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Man Ordered To Write Apology After Stealing Nude Painting From Sacramento Hotel

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — This is the story of a nude portrait, a trendy Sacramento hotel, and a guy who had a little too much to drink.

Barent Larkin is the general manager of the Citizen Hotel, where on the wall of the men's restroom in its Scandal Bar hung a pricey portrait of a nude woman.

It was an attractive piece for a man who had too much to drink at a wedding. That guest took it off the wall of the restroom and stuffed it in his garment bag.

Larkin checked the hotel's surveillance tape and did some online sleuthing on Google and LinkedIn. He found his man and got him on the phone.

"He sounded legitimately upset about what he did, it was a drunken mistake, one he wished he could take back," Larkin said.

Police would go to the man's house and retrieve the portrait. But he didn't go to jail.

Instead, Larkin did something only done in elementary schools—he ordered the thief to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write one line over and over again:

"I will not get drunk at a wedding and go steal the naked picture of a woman on a cigar over the urinal in the Citizen Hotel."

The portrait will hang again, in a more secure fashion. And the letter from the anonymous thief will be right next to it.

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