent, of Wymering Mansions, Mania Vale, W. Mr. Hill, prosecuting, said that while Mr. Cohen was in the bathroom the woman took £$75 from his pocket and absconded. She bought herself two fur coats, a gold watch, a platinum ring, and a large quantity of dainty and expensive clothing, valued at £175. The police traced her to Wakefield, and she confessed that she had only £100 of the money left. She refused to disclose what had become of the remaining £ 100. Clever Thief. Detective-Sergeant Parker, said that Itigloy was a very clever thief, who. when she had monry. posed as a daughter of wealthy people and lived in luxury at first-class West End hotels. She started her criminal career in 1019 when she was only 15. She stole raincoats, and being bound over, she was before the court again within ten days for stealing clothing. Again she was bound over. Six months later she received a month for stealing clothing, and on her release married a foreigner and was sentenced to seven days for an offence under the Aliens Act. In l'J2l she received a month for stealing money.

Afterwards she returned to Leeds, her native city, and there received three months for stealing. In 1924 she was sentenced to four months for stealing money, and last rear she received eight months at the Surrey Assizes for larceny and bigamy. She had two children which her parents were looking after. Rigley was sentenced to six months' hard labour and fined £100 or an additional three months, the magistrate saying that if 6he behaved herself she would be let out before her expected child arrived.