Articles Posted in Odd Cases

A few days ago, I posted a story about a UK man who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl in his bedroowm, in addition to bombarding her with thousands of text messages, and walked. (Click here to read the story.) Now a 27-year-old UK man, who made sexual advances to a 12-year-old girl, met her in the park with a condom and handcuffs, “cuddled” her in the park, sent her up to 100 text messages a day (some with sexual content, including obscene pictures), also walked. His “punishment” is 5 years on the sex offenders’ register, and attending courses to curb his offending. Oh, and he can’t use mobile phones or computers to contact children. Can you imagine why her dad was extremely angry? What the hell is going on over there?

True enough. Todd J. Hubble was convicted of unlawfully entering a sorority house at Tulane University. Under Louisiana’s repeat offender laws – this was his 6th conviction – he will receive 20 years to life when he is sentenced next month. He won’t be missed. According to a reporter who wrote a story about the case for The Times-Picayune:

Even during his trial, Hubble gave court employees the creeps by staring at women, from the lead prosecutor to the witnesses, said observers who attended the trial. At one point, [Judge] Winsberg had a deputy remove Hubble from his seat next to prosecutor Varnado because of his relentless gaze.

Sure, the U.S. has done enough harm lately to last a long, long time, but no way does this guy walk if this had happened in the U.S. Music teacher Sam Webb (age 34), admitted to passionately kissing a 13-year-old girl in his bedroom, and sending her over 2,000 text messages in a short period of time. (He was found out when the girl’s phone bill went from $60 to $500.)

So here’s the sentence: three years probation, attending a sex offenders class, and 5 years on the sex offenders’ register! This is justice?

Let’s just say that you wouldn’t want to live in an apartment owned by Vincent Tan of Edmonton, Alberta. Here’s what he was up to: A tenant came home and found Mr. Tan with his pants off and an erection visible through his underwear. Zoinks! Enter the police, who then searched Mr. Tan’s home, and found a cache of videotapes. On some of the videos, Tan is in the women’s apartment, and is masturbating while wearing their lingerie and clothing. On others, Tan is featured, in the women’s apartment, in “various sexually compromising positions.” And, this is truly, truly nasty [cat lovers – you have been warned – go now, and come back to Legal Juice tomorrow] Tan disclosed that he once masturbated a male cat for “experimental purposes.” I warned you.

You’ll never guess who this man lives with. His mother! And his sentence? Three months house arrest (they had to punish his mother too?), 9 months with an 11:30 p.m. curfew (keep your cats in during the day!), 100 hours of community service, psychological counseling and, most importantly, an order banning him from contact with male cats for 1 year. (Okay, I made that last bit up [about the cat ban].)

In Illinois, if you kill someone in the heat of the moment, you can get LESS jail time (mandatory 6-30 years) than if you try to do so and fail! (4-20 years, with the possibility of probation). “It’s so goofy,” said Peter Baroni, an attorney and lobbyist who has worked for the state Senate Judiciary Committee. “There’s a statutory incentive to finish the job–to kill somebody. It’s bizarre.” Because of strange results like this, and the ones listed below, among many others, Illinois created the CLEAR (Criminal Law Edit, Alignment and Reform) initiative to fix the criminal code. Here are a few examples of laws CLEAR proposes to fix:

You can launder money, as long as it comes from another state!

The law prohibiting the carrying of a weapon near a courthouse doesn’t cover federal courthouses.

There is a law that forbids lawyers from “wickedly” stirring up disputes – without defining “wickedly.”

The law that prohibits threats against public officials does not include assistant attorneys general.

There is a law prohibiting the manufacture of gunpowder within 20 rods of a valuable building. [What the hell is a rod? And I guess regular old buildings aren’t worth protecting?

Pastor Herman Lewis, of the Morning Star Baptist Church in Spokane, Washington, told detectives he has been living a double life for years – church on Sunday, prostitutes drugs and alcohol the rest of the week. Apparently still in the “church” mode when he was arrested on Monday (for attempted kidnapping, attempting to run down two police officers, attempted rape, and assault with a deadly weapon), he screamed that he was “Jesus” and “God.” His brother says he “snapped” and needs help.

Navnett Arora (age 22) claims that, in April 2004, a 17-year-old boy called him a “black c***.” (The boy denies it.) So Arora calls 3 of his buddies (ages 21,22 and 24) to the scene, and they put the boy in the car. Per the court, here’s what happened over the next 6 1/2 hours:

They stripped the boy naked and beat him with a belt.

They strapped him to a tree and whipped him again.

As they drove him around for hours, they beat him and slapped him across the face.

Arora called the boy’s mother and demanded $5,000 ransom.

They went to the boy’s house and stole a stereo.

They finally dumped the boy at a gas station.

At the urging of the prosecutor, all 4 men received suspended sentences! And where did this take place? Australia. here.

Before you hire a psychiatrist, you’d probably want to know a few things about him. For example, where he did his training, and what he charges per hour. You might ask him about the different therapeutic techniques he’ll be using.

And, of course, you should always ask whether he’s recently been caught carrying a loaded handgun into court to protect himself from an ex-wife who he thought took out a contract to have him killed.

Psychiatrist Jerry Gelb had some explaining to do after Melbourne Magistrates Court deputies, conducting routine searches at the courthouse’s main entrance, found a loaded .22 pistol and forty-nine rounds (!) of ammunition in his backpack. Confronted, Dr. Gelb (accompanied by his bodyguard) calmly explained that he was taking the weapon to court because it was a piece of evidence in an ongoing trial. Surprisingly, the deputies weren’t buying that story (perhaps because he later claimed that he had forgotten the gun was in his bag!), and the good doctor was arrested.