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83-year-old jewel thief arrested again

PALM DESERT, Calif., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- An 83-year-old career criminal who says she has stolen jewelry the world over has been arrested on charges of trying to steal a $40,000 ring in California.

Doris Marie Payne, who was the subject of a documentary, "The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne," was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of felony larceny, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department said.

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Payne "was implicated in a jewelry theft" at a jewelry store in Palm Desert, Calif., Oct. 21, the sheriff's department said in a news release.

She was released from prison this year after serving 2 1/2 years of a 5 1/2 year sentence for stealing an $8,900 ring from a department store in San Diego.

She told a Los Angeles Times reporter for a story published in 2008 she was in her late 20s the first time she stole a diamond and has lost count of how much jewelry she has stolen.

In the documentary, she says her "methodology of stealing jewelry took me all over the world ... New York, Milan, Paris Rome, London."

During a 2011 court appearance, she told a judge she had "never gloated about stealing. ... I never saw anything to gloat about."

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Payne, who was being held on $45,000 bond, is also to be the subject of a feature film, ABC news said Thursday.

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