A woman who stole £230,000 from her employer to feed her shopping habit escaped 18 months in prison by claiming she was a shopaholic.
Ms Elizabeth Roach, a US management consultant from Chicago, pleaded guilty yesterday to defrauding her company, Andersen Consulting, of $250,000 (£230,000) by fiddling her expense account.
The case in a US court is thought to be the first time "shopaholism" has been accepted in mitigation of theft, reported the New York Times.
A psychiatrist who testified on Ms Roach's behalf, admitted the sentence could open the floodgates to people trying to escape jail by claiming they had been driven to crime by shopping, gambling and sexual addictions.
Drink and drug habits are specifically ruled out as pleas of mitigation in the US, but no rules exist on other addictions. The court accepted Ms Roach's plea that she needed the cash to "self-medicate" her shopping addiction.
She was put under house arrest at weekends for six months, fined $3,000 and ordered to spend six weeks doing community service in a Salvation Army work centre. She was also put on probation for five years. The judge said prison would have interrupted the psychiatric treatment she had been receiving.
Ms Roach once spent £21,100 on one trip to London, missing her flight home because she became so absorbed in buying. She once bought a £5,000 belt buckle, owned 70 pairs of shoes at one time and bought thousands of pounds worth of dresses and earrings she never wore.
A psychiatrist, Dr Robert Galatzer-Levy, told the judge Ms Roach had been sexually abused in childhood and had turned to shopping to overcome her problems. Her habit, fuelled by cash her alcoholic father gave her, was an alternative to love.
When the fraud was discovered, Ms Roach was sacked from her £105,000-a-year job with Andersen Consulting. She is now employed with a computer firm earning £123,000 a year as a management consultant.
A spokesman for the prosecution said an appeal for a tougher sentence was being considered.