This is a story that you have to be careful who you trust. Most of the people I know are trusting. But this trust has serious limits. How much would you have to trust someone to watch your house and assets?

Douglas Thompson, from Pataskal, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to stealing more than $1.5 million from Tami Longaberger, CEO of basket-maker Longaberger Co. As reported in www.dispatch.com.

The 53-year-old Thompson was head of the house staff at Longaberger’s $10 million, 200-acre property and estate from 2002 until he was laid off in 2011.

Thompson’s thievery was discovered during a financial restructuring ahead of selling the property, when accountants began to find significant problems with the way finances were handled. When he was arrested on Halloween last year, police confiscated everything in his home including books, furniture, grills, rugs, wine, a vacuum cleaner, even sunglasses.

He wasn’t even trying to hide his blatant thievery. Thompson used the estate’s funds to pay his own credit-card bills of more than $1 million, to make cash payments to himself of more than $185,000, and to write checks to himself for more than $430,000. He accumulated unauthorized charges on Longaberger’s account in excess of $300,000.

Thompson used the money for, among other things, home improvements, travel and entertainment, computers and electronics, and auto repairs, basically what all of us work so hard to provide for our family’s he decided to steal. How can you respect that?

I hope he takes a good stop theft class and seeks spiritual counseling for his moral turpitude.