In 1986, when she was in her early 20s, she got a ride from an acquaintance on her first day working at the John Wanamaker store in King of Prussia. It turns out that he had stolen merchandise from J.C. Penney, she said. She wound up with first-degree misdemeanor convictions for retail theft and receiving stolen property. In 1998, she was convicted for leaving the scene of an accident, a fender-bender, in which no one was hurt. "I was scared," she said, because she didn't have insurance documents.