Pennsylvania Official Resigns After 2nd Shoplifting Conviction

HARRISBURG, Pa. — State Agriculture Secretary Penrose Hallowell resigned today after his second conviction for shoplifting a $4.99 cassette tape from a Sears store.

“While I continue to maintain my innocence of the charge involved and plan to appeal the case to the Superior Court, I do not feel, under the circumstances, that it would be fair to you or to the administration to remain in office,” Hallowell wrote in his resignation letter to Gov. Dick Thornburgh.

In January, a district justice found the 56-year-old millionaire farmer guilty of shoplifting for walking out of a Sears store last Sept. 1 with a Boston Pops Orchestra cassette in his pants pocket.

Hallowell then requested a trial in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court, where he was convicted Monday.

Hallowell said he did not intend to steal the tape but absent-mindedly pocketed it while shopping and forgot about it when he paid for another cassette a little more than a minute later. A security camera recorded him glancing to each side before putting the tape in his pocket.

He was fined $25 plus court costs.

Thornburgh, in a letter to Hallowell, said he accepted the resignation “with genuine regret over the circumstances that have precipitated it.”