Doris Payne is a self-proclaimed international jewelry thief with a love for diamond rings. She faces another felony charge after allegedly stealing another fancy ring. She is also the subject of a new documentary.
Police say the 83-year-old Payne stole a $40,000 ring from a Palm Desert jewelry store.
Dressed in a jail uniform Payne looks nothing like the elegant woman who dressed to the nines, waltzed into jewelry stores intent on committing her crime.
As she once explained in a jailhouse interview: "There's only one thing that makes it work. I knew how to dress. I knew how to behave."
Payne's prolific career of crime has taken her around the world. She reportedly stole her first diamond in her late 20s.
In the documentary film "The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne," she says she once stole a 10.5-carat diamond ring in Monte Carlo.
"There's never been a day that I went to steal that I did not get what I went to do," Payne said.
Payne also reportedly stole jewelry in Greece, England and Switzerland.
In the U.S. she's been in and out prison.
In 1999 she was convicted and sentenced to 12 years after stealing a 5-carat diamond ring in Denver. In 2005, while on parole, she stole a ring worth more than $30,000 in Palo Alto.
She was back before a judge in 2011 in San Diego, where she was sentenced to the five-year maximum for swiping an $8,800 diamond ring. That day in court, she claimed that she regrets her actions: "To say I have no remorse, that's people who don't know me."
In the newly released documentary, she tells a different story: "I don't have any regrets about stealing jewelry. I regret getting caught."
Payne is being held on $45,000 bail. She faces one count of felony grand theft and is expected to be arraigned Thursday.
