Articles Posted in Say What?

A New Jersey man has been charged with soliciting a hit for $20 (and drugs) up front, plus payments after the hit. $20! Fortunately for the intended victim, the would-be hitman was an undercover police officer. From the pages (virtual, that is) of The Jersey Journal) …

A Union County man is being held at the Hudson County jail in Kearny on charges he offered drugs and a $20 down payment to an undercover police officer in an attempt to recruit him to paralyze or kill a man, officials said.

Abram Soliman, 21, of Elizabeth, was recently indicted on the charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, Union County Prosecutor’s Office spokesman John Holl announced today.

In July a 19-year-old Elizabeth man approached Elizabeth police and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office claiming Soliman asked him to kill a man, Holl said. They launched an investigation and set up a meeting with Soliman, the informant, and an undercover officer, Holl said.

Soliman first asked the officer “to paralyze this other man,” and then changed the request to murder, saying “He wanted this other man to disappear,” and offered drugs, cash and loot, officials said.

Should have gone with his gut ..

He said he would make a down payment of $20 and promised installment payments after the murder, officials said. Soliman’s gripe against the intended victim apparently stemmed from a drug deal gone bad, Holl said.

$20!

Soliman was arrested shortly after the meeting and has been held in Kearny since then in order to avoid a potential conflict with other inmates at the Union County jail, Holl said. His bail is set at $250,000.

Here’s the source.

A crushing blow has been dealt to schoolboys throughout the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh by it’s highest court.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Friday barred the release of a controversial Telugu movie after it allegedly inspired a Warangal schoolteacher to elope with her student.

NO! Oh, sorry.

The ruling came on a public interest litigation alleging that the film High School, said to be woven around a 30-year-old teacher’s love affair with a 13-year-old schoolboy, could have a corrupting influence on students and vitiate the atmosphere in schools.

“Vitiate?” Takes The Juice back to the SATs …

The petitioner, S. Chakrapani, president of the Warangal Town Consumer Council, also challenged the state censor board’s decision to clear the movie without considering its social impact.

On behalf of teenage boys across Andhra Pradesh: Curse you Mr. Chakrapani!

The film’s plot has been in the news for some time. It is said to have encouraged a 21-year-old teacher and her 15-year-old student to elope and marry by exchanging garlands at a temple in Warangal on February 15.

It’s a movie! Not a directive! It is indeed a very slippery slope. And what about this 15-year-old?

B Nagesh, a student of C V Raman High School, told his parents of his marriage with his Hindi teacher D Ramyasri four days later.

Hmmm. Four days later …

The parents complained to the State Human Rights Commission. Unlike the movie, their marriage was declared null and void.

“This act… on part of the teacher is not only immoral but also illegal,” commission chairperson Justice B Subashan Reddy said

Indeed, but don’t blame the movie. The Juice wonders if “Call of Duty” is popular in Andhra Pradesh…

Source: Hindustan Times

That “Ellen” thing. That is essentially why Heartland Inns of America fired Brenna Lewis, according to Ms. Lewis. But, as reported by Courthouse News Service, Ms. Lewis may have the last word.

An Iowa hotel clerk who describes herself as “slightly more masculine” can sue her former employer for allegedly firing her because she wasn’t pretty enough and she lacked “the Midwestern girl look,” the 8th Circuit ruled.

Here’s the background:

Lewis said she was fired in 2007 for not conforming to sex stereotypes and for questioning recent policy changes.

Lewis has “an Ellen DeGeneres kind of look,” according to her former manager, Lori Stifel. “Lewis prefers to wear loose fitting clothing, including men’s button-down shirts and slacks,” the ruling states. “She avoids makeup and wore her hair short at the time. Lewis has been mistaken for a male and referred to as ‘tomboyish.'”

BFD. Apparently it was, to Ms. Barbara Cullinan, director of operations…

Cullinan allegedly said Lewis lacked “the Midwestern girl look,” and stressed the importance of having a “pretty” desk staff.

When Cullinan told Stifel to move Lewis to the night shift, Stifel allegedly stuck up for Lewis, saying she had been doing a “phenomenal job at the front desk.”

Well done, madam.

