Meet Dennis Pavia, an ex-con who just had brain surgery and says he can’t work. Recently he was caught taking two planter boxes from the back of Tom Brady’s Boston condominium, and now has to panhandle to make the $4,000 restitution. Buddy, can you spare a dime for Tom Brady?

Everyone involved pretty much agrees that the whole thing was a mistake — Pavia says the planters were right next to the trash, and he sold them to a recycling center. But he was caught on video surveillance, admitted to theft as part of a plea deal, and a Boston Municipal Court judge ordered him to pay restitution. Meanwhile, Brady, who will make $30 million this year in salary and endorsements, according to the BOSTON HERALD, was taking wife Gisele Bundchen and son Jack to Disneyland.

Of course for my money, I’d say that Brady is probably unaware of the entire thing. From THE HERALD:

“I’m out here holding up signs,” complained Paiva, who did a 10-year prison stint for bank robbery but says he never meant to steal from No. 12.

“I would go out the night before the trash got picked up and see what people put out. If there was anything good, I would take it and sell it,” he explained.

Of course, as Paiva explains it, he always found better stuff in the ritzier neighborhoods, so one night last fall he found himself in an alley in the Back Bay checking the discards.

“I saw these two stainless steel metal containers behind a garage next to the trash,” Paiva said. “Scrap metal was really high at the time so I grabbed them and put them in my truck.”

Deliverymen said that they left the planters in the back because Brady was not home. Pavia, who says he now has blurred vision and no balance following the surgery, says he has to pay Brady $333.33 a month as a probation requirement. If you’re interested in contributing, he can usually be found begging from passing cars on Beacon Hill.