Woman Handcuffed and Arrested for Failure To Pay For Overdue Library Books

For the Wisconsin woman who was arrested and handcuffed for failing to pay fines for two overdue library books, it couldn’t have been clearer that crime never pays.

Heidi Dalibor, of Grafton, Wisconsin, is obviously a criminal everyone should stay away from. She is brazen too, as according to news sources, she is the first to admit that she ignored calls and letters from her local library. (Perhaps advice from her boyfriend, the grandson of John Dillinger, led her down the wrong path.) Ms. Dalibor, 20, also owns up to the fact that she ignored a notice to appear in municipal court or pay the pay the fine and, it would seem, the police must have had her in mind as a suspect for a bank robbery in another part of the state when they knocked on her door with a warrant for her arrest. She said:

“They showed me a warrant they had for my arrest. They said they had to cuff me.”

The embarrassment of being led away in handcuffs and being brought to the police station to be fingerprinted and photographed can only be speculated. Police Captain Joe Gabrish claims that the same procedure is followed out with every warrant regardless of the gravity of the crime. John Hansen, library director, says that annually a few dozen people are cited for failure to return books or pay fines. It cost Ms. Dalibor about $30 for the overdue books and her mother about $175 in bail money to free her. We all know we should return our library books, but what is next? She was certainly irresponsible and owes the money for the books, but arrest and jail time? Will failure to report a hangnail be this woman’s next offense while rapists and murderers stalk our city streets? Go figure, but go pay for your overdue library books first.