LYNN — Super Bowl ring thief Sean Murphy, of Lynn, will be arraigned in Lynn District Court Wednesday, March 29 on charges of larceny by false pretense and stolen valor, after he allegedly posed as a military veteran and collected money outside a Swampscott Whole Foods in 2021.
On September 14, 2021, Swampscott Police received a call from Navy veteran and former corrections officer Michael Moran, who said he donated to Murphy under the belief he was a fellow veteran.
Murphy, according to a Swampscott Police Officer identified in a police report as J. Cassidy Jr., was wearing camouflage shorts, a green Marine Corps T-shirt, and a camouflage hat while he claimed he was collecting donations to “help homeless vets.”
After conversing with Murphy and hearing fabricated stories about his experiences in the military, Moran said he quickly realized he was not a veteran. He told police that he recognized Murphy as a former inmate he knew during his time as a correctional officer, Cassidy reported.
When Cassidy asked Murphy for the phone number of someone from the “help homeless vets,” organization, for which Murphy was supposedly fundraising, Murphy provided him a phone number, and told the officer that his boss was Rickey Brown.
After calling the number and asked about the “help homeless vets” organization, Cassidy reported that a woman told him she had no idea what he was talking about.
“I further explained to her that I was calling her in regards to a ‘political petition’ in which I was told she was the boss,” Cassidy wrote in the report. “She again stated that she had no idea what I was talking about.”
When Cassidy identified himself on the phone as a police officer, he reported that the woman quickly said “You have the wrong number,” and hung up the phone.
Murphy, 58, is a self-proclaimed “master thief” who spent more than 10 years in prison for stealing a collection of championship rings from the E.A. Dion Inc. manufacturing plant in Attleboro back in 2008.
He was the leader of a group that disabled the alarm and cut a hole in the jewelry company’s roof and stole $2 million worth of gems, precious metals, and Giants Super Bowl Rings. He gave one of the rings to a former girlfriend, an act that ultimately led to his home being raided by police in 2009.
The Swampscott fundraising incident was used as evidence last Thursday in Fall River Superior Court. The judge ruled that Murphy — still on probation from the ring heist— violated the terms of his probation. Murphy was sentenced to another 18 months in state prison.
