TORRANCE, CA (GlossyNews) — An 80-year-old woman with a criminal record stretching back to 1955 has been sentenced to die in state prison for the theft of petty cash from a local temporary staffing office. Activists have criticized the judge’s ruling as overly harsh and unusually cruel. The judge in the case defended his decision saying, “if the rule is three strikes and you’re out, Verdulia has gone down swinging for the last nine innings and it’s time she hit the showers for good”.

Verdulia, who excels at getting caught, has used 27 aliases during the past 55 years and been arrested innumerable times for theft and burglary. On December 19 she added to her arrest record after her haul totalling $898 and some change from the petty cash drawer.

An old hand in the California penal system, Verdulia stunned spectators in the courtroom as she thanked the judge profusely for not sending her to Los Angeles County jail, which she described as unbearable.

Verdulia said, “I don’t like that one. County’s a crap hole. Last time I was there, this Yooper dyke gives me some shit called Biscay cigarettes. Five minutes later, I’m tripping balls. They ain’t got no baked beans in the kitchen, and the chicken fingers taste like a pencil shavings and halibut ass. Which is what the inmates taste like, too.”

Relieved at the judge’s decision to house her in a state facility, Verdulia became uncomfortably overjoyed when the judge pronounced a sentence of three years.

“God bless you,” she repeated to everyone in the courthouse.

“I don’t think you fully understand,” the judge explained after Verdulia settled down. “I gave you three years without eligibility for parole. You’re 80-years-old, you’ve habitually abused cigarettes and crack for decades, you’re malnourished, you have STDs the doctors haven’t found names for yet, and your nose has been bleeding steadily since you came in. Three years is about two more than you have left. Your attorney is entitled to appeal. Which will probably take about three years.”

Verdulia responded by saying she’d be back, and not to count her out yet.

She said to the judge, “I’ve been shitting county food since you were on momma’s milk. I know a thing or two about gettin’ along.”

After the proceedings and Verdulia was hauled away to jail, her lawyer, A. J. Stein, had to catch a ride home with Verdulia’s cousin after he found that he had misplaced his wallet.