One of the more pathetic stories out of the Bush administration was the 2006 arrest of Claude Allen, Jr., Bush's Domestic Policy Advisor, on felony charges related to a form of shoplifting known as "refund fraud."
Slate:
News today may shed light on the mystery of Allen's resignation (weeks earlier.) According to the Montgomery County Police Department, Allen was arrested yesterday and charged in a felony theft and a felony theft scheme. According to a department press release, Allen conducted approximately 25 fraudulent "refunds" in Target and Hecht's stores in Maryland. On Jan. 2, a Target employee apprehended Allen after observing him receive a refund for merchandise he had not purchased. Target then contacted the Montgomery County Police. According to a source familiar with the case, Target and the police had been observing Allen since October 2005.
Allen is charged with practicing a form of shoplifting called "refund fraud."
Here is DarkSyde's diary on the subject at that time:
A Little Abstinence, a little Shoplifting.
Today, in a tragic footnote to this sordid tale, Claude Allen III, 20, Allen's son, was charged with first degree murder.
Gazette Newspapers:
The Gaithersburg man accused of hacking another man to death with a hatchet may have committed the act in a dispute over drug sales, court records show.
Montgomery County police arrested Claude Alexander Allen III early Friday, and charged him with first-degree murder.
On Tuesday, while advising Allen via a video monitor in District Court in Rockville that he had been charged with first-degree murder, Judge Patricia L. Mitchell told him that the maximum penalty for the crime was the death sentence.
The news elicited a sob from one of the half-dozen family and friends who had come to the bond hearing to support Allen.
There isn't much to add here except to express sadness for the Allen family and to offer condolences to the victim.