Debbie Hardy's ex-husband denied parole in jewel theft

The ex-wife of 84 Lumber founder Joe Hardy told a Westmoreland County judge yesterday that she had yet to receive $3,500 owed to her by her second husband, who was seeking early parole from a jail sentence for stealing her jewelry.

A judge had ordered Debbie Hardy's second husband, Paul K. Ucman II, to pay that amount last year to cover medical expenses and legal bills associated with an altercation at her Rostraver mansion in 2007.

The two were divorced on Dec. 31, she said.

Judge Alfred Bell yesterday ordered Ucman, 45, to pay another $5,550 to reimburse Hardy for a one-of-a-kind Louis Vuitton bag he took from a locked bedroom vault during the jewelry theft.

Ucman said he had earned more than $7,000 while in jail, but admitted he had yet to pay Hardy any money. On Nov. 9, he began serving a sentence of one year less a day to two years less a day.

Bell denied his request for early parole.

"I don't let people out until they serve their minimum (sentence). I don't bend on that," Bell told Ucman. "But if you get your restitution paid, I'll consider early parole."

Ucman said he wanted to get out of jail to develop his landscaping business.

He works more than 40 hours a week under a work-release program at the Westmoreland County Prison.

Ucman's jobs have included storm cleanup for Forward Township in Allegheny County and landscape work for a Mt. Lebanon home builder.

The 2007 confrontation with his ex-wife was one of the events leading up the theft of her jewelry on Sept. 28, 2007.

She told police that Ucman took the Louis Vuitton bag and 500 pieces of jewelry valued at $5 million.

Police said Ucman entered his estranged wife's bedroom, smeared petroleum jelly on the lens of a video-surveillance camera, then punched in the code of a vault safe to access the jewelry.

About a week later, the jewelry was returned to Debra Hardy by Frank DeRosa, the father of Ucman's first wife and current girlfriend, according to trial testimony.

Ucman took a $355,000 engagement ring, diamond necklaces and other expensive pieces.

The Louis Vuitton bag was never returned.

After a one-day, nonjury trial in August, Ucman was convicted of a felony theft charge and a misdemeanor offense of receiving stolen property.

In his release request, Ucman said he had completed a 12-hour emotional management treatment course and noted he attended religious services at the prison.

Hardy asked the judge to keep Ucman in jail.

"He needs to do the time so that justice is served for the crime," Hardy said.