In Miami, Florida in 1941, Marie Ore had big dreams of a middle-class life with a big beautiful house, a beautiful car, and pearls. Instead, she had to work for a pittance at the Southern Bell Phone Company rolling money that came in from the payphones and was counted by machines and rolled. But Marie was ambitious.
One day Marie who didn't make enough to cover the bare necessities didn't have any money to buy lunch. So she thought about it and realized that Southern Bell didn't know how much was coming in until they placed it in the machines. What she was thinking of doing was dangerous as there were guards. But she nicked two coins in her hand and slid them into her brassiere--a place no manager would dream of looking.
When she got away with it that day she did it the next day and the day after that. Then she talked to her sister-in-law Rita and her friends and they formed a system: One for home; One for the company. They would place the coins in their brassieres. Now back then these brassieres were cone-shaped and huge and could carry a lot of coins without being seen. During their breaks, they would transfer the money to their purses in the ladies room.
Soon these women were making $150 a day and Marie bought herself those pearls. A year past before trouble happened. Marie came home to find Rita distraught. She believed that someone had stolen $150 and had called the police. Marie was furious with her because this would mean the police would find the coins and put two and two together, which they did and arrest them for theft.
This was a nightmare for Southern Bell who lost nearly $100,000 and the way in which they lost it was scandalous. The women were ordered to pay back the money and serve a year in prison, but the public outcry caused the governor to step in and make its probation. He said after all this was a job that would tempt even the most honest of people. And so this is how a brassieres came to play an important role in one of Florida's most notorious robberies of the century.
