The Tale of the Sticky-Fingered Paperboy

The Wall Street Journal has got the scoop on a paperboy, er, man, who’s been taking the New York Times for a ride. Michael Holtet, a 50-year-old Wisconsin man, has been arrested in connection with a scheme he concocted in which he embezzled over $220,000 from the New York Times. It seems Holtet, a newspaper deliveryman, decided to invent thousands of alleged NY Times subscribers, pocketing the money the paper paid him to deliver it each day and recycling all of the superfluous newspapers. Holtet faces up to 20 years in prison.

But hey, at least he recycled the papers…

Read the full story HERE.

Do you have a tale of a conniving bandit that would entertain the masses (though not actually defraud them)? Why not use WordHustler to submit your well-plotted short story to the Southern California Review Fiction Prize? Keep the espionage on the page and it may pay off well in real life.