Melissa Bergman was also arrested last year for stealing the credit card of man she had sex with in a hotel.
A suburban housewife in Ohio says she went on a two-day crime spree because she was "bored" and had "nothing to look forward to in life."
The 30-year-old mother of two young children stole 28 packages from the porches of her neighbors last July, sometimes with her children in tow, she told authorities in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason.
Melissa Bergman pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but was found guilty on 12 theft counts and sentenced to 30 days in jail last month. Part of her sentencing was that she issue a public apology on Facebook.
Noting that she lived in a $475,000 home and lacked little in terms of comfortable living, Bergman also posted a mea culpa on the Mason and Deerfield Township Neighborhood Group site.
"I am terribly sorry for my misconduct and the theft of packages that happened in July of last year," Bergman wrote. "Though, I was not on drugs, I was admitted the the psych ward before the stealing began for trying to commit suicide. I [was] given multiple medications but in no way am I saying this is the cause to why I did what I did,"
She is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and may be suffering from PTSD, she said.
But this is not her first run-in with police.
In November, she was arrested on theft and misuse of a credit card after allegedly stealing a man's credit card after a sexual encounter with him in a hotel room, police said. She went on a spending spree at a Walmart store, according to authorities.
Bergman was ordered to complete a veterans intervention program rather than face trial, according to local reports.
In an interview with WLWT-TV, Bergman said she started stealing delivery packages after finding a box addressed to her neighbor on her porch.
"So I drove to the person's house and I said, 'Hey, I got this package. It's not mine.' He had three other packages on his doorstep, so he took the package and he closed the door, and I'm like, 'Oh, he doesn't want these,' so I took one, and I put it in my car," Bergman said. "That's when the urge started getting worse and worse and worse, and I couldn't control it," she said.
The next day, she put her children in her minivan and went out again, she said.
"That's when we went all day and just took boxes," Bergman said. "I pulled right into the driveway, walked right up to the door, didn't look for security cameras and just grabbed a box when I saw it."
She was arrested after home security cameras identified her vehicle, authorities said, and she confessed her actions to deputies who took her into custody.
She also has another theft case pending in nearby Liberty Township for allegedly stealing a package off a porch, authorities said.
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