The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 - Jeffrey Toobin [45]
Jail seems a certainty for the duo, given the laundry list of criminal charges, including identity theft, terroristic threats, conspiracy and unlawful use of a computer. If convicted on all counts, Ed and Jocelyn could face decades in prison. So far, the police have turned up five alleged victims, and estimate the crime spree at $100,000. But the investigation is expected to turn up more victims and money. And now that the FBI is looking into the case, federal charges loom on the horizon.
Today Jocelyn is semifamous—though, perhaps, not in the way she’d hoped. When she plunged through the reporters outside the courthouse, she pulled her hoodie over her face; Ed snuck out a back door. Jocelyn’s friends, meanwhile, rushed to exact revenge on the woman who had been a source of fascination and resentment. One Drexel classmate put up a vitriolic Facebook page: “She goin’ to jaaail!” And they wasted no time trashing Jocelyn in the media. Chief among her detractors was Sallie Cook, who, moments after hearing of Jocelyn’s arrest, texted her, “How was jail?”
The only words from Jocelyn herself have been meek e-mails to her soldier-boyfriend, Thomas, apologizing for any embarrassment she caused. “From her tone, she’s hurting,” Thomas says. As for Ed, he can’t stop crying. “He’s disgusted with himself,” says Newton.
Still, someone as resourceful as Jocelyn could use this as a launching point, and parlay the whole episode into—who knows?—a nude magazine spread, maybe a reality-TV show. Jocelyn can dream. This is, after all, not just the land of second acts. It’s a land in which notoriety and celebrity are one and the same. Where, with a little ingenuity, a woman with looks, brains and a rap sheet can really cash in. And speaking of cashing in:
“Dr. Phil is flying me out for a taping,” says Sallie Cook, taking a pull off her three-foot hookah. “The media coverage is insane.” She’s sitting in her Marlton, New Jersey, living room, her fifty-inch TV tuned to Jerry Springer while she looks through her trove of Jocelyn photos—all of which have suddenly become valuable. “Ugh, look at this one, what a slut!” she says.
Cook’s no dope; she’s hoping to turn this into something more tangible. “My agent’s telling me we can get, like, $5,000 a picture!” she says. “They can get me, like, fifty grand!” Her eyes twinkle at the prospect, and the sheer unending possibility of it all.
SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY is a freelance journalist living in Philadelphia. She is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, a contributing editor at SELF, and a writer-at-large at Philadelphia magazine; her work has also appeared in GQ, The New Yorker, Reader’s Digest, and Mother Jones. She has earned many awards for her feature writing and reporting, including a National Magazine Award nomination. Her writing previously appeared in Best American Crime Writing 2003.
Coda
This story had everything a reporter could want—a terrific narrative, a larger-than-life character, loads of sexy details—and was great fun to work on. But what drew me to this story was the commentary it offered on our times. Jocelyn and Ed’s lust for the high life spoke to America’s culture of runaway materialism, and to the perverse degree to which we feel validated by our purchases. Their sense of entitlement, and their dedication to living beyond their means, wasn’t far removed from the values so many of us shared by the close of the go-go free-market experiment of the Bush era. In some ways, Jocelyn and Ed’s caper was a last (criminal) hurrah for that gluttonous consumer culture, before we plunged into the current recession.
The feds took over “Bonnie and Clyde’s” case. Ed Anderton pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years. He’d spent his time out on bail working as a landscaper, putting his earnings toward the restitution he now owes. In his appearance before the judge, Ed looked like a man still shocked at what he’d discovered himself capable of. I’m told Ed has cut off contact with Jocelyn, a rejection she finds crushing.
As for Jocelyn Kirsch, her