“It’s not wrong if the person has too much and they’re an asshole. It’s more of a public service,” Mark always said. That’s why they became the Robbin’ Hoods.

Technically, he and his sister Tamara were serial thieves. They stole from wealthy people and corporations. Then they “provided” to unofficial charities of their choosing. They took a maintenance fee, of course. 10%.

It started when Jimmy Douchebag crowed around in 8th grade like he was the king of the school. His name was really Jimmy Deauchamp. But Mark dubbed him Jimmy Douchebag, in the first week of school. He made it a game to steal something of value from Jimmy about once a month. Then he would sell it and pay off someone’s lunch debt or library fine, or buy something he knew another kid needed.

One time he stole Jimmy’s new Air Jordan’s from the locker room during gym class. He sold them on Facebook Marketplace for $100. That $90 paid off 7 lunch debts.

Jimmy stupidly left his iPad on the bleachers one day during lunch. That transaction took some time to complete. Tamara grabbed it, but they had to find out his username and password. It was worthless unless they could put it back to factory settings. And they needed his AppleID and password to do it. On a whim, Mark stole Jimmy’s wallet. Bingo, Jimmy had several passwords written on a card, including his Apple ID and password. Problem solved.

The iPad brought in $300. Well, $270 after their fee. A week later, the Smithson family received a package with some new school clothes for their 5 year old and 7 year old boys.

As the years went on, Mark and Tamara built a small Robbin’ empire. They even registered a corporation to launder the money. They called it RobHo. It was ostensibly a house cleaning service. In 2021 they reported $178,393.00 in earnings. And 23 rich people were out about $1.7 million in goods and cash.

The last heist was the most lucrative. Jillian Benson, heiress to the Johnson fortune, owned most of the apartment buildings in the area. She contracted RobHo to clean her own house. Mark and Tamara cleaned her house, and cleaned her out of a $500,000 necklace. They had a duplicate made, worth about $200. They replaced it the next time they cleaned. Jillian wore it to a charity event a few months later. It was in the papers. She looked gorgeous. No harm done.

$450,000 in college scholarships helped 8 deserving kids pay for four years of college each.

But this time, they may have gone too far. Someone knows. Mark received an email that said: “I know. And you know what I know. Tomorrow you will put $5k in a trash bag and leave it in the rubbish bin at the Bellwood Park. Or the police get a copy of this.” Attached was a picture of the two of them, holding the necklace when they showed it to their secret buyer. Someone was watching. But who?