NEW YORK — A former executive from Tiffany & Co. was sentenced to one year and one day in prison Monday for stealing more than $1.2 million in jewelry from its famous Fifth Avenue location, a crime a judge called an inexplicable act of self-destruction by someone who did not need the money.
Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun had pleaded guilty this year to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property. Her lawyer had asked for a sentence of six months while the government sought at least three years.
''I'm very sorry for everything that's happened,'' a tearful Lederhaas-Okun told the judge before hearing the sentence in federal court in New York City. ''I can't express my remorse enough.''
US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe rejected prosecutors' arguments that the 46-year-old defendant was motivated by greed, noting that she came from a privileged background and made $360,000 a year at Tiffany. Her attorney claimed she suffered from depression and cracked under the pressures of not being able to have children, getting passed over for a promotion at Tiffany, and seeing her marriage crumble.