Articles Posted in Odd Cases

For 57-year-old truck driver Mohamed Nor of Malaysia, 3 wives and 18 kids (ages 4 to 34) are not enough. So he is seeking the permission of the Syrariah High Court to marry a fourth women. And guess who has consented to the marriage? Wives 1,2 and 3. Said Judge Shaikh Ahmad, per the New Straits Times:

“I find it rather strange because since becoming a (syariah) judge, this is the first time where all three wives not only allow their husband to marry another woman but are very supportive of it,” he said during the hearing of Mohamed Nor’s application.

Do you think the Judge allowed the marriage? Not yet. His concern? How can a truck driver making RM 1,500 per month (US $468.75) take on another wife? So Mr. Nor has to answer this question to the court’s satisfaction before the marriage will be approved. Here’s the source.

Dude (Horace Bordelon) robs a bank in California, the same one he robbed 7 years earlier. His defense? As reported in The San Francisco Chronicle:

He robbed the bank only so he could return to the routine of prison life, so he didn’t actually intend to steal any money.

Brilliant – but unsuccessful, both at trial, and on appeal. Click here for the source.

So here’s what David Aston, married (but not for long) father of two, likes to do in his spare time, as reported by the Oxford Mail:

Oxford Crown Court heard Aston twice stripped naked from the waist downwards, crouched on all fours on a towel in woodland near Bicester and encouraged four girls to kick him in the groin until he could no longer handle the pain.

Said Judge Julian Hall:

This particular fetish is not one I have come across before.

Unfortunately for Mr. Aston, Judge Hall also said:

I found this a bizarre case. The description of predator is not ill-founded and the overwhelming probability is you are going to go to prison.

How could he avoid prison, having also been convicted of engaging in sex acts with one of the minors in the front seat of his car, as the others watched from the back seat? No doubt his fellow inmates will help him satisfy his fetish. Click here for the source.

Daniel Ranallo can tell you, because he did it in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, and got busted. As described by Judge Pursel, per The Morning Call:

This is a bizarre case where the defendant was wandering around with a gun looking for someone and firing the gun in a public place.

So what do you get for that? A scolding? Community service? No such luck for 21-year-old Mr. Ranallo. He got oe year in jail. You can read more (just a tiny bit) here.

Actually, “hot” and “warm” revenge didn’t work out too well either for David Alan Hawkins, who had the misfortune of trying to develop a condominium project when the Savings and Loan crisis hit in the 1980s. He lost his financing, and the project, with the collapse of Queen City Savings and Loan. And, as reported by the Seattle Times:

To add insult to injury, Hawkins won a $3.5 million jury verdict against the S&L, only to have it stripped from him by a judge over a technicality — a move that outraged the jurors who had awarded him the money, according to court documents and news accounts from the time.

How would Hawkins get even?

For years, Hawkins sought justice, using increasingly confrontational and bizarre tactics that included placing invalid liens on the homes of those he blamed — including bankers, judges and lawyers — and filing so many lawsuits that he was banned from filing documents in King County in 1994.

You know it’s bad when you are banned from filing documents with the court, a fate usually reserved for pro se prisoner plaintiffs. Fast forward to the present. Hawkins ratcheted the revenge WAY up, with the help of attorney Harry Skeins Jr. They were “selling” the homes of people involved in Hawkins’ misfortune 25 years ago (e.g. Judges, lawyers, a bank executive). Just one problem – they had no interest in the homes! How did they do it?

Hawkins and Skeins set up a fake title-insurance company and convinced lenders that they held legitimate liens on the homes of their victims. An Atlanta lender gave them more than $1.5 million for the sale of homes belonging to a state appeals court judge and a bank executive …

How did they get busted?

… the men were arrested in 2006 after a judge’s wife questioned a real-estate appraiser who showed up at her home one day, according to court documents.

The time? Four years in prison, and about $1.6 million in restitution. Here’s the source.

So no matter what happens, the lesbians win! Actually, that’s not true. The Lesbians might win. What the hell am I talking about? Three Greek women who live on the island of Lesbos filed suit against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, per the AP, claiming that its name “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos.

Please! Even assuming the Lesbians defeat the lesbians, what about the other, um, BILLIONS OF PEOPLE who will still use the word “lesbian” as a synonym for a gay woman? What’s next, Lesbos v. Rest of World? Ladies, you can’t unring the bell. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. (Help. Any more trite phrases to express this?)

So said Plaintiff’s attorney Rob Serafinowicz in a case now being tried in the Waterbury Superior Court in Connecticut. The case involves allegations by Neil Perrotti that, when he was 17 years-old, former Middlebury First Selectman Edward B. St. John sexually assaulted him. As reported in the Hartford Advocate:

[Serafinowicz asked] Judge Jane S. Scholl to force St. John to submit to a photograph of his penis, fully aroused.

Why would this be relevant?

Serafinowicz explained that the photograph was crucial to his case because Perrotti, in a statement he gave to State Police about the alleged incident, claimed that St. John’s penis bent to the left when aroused.

What arguments did Serafinowicz advance in support of this request?

“It would seem Mr. St. John would want to do this to set the record straight,” said Serafinowicz without a hint of sarcasm.

Serafinowicz also offered to drop the whole matter if St. John would just admit that his penis is bent when in a state of arousal. “Then this is moot.”

What do you think the judge decided?

Continue reading →

Yes, this is the subject of a lawsuit in Arizona. Nathan Thinnes sold his house to Glenn Melton, who bought it for his daughter, Kelly Zegers. Thinnes did not disclose that his neighbor was a REAL problem. When Melton discovered this, he asked Thinnes to take the house back, which he refused to do. An added twist, both seller Thinnes and buyer Melton are in the real estate business! So why is the neighbor a problem? As reported in The Arizona Republic:

One day, Melton’s wife went to visit Zegers and witnessed the neighbor’s behavior firsthand. When she called police to ask if there were any complaints, the officer found so many that he asked if the address was an apartment complex.

Shazam! An apartment complex? Must be a big number.

Melton learned that the neighbor had called 911 hundreds of times, saying that people were breaking in, or that her sister was shooting poison at their elderly mother’s legs. Once, she met police at the door while holding a shotgun.

You might wonder “Was this still going on at the time of the sale?”

And just days before closing the house sale, the former owner called the police after he and his dog were pelted with potatoes the neighbor was throwing at unseen intruders in the oleander bushes between the two yards.

[After the shotgun encounter] the neighbor was handcuffed and taken away in a squad car and stayed away until after Zegers moved in.

Oops. How are things going now?

“She screams and yells at people that are passing by,” Melton said. “When my daughter’s in the backyard, the neighbor’s yelling at her and making verbal threats.”

The case is pending in the Maricopa County Superior Court.

At least, don’t fall asleep in Melissa Nadeau’s class. Why not? Just ask Vinicios Robacher, a 15-year-old student in Danbury, Connecticut. When Vinicios crashed, Ms. Nadeau allegedly awoke him by slamming [the palm of] her hand down on his desk so hard that it injured his left eardrum! The boy’s parents have filed papers with the Danbury town clerk, as the AP reported, which is “a prelude to a lawsuit.”