A 19-year-old New Zealand man named Eptai Taiwhanga, as reported by 3 News …
…walked into Westport police station drinking alcohol and carrying cannabis resin.
Maybe he thought it was a pub?
Unsurprisingly, except to him perhaps, he was hit with breaching Westport’s liquor ban and possessing a Class B drug.
Judge Jane McMeeken said Taiwhanga was “incredibly stupid” and fined him $400.
“You had cannabis in your pocket and drew attention to yourself by drinking in a police station.”
Doh!
What was so unusual about this ATM withdrawal in Beaumont, Texas? Well, it wasn’t that Mr. Leandro Sanchez made the withdrawal around 3 a.m. It was simply this – he took the entire ATM! From a bank! With a forklift! I guess he didn’t think it would set off an alarm. It did.
Let’s just say you’re divorced, and your ex-wife calls to tell you one of your kids is being held for ransom. I think most folks would pay up. Just suppose, though, that your ex-wife called to say that one of your children was again taken hostage, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again! For real. This woman told her ex-husband that one of their kids (sometimes their son, sometimes their daughter) had been kidnapped SEVEN TIMES over a five-year period! And you know how many times he paid? Six! For a total of £530,000 ($808,000 US!). As reported by The Telegraph:
In the summer of 2001, she told her estranged husband, named only as Pedro GM, who was living in a different town, that strangers had entered her home and taken her daughter Sara, demanding payment of 30,000 euros (£23,000) for her safe return.
A year later, she claimed that the girl had been taken again, this time to settle a drug debt, and asked her husband to cough up 48,000 euros (£38,000) for her release.
In 2003 she again approached her husband, this time claiming that their son Emilio had been snatched after she failed to pay 36,000 euros (£28,000) she owed to a clothing wholesaler. He once again paid the money and the child was “returned” unharmed.
In 2004, she faked another kidnapping, again of her teenage son Emilio, claiming that drug dealers were demanding 54,000 euros (£43,000) for a package of cocaine that the boy had lost. Once again, the father paid the ransom demand to his wife to pass on.
In December 2005 and January 2006 she again claimed that their son had got himself in trouble and was being held to ransom, but this time she said he had been taken by members of a gypsy family who wanted blood money totalling 180,000 euros (£142,000) because he had taken the virginity of a 13-year old relative.
Finally, in Sept 2006 she and her friends concocted a story claiming that Emilio had again been abducted from outside their home in the Madrid suburb of Fuenlabrada. On this occasion, the boy himself called his father, claiming his attackers were torturing him and were threatening to kill him unless a ransom of 252,000 euros (£200,000) was paid.
How were they caught?
Minutes later [after the boy called his father] he was spotted in the street having a drink with friends, said the private detective hired by Pedro G M to investigate the case.
I think it’s only appropriate to end this post with some quotes about greed.
“To be perfectly honest, what I’m really thinking about are dollar signs.” Tonya Harding
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed” Gandhi
“I’m a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.” Zsa Zsa Gabor
“Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough.” Janwillem van de Wetering
“How did I get involved in a terrible film like Best Defense? The door opened and four men came in carrying a check.” Eddie Murphy (Note that, although it might seem criminal, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress is a civil claim.)
And my favorite:
“Money doesn’t talk, it swears.” Bob Dylan
Dude had 60 pot plants growing in 2 rooms. As luck would have it [bad luck, that is], there was a fire in his apartment building, leading to the discovery of the weed. So how much time do you think he’s facing? Zippy. Nada. Squadoosh. Sure he doesn’t have a record, but if it happened to you or me, fuhgeddaboutit. We’re doing time. But not Mr. Graham McConnell, who actually had a pretty good story, which might even be true. Per The Paisley Daily Express:
[His lawyer said] “He is a man who has been using cannabis for some time and made the foolish decision to cultivate the drug in order to avoid coming into contact with those who traffic in the drug.”
“He had decided to grow a lot of the stuff, dry and freeze it and, by doing so, not become involved with those who traffic in drugs on the street.”
True or not, that’s a tough sell. Mr. McConnell was sentenced to 300 hours of community service. Here’s the source.
You’re not going to believe what this formerly respectable couple did to try and avoid a £60 ($88 US) ticket and three points. And it’s not like it would have put the wife over the top – her driving record was spotless. So Mrs. Diane Rodger, a lecturer [professor] was doing 40 mph in a 30mph zone when she was nailed by a speeding camera. Instead of just paying the fine, what did she and her husband Michael (a magistrate!) do? As reported in the Mail Online:
After consulting an internet website for tips on challenging speeding tickets, they altered the car’s appearance.
