Woman Accused of Stashing Coat in Underwear

(Bloomington, Minnesota) On New Years Eve, a 46-year-old woman, Stephanie Travetta Moreland, was accused of felony theft of a $6,500 mink coat. She had stuffed the coat in her underwear.

The gambit didn't work, and an employee asked Moreland what she thought she was doing.

Moreland's response was to hike up her dress and give the employee an eyeful of her bare bottom - but no fur coat.

With the employee suitably dazed and confused, Moreland and her accomplice drove off with a third person. They were pulled over later that day near the Mall of America, arrested and brought in for questioning. Stehlik said Moreland admitted to stealing the coat, but denied that she still had it in her possession.

Moreland was given a pat-down search and submitted to a metal detector test, and then put in a holding cell in her street clothes; standard operating procedure, Stehlik says. There were no female officers on duty at the time, so Moreland, who tips the scales at 270 pounds on a 5 feet 6 inch frame, dodged a more intimate search.

And there the 46-year-old Brooklyn Park woman sat for the holiday weekend, eating, sleeping and visiting the bathroom with the fur coat in her underpants.

On Monday morning, she was interviewed again, and still insisted she didn't know where the coat was. But when the detective told Moreland she'd have to go downtown to Minneapolis to face charges in Hennepin County Court, she came clean. Moreland hiked up her dress and whipped out the coat.

Stehlik was impressed with her ingenuity. The woman had modified her underwear so that, from behind, it didn't look like she was wearing any. The coat, meanwhile, was stuffed in front.

Moreland was booked and released on $10,000 bond.