People do stupid things sometimes. Without taking time to read the long long article about the crime (it looked like literary blow-by-blow slow motion) or more than his first couple of phrases in his explanation (poor health), it would be satisfactory to see people just accept the return of the item and the promise not to do anything so stupid again as the end of it. Will charges be pressed? Probably, if the owner of the ring doesn't like the lifestyle or politics of the offender. Otherwise, not. That provides food for thought, eh?

Martha Stewart got hung up in some similar act--an impluse to do something that she thought better of (remove a message from her computer, then put it back). There was no victim in her "crime," and in the end, there was no "victim" in the lifting of the ring.

SRS