Even before she pleaded guilty last year to pandemic relief fraud, Katherine Quigley had been charged more than 100 times for similar crimes, such as larceny and identity theft, according to police reports.
In June 2024, the 45-year-old Plymouth woman admitted stealing, or conspiring to steal, $51,735 in Covid-related unemployment checks, hatching the plan with an inmate at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility over a recorded phone line. The prosecutor from the state attorney general’s office asked for two years’ jail time followed by three years’ probation; her defense lawyer argued for straight probation.
The Suffolk Superior Court judge handed her a suspended sentence and five years’ probation for the thefts, which occurred in 2020 and 2021.
But if Quigley was afraid of violating the terms of her sentence and going to jail, it didn’t keep her from continuing to steal, Plymouth police charge.
A Plymouth District Court judge issued an arrest warrant for her on Aug. 5 after she allegedly entered the mailroom at the Harborwalk Apartments at Cordage Park in July and helped herself to residents’ items.
She is the second woman accused of stealing from residential mailrooms in Plymouth. The first, Sunny McDonough, of West Bridgewater is in jail, after facing no consequences for multiple charges in other cases across the state. She was eventually sentenced in March to 15 months in jail for violating her probation out of Wareham District Court. The sentence was increased by six months in July after she pleaded guilty to stealing packages from the Redbrook mailhouse in South Plymouth.
The two women used a similar approach, police reports suggest, but their business models were different. McDonough allegedly stole merchandise to re-sell through her online boutique. Quigley has been accused primarily of stealing victims’ personal identifying information and financial belongings — like credit or debit cards — and using them to siphon cash from their bank accounts.
Police said Quigley entered the mailroom at Harborwalk twice in July and stole one resident’s passport and another’s box of bank checks. One check —made out to Katherine Quigley for $340 — was later cashed, police allege.
Quigley, whose mother lives in the Harborwalk Apartments, had been banned from the property, according to Plymouth police.
Quigley, who had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse, was living in a sober house and following a court-ordered substance abuse treatment plan when she was sentenced last June in the Covid theft case, according to the lawyer representing her at the time.
Quigley, her lawyer wrote last year, was “gainfully employed and doing better than she ever has in the past.”
In April 2024, that lawyer, Jessica Studstill of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, argued that Quigley should not be sent to jail but be placed on probation for five years.
She submitted an evaluation from a substance abuse counselor, who described Quigley as having a history of trauma, depression, and other disorders.
“Ms. Quigley’s mental health symptoms appear to be well managed with therapy and medication,” counselor John Christian wrote.
“By all measurable standards, Ms. Quigley has shown the ability to turn a life of tragedy into a hopeful future,” he said.
Acknowledging that Quigley had a long history of criminal conduct dating to her late 20s — she was first jailed at age 34— Christian concluded that “all of Ms. Quigley’s criminal behavior appears to be the direct result of her alcohol and substance abuse.”
“She indicated that she realizes that her life has always been better when she has not used alcohol or illicit substances,” he said. “She reports that her sobriety feels different this time and that she is hopeful for positive future by maintaining her sobriety.”
She went through detox 11 times, he wrote and completed three residential recovery programs.
He said testing showed there were “no current alcohol or substance abuse issues present.”
“Ms. Quigley does not appear to be a criminal with a substance abuse issue,’ Christian wrote. “She appears to be a substance abuser who engaged in criminal behavior to support her habit.”
While awaiting sentencing on that case, however, Quigley was charged in another one— this time out of Kingston. She also pleaded guilty in that case in August 2024.
In all, she faced 21 charges in the Kingston case – including larceny, identity theft and forgery – and allegedly stole about $10,000.
Most of the crimes alleged took place in 2023 — before she was charged with Covid fraud in September 2023.
She was still on probation for the Covid and Kingston cases when she allegedly lifted the passport and checks from the Harborwalk mailroom.
She faces four counts of trespassing and two counts of larceny from a building, according to court records.
No lawyer was identified on court papers as representing her. Her lawyer in the Kingston case, Christopher Sheehan, could not be reached for comment.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.