Ohio deli worker faces criminal charges after eating $9,200 worth of stolen ham

While I have plenty of time for a burger, steak or even chicken nuggets, in my opinion, there's nothing like a good bit of ham to break the meat monotony. It's salty, delicious, and can be enjoyed with a variety of cheeses, sauces for a very sophisticated yet sloppy eating experience. What's more, I don't need to wait for it to be cooked to enjoy it.

If I want some ham or prosciutto, I'm going to have to trudge down to my local deli, but you'd never find me working behind the counter at a deli. First of all, I've already got a neat gig writing for you lovely people at Food Envy, but also because I couldn't trust myself not to eat all the ham I was meant to be selling.

It sounds like a weird problem to have, but try telling that to the employee at an Ohio delicatessen, who "is facing felony theft charges after she was accused of stealing $9,200 worth of deli meat." That's... that's a lot of meat. How exactly did this all go down?

A loss prevention manager at the Giant Eagle grocery store in Bolivar, Ohio (70 miles south of Cleveland) got a tip-off that an employee of eight years had been stealing company ham for as long as she'd been working there, claiming she was scoffing them down at a rate of three to five slices per day.

Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Deputy Brian Hale told the Columbus Dispatch that she was charged on Friday with theft, totalling up to $9,200 worth of ham. Occasionally salami. That being said, the Sheriff's Department said that while she's been charged, "felony charges are unlikely."

"While our office did take a report of the issue as requested by the store, no determination of charges has been made. The procedure is to send the report to the Prosecutor's Office and they are the ones to decide. While my office does not have the authority to make the final decision in this case, I do feel confident that once all of the facts are relayed to the prosecutor, felony charges are unlikely."

This is insane, isn't it? Now, some of the more curious of you might be wondering: $9,200 worth of ham is a lot of ham. How much ham was this person eating, exactly? Well, let's crunch the numbers. Now, Giant Eagle's website says that the most expensive slice of ham retails for $9.99 a pound, so let's assume that our ham thief was eating the good stuff.

Over the course of eight years, this would mean she was eating ham at a rate of 920.9 pounds (or 3.28 market-ready pigs) of sliced ham for that eight-year period, and assuming she worked every day with no breaks, that meant she ate a pound of ham every three days.

It's emerged that our hamburglar is around 28 years old, meaning she's spend more than a quarter of her life eating stolen, high-quality ham. And while she claims to have eaten five slices a day, a half-ounce of ham is your regular size of slice. So it's probably more realistic to say that our thief is eating as many as 11 slices per day. Wow.

While she's unlikely to face felony charges, the Sheriff's office says it's unlikely any arrests will be made.