The next week, Cullinan asked Stifel to resign and implemented stricter hiring rules, explaining that “hotels have to have a certain personification and appearance,” Lewis claimed.

No good deed goes unpunished. But Judge Diana Murphy had the last word, at least for now.

“Cullinan’s criticism of Lewis for lack of ‘prettiness’ and the ‘Midwestern girl look’ before terminating her may … be found by a reasonable factfinder to be evidence of wrongful sex stereotyping,” she wrote.

Here’s the source.

You can put your eyeballs back in their sockets. You read it right: 3 months in the slammer (and a fine of about $600!) for possessing 5 firecrackers. From the New Straits Times (Malaysia):

A jobless man was sentenced to three months’ jail and fined RM2,000 by the magistrate’s court yesterday for possessing five firecrackers.

Mohd Zafizie Mohd Zawawi, 29, pleaded guilty to committing the offence at Gate J of Sultan Mohamed IV Stadium at 9pm on Saturday.

Zafizie, from Kampung Belakang Masjid, who was unrepresented, told magistrate Nik Habri Muhamad neither he nor his parents could afford to pay a high fine.

“I have repented and I promise not to commit the offence again. This will be my first and last offence.”

Krykie! A first offender too.

[The magistrate] told Zafizie that he had committed a serious offence because the stadium was a place for recreation.

Oh, and if Mr. Zafizie’s family can’t pay the fine …

“If you fail to pay the fine, the jail sentence will be extended by another month.”

So it will probably be almost 1 month in jail per firecracker…

Yes sir. This is one lucky man. But just remember, there are two kinds of luck … As reported in the police blotter of the Sun Star Courier (Ohio):

At 4:04 p.m. on Friday, a man was arrested on an active warrant after putting out a fire in his own vehicle on Barr Road.

The 34-year-old man’s truck caught fire due to failed wiring with the LED lights. A resident gave him a fire extinguisher to calm down the blaze.

After running the man’s information it was discovered that he had an active warrant from Cuyahoga County for failure to appear in connection with child support.

Doh!

This is some serious chutzpah. As reported by The Chicago Tribune:

A Chicago police officer fired after a video camera recorded him beating a female bartender [see above] is asking a judge to review his termination.

The grounds? They include:

Would you believe me if I told you a woman was busted for noisy sex? Well, I am. As reported in The Northern Echo:

A woman pleaded guilty today to breaching a sex Asbo [anti-social behavior order] three times.

Caroline Cartwright, 48, and her husband Steve were hit with a noise abatement notice after neighbours, the local postman, and a woman taking her child to school complained about their noisy lovemaking.

However, when Cartwright was convicted of breaching the notice, magistrates made her the subject of an anti-social behaviour order as well.

Cartwright pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court today to breaching the Asbo three times in April 2009.

Earlier this year Cartwright appealed against her conviction for breaching the noise abatement notice and the issuing of the Asbo, which bans the couple from “shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance”.

She used Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to argue she had a right to “respect for her private and family life”.

Jobless Cartwright, who lost her appeal against the order, also claimed that she could not help making the loud noise during sex with her husband.

Really? Screaming during sex is not a basic human right? What is wrong with people?

The hearing heard that the Cartwrights’ nightly sex sessions at their home in Hall Road, Concord, Washington, Tyne and Wear, were making their neighbours lives hell.

Their lovemaking was described as “murder” and “unnatural” and drowned out their neighbours’ televisions.

Neighbours said the Cartwrights’ sex sessions would usually start around midnight and last for two or three hours, every night of the week.

That there is a lot of sex.

Specialist equipment installed in a neighbour’s flat by Sunderland City Council recorded noise levels of between 30 to 40 decibels, with the highest being 47 decibels.

Giving evidence Cartwright said she was unable to control the noise she made during sex.

“I did not understand why people asked me to be quiet because to me it is normal. I didn’t understand where they were coming from,” she said.

“I have tried to minimise the situation by having sex in the morning – not at night – so the noise was not waking anybody. I maybe sympathetic to it but it is not something I am doing on purpose.”

Breaching an Asbo carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment but Judge Beatrice Bolton said Cartwright, who now lives in a bail hostel, would not face jail.

She adjourned the case until next year for sentencing and released Cartwright on bail.