My Roommate, The Diamond Thief

"He found me on Craigslist. I found him on America’s Most Wanted."

"Seeking roommate for one-bedroom in Washington Heights. It’s a bit small for two but I have to catch up on some bills. Two friendly cats, but we keep clean because I’m a little allergic myself. A little more than half of the $950 rent gets you the privacy of the bedroom.

It was August 2003. I’d only recently found work, nearly a year after losing my job organizing school tours at an art museum, and my fiancée had just moved out of our apartment. It was a small, sunny place on the fourth floor of an old building, high enough on a hill that you could even see a little of New Jersey from the right angle.

We’d moved up there when she landed a medical residency at Columbia University Medical Center, but we’d split six months before the wedding. Without a job, I’d run up a ton of debt, and I urgently needed extra income to make rent, so I figured I’d lease out my bedroom and crash in the living room. I tried to pretend it was darkly funny, but really it just felt pathetic. "

The rest of the story at Nymag.com