Own A Hot Piece Of ‘Lipstick Jungle’

With the fate of NBC’s uncanceled Lipstick Jungle a primetime uncertainty, one staffer took no chances with his fallback plans: He swiped $US30,000 in fashions from the show and put them on eBay.

Unfortunately for 27-year-old stage manager Arthur Moreira, employees of one of the show’s featured fashion labels noticed that some of their lent pieces had turned up on the auction site, and promptly contacted the authorities.

[He] was arrested Friday in a sting operation that included officers buying stolen goods from Moreira at his apartment, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office.

Among 16 items stolen from Brooklyn-based Broadway Ventures, which owns the production and storage facilities used by “Lipstick Jungle,” were sequined mosaic clutches, an Oscar de la Renta snakeskin bag and Gucci coats, the office said.

Moreira’s lawyers plan to argue the items had been useless props that would have been tossed out had he not salvaged them— but prosecutors point to a highly suspicious eBay posting touting one “Hardly Used: Andrew McCarthy’s Career! But It Now for $4300″ as hard evidence the stage manager had been pulling long-forgotten items out of Lipstick storage and selling them at grossly inflated prices.

• Stage manager accused of theft from ‘Lipstick Jungle’ [CNN]