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The 'bored suburban housewife' jailed following a bizarre two-day crime spree during which she stole 28 packages from neighbors' doorsteps has spoken for the first time since starting her prison sentence to reveal that her marriage is over and the real reason behind her actions.
Last month mother-of-two, Melissa Bergman, 30, was convicted on 12 out of 28 counts of theft committed onJuly 27 and 28 of 2017.
She was sentenced to 180 days in jail and began a 30-day stint in Warren County Jail, Ohio in June, with the remainder of her sentence suspended. She will remain on probation for three years following her release.
In an apology posted on Facebook - a condition of her suspended sentence - Bergman said she did not know why she had done what she did but pointed to a cocktail of psychiatric drugs she had been prescribed following a suicide attempt that landed her in a psych ward just days earlier.
Now, in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, army veteran Bergman said, 'I had everything anyone could want. I had money, I had a husband, I had kids, I had a nice house but my husband was very controlling.
'He didn't want me doing anything other than staying at home and taking care of my children who are two and four.
'I just felt like my life wasn't going anywhere.'
Bergman went onto reveal that she was plagued by flashbacks, anxiety, depression and panic attacks caused by PTSD she claimed was caused by a string of sexual assaults she suffered during her years in the Army.
She said, 'I was 17 years old and the drill sergeant at the time took advantage of his position. I did whatever he asked me to do. I did report it and he went to Court Marshall but everything from that night had disappeared - all the evidence, camera footage, everything had been thrown away.'
Bergman claimed the sergeant got a 'slap on the wrist' and was promoted the following year.
She also said that she had been raped on three occasions by three different men and sexually assaulted numerous times during her years of service. She said she is now recognized by the army as '100 per cent disabled' and 80 per cent of that is PTSD.
DailyMail.com has verified that Bergman was in the army from August 2005 to May 2009 and served in Afghanistan December 2006 to March 2008.
She received several service medals and ribbons but the army would not comment on her claims regarding sexual assault or PTSD.
In his decision last month, Judge D Andrew Batsche was unconvinced by Bergman's attempt to claim insanity as her defense.
Eight months after the thefts Bergman told the forensic psychologist evaluating her that she 'heard the voice of God telling her to take the packages and give them away to other people.'
But Judge Batsche noted, 'She never gave away any items as purportedly instructed to do by God. In fact, she opened the packages, distributed their contents around her home…[and discarded] the packaging in a dumpster a distance away from her residence.'
Today Bergman insists that her PTSD and all the medication she was on 'messed with' her mind.
The attractive 30-year-old expressed remorse, said it 'hurt her' to hurt others and added, 'I've never stolen anything from anybody before in my life.'
But the truth is that Bergman has a criminal record.
She has faced eight criminal charges in North Carolina and other counties. All but one were ultimately dismissed.
In 2010 she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison for Grand Larceny in Virginia after she shoplifted goods and then sprayed mace in the face of the loss prevention officer who tried to stop her from getting away.
Similarly her claims to rehabilitation after the package thefts last summer are somewhat derailed by the fact that, three months later it is claimed she stole three credit cards from a man she had picked up in a hotel bar and had sex with.
She pleaded guilty to the more serious felony charges of ID theft and credit card fraud in March and her case was handed over to the Veterans Court.
She claimed that when she shared her tales of marital woe, he felt so moved to help that he booked her several weeks in a hotel (a charge of $2,658.35) to get away from her husband, handed her three credit cards, wrote down his pin number, and told her to 'get what she needed.'
She said she bought gas and baby clothes because her husband refused to pay for such things.
Her victim tells a very different story. Speaking to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity he said, 'In my opinion she was very calculated. She was looking for some guy who had drunk too much who she could steal from. That was me.
To read the rest: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5972439/Ohio-mom-stole-packages-neighbors-speaks-time.html
