Betty Gooch
Posted on 12/13/2004 6:29:12 PM PST by Land_of_Lincoln_John
Betty Gooch's name debuted in the media in the Aug. 6, 2001, issue of the Chicago Automobile Trade Association newsletter, which warned local car dealers to be wary of a little old lady with a sad story and bad check.
Since then, that story and the woman behind it have exploded into something of a media phenomenon, evidenced at the Rolling Meadows courthouse last week as her attorneys gathered before a gaggle of reporters.
All this combined to create a story that was heard as far away as Australia and by as many people as a weekly "Saturday Night Live" audience.
In case you missed the story in the Daily Herald - or the Houston Chronicle, Washington Post or New York Times - Betty Gooch is a 76-year-old woman from Algonquin who, over the course of about four years, wrote 10 checks for a total of more than $200,000 to various car dealerships throughout the Northwest suburbs.
Her story has appeared in New York Post's "News of the Weird," in South Africa's Sunday Times and in a number of Australian newspapers, which reported she had written bad "cheques."
After pleading guilty to two felony charges, including deceptive practice and theft, and one misdemeanor theft charge in three separate cases in Cook and McHenry counties, Gooch was sentenced Thursday to spend three years in prison for the scam, this time for writing bad checks to Elgin Toyota. Counting time served, she should be out in less than a year.
Bill Cunningham, spokesman for the Cook County sheriff's department, said, in his 14 years on the job, he can't remember so many clamoring for an interview with a Cook County jail inmate.
Cunningham began turning down media interview requests, saying the jail's security staff didn't have enough resources to accommodate her "lengthy interview schedule."
The first person on that schedule was David Gray, a free-lance documentary producer hot on Gooch's trail during the summer. Gray said then he planned to sell the documentary to a European television station or Court TV.
He wasn't the only cameraman out to catch her image. At her sentencing hearing Thursday in the Cook County's Rolling Meadows branch court, her attorneys stood before a cluster of cameras from local television stations and newspapers.
For the sentencing hearing that followed Gooch's, that for a drunken driver who hit and killed a widowed highway construction worker, only one cameraman remained.
Gooch has captured the attention of those outside the news industry. In April, after Gooch jumped bail in the McHenry County case, Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live" did a "Weekend Update" segment on Betty Gooch.
Bob Loquercio, owner of Elgin Toyota, said he was "mildly surprised" to see the woman who had given his dealership two bad checks featured on the comedy show.
"Plus, it was funny," he said of the segment.
On MSNBC's "Countdown," anchor Keith Olbermann listed the outlaw granny as one of his "Top 3 Newsmakers" of April 2, 2004.
Gooch was Olbermann's No. 2 newsmaker, sandwiched in between a man dressed as Tigger at Disney World accused of groping a patron, and Luis Colon, an FBI informant charged with stealing $1,200 by hiding it, well, near his colon.
The public may be laughing, but the publicity has been tough on Gooch, her attorneys said.
"Betty has been scorned and ridiculed by the attention she's received in the media," said one of her attorneys, Hal Stinespring. "Betty already has been branded with a scarlet letter A."
There's not actually an "A," but there is her memorable name, Gooch, which has, in the words of her other attorney, Kevin Talbot, "become a verb in our community."
One person who likely hasn't laughed once during this ordeal is Linda Klebecka, Gooch's daughter. On Thursday, before television cameras followed her out of the courthouse, she pleaded with the gaggle of reporters to promise her they would leave her family alone.
"Personally, I want you out of my life," Klebecka said, surrounded by reporters. "Leave us alone, now, please."
Legend: Gooch's name has became a verb, lawyer says
As a dealer, it seems the punishment is a bit light.
Good point. Odd, that the car dealer's side of it has not been portrayed: This article sums it up nicely, but she kept getting breaks (cuz of her age) but then going back to scam some more.
Maybe someone will make a movie of her life then she can be forced to repay the people she stole from.
The dealers lost money even if the cars were recovered.
She looks the old lady who dissed Paulie Walnut' mother, and then paid the price.
Is one of these guys "Paulie Walnut"?
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