They changed the style of the Skoda’s number plate and removed stickers from its windscreen in a bizarre attempt to persuade police it had been ‘cloned’ and that she was not the driver…
Then they tried to weasel out of it.
Over the next three months Nottinghamshire Central Ticket Office, which deals with speeding fines, received five letters contesting the ticket, all signed by ‘Mr Rodger JP’.
They variously claimed he had no knowledge of the offence, that the car was regularly used by others, that the car may have been ‘cloned’, that the car was parked in Nottingham city centre at the time of the offence and that the captured image was not clear enough to identify the driver.
The letters also claimed that the middle letter on the number plate was indistinct and that his vehicle did not have stickers in the windscreen, unlike the images of the speeding car.
So the cops went to their house to ask them about the letters. What did they say?
Mrs Rodger stated she had, while Mr Rodger claimed he had signed them without reading them. Thomas Elmer, defending Mr Rodger, said: ‘It was his wife who wished to evade the penalty but it was their joint idea how to go about it.”
Partners in an asinine crime. The Judge agreed.
The couple wept as Judge David Brunning told them they had been ‘staggeringly stupid’ and that he had ‘just been persuaded’ not to send them to prison. Instead, they were each given six-month jail sentences, suspended for two years.
They were also ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work each and to pay £5,000 costs between them after admitting intending to pervert the course of justice.
Here’s the source.
What’s up with these crazy hoons? As reported by The Age:
A P-plate driver [driver with a probationary license] was caught doing burn-outs in a police station car park. The 23-year-old hoon left a 20-metre skid-mark in the Craigieburn police station car park before driving off. Police later impounded his VN Commodore for 48 hours.
That’s a 65-foot skid mark! In a police parking garage! Here’s another hoon story.
Such is not the case with Donald J. Jacobs, Jr. of North Platte, Nebraska. Per the North Platte Telegraph:
According to the police report, Jacobs was intoxicated and assaulted his girlfriend with the pot when he discovered she made macaroni for his dinner. The assault caused the food to be tossed throughout the residence, as he struck her with the pot, according to the report.
More importantly, the victim “…had a cut on the bridge of her nose and a bruise on her face. … it must have been a significant hit because the handle of the pot was broken.” Damn! Oh, and it was 3:30 a.m. when the police arrived, and not for the first time.
“He definitely has a history,” [police investigator Dale Matuszczak] said.
So what happened to Mr. Jacobs?
[He] was arrested and booked into the Lincoln County Jail on second-degree domestic assault, a Class 3A felony. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine. Jacobs was arraigned Monday and held in custody on a $5,000 bail.
Wonder how he likes the food in jail?
It was not a good day for Manheim Township, Pennsylvania resident Michael Hufford. At about 11:00 a.m., he was in an accident, and was busted for suspected DUI. The police released him to his girlfriend. Just 5 hours and 8 minutes later, Mr. Hufford was in another accident, and was again busted for suspected DUI. This time, per Lancaster Online, “Hufford .. was committed to Lancaster County Prison in default of $10,000 cash bail…”
Any parent would be rightfully angry upon learning that their child was bullied. Perhaps, though, stabbing the bully is not the proper response. Say what? Per the Toronto City News:
Here’s what [the police] say happened: two female students at an Oshawa school – which isn’t being named – were engaged in a war of words. The elder of the two was allegedly picking on the 13-year-old, forcing the young girl to kneel in front of her.
So the younger girl told her mom what had happened, pouring out her sad story. But instead of going to the principal, cops allege the mom went straight to the bully.
Uh oh.
Witnesses told them they saw a car pull up on Olive Ave. on Wednesday at about 7:30pm, come to a sudden halt and then heard a woman shouting at the girl who was standing on the street.
As the startled bystanders watched in stunned surprise, the woman allegedly got out of the vehicle, grabbed the youngster by the hair and stabbed her in the left side of her stomach with a pocketknife.
The girl was taken to hospital, where doctors said that the knife luckily hit a bone – otherwise, it would have been much worse.
Mom was busted for assault. The bully was busted for uttering threats. Here’s the source.
At least in Germany it is. As reported by Reuters (a few years ago):
A Cologne court fined a man who admitted he was having sex with a hitchhiker sitting astride him when he drove his car into a road sign. But only because he fled the scene of the accident with his naked accomplice.
Said a court spokesman:
“It’s hard to believe but in fact no law was broken with the intercourse on the motorway. It’s a situation lawmakers never thought about.”
Is this a story these folks will be telling their grandkids? Unlikely.
[The driver] did not know the name of the woman who left her clothes behind in the car.
Legal Juice