Legal Juice

Show up for questioning about stolen clothes, including a jacket, wearing the stolen jacket! As reported at SheboyganPress.com,

Felipe M. Medina, of Sheboygan, was charged Thursday with a misdemeanor count of retail theft.

The criminal complaint said Medina took a pair of blue jeans, a black T-shirt and a black jacket from a Kohl’s store on Nov. 27 in Sheboygan. Police Capt. James Veeser identified Medina as the suspect after viewing the store surveillance tape.

A detective asked Medina to come to the police station Wednesday. He admitted in a police interview that he took the clothes and was currently wearing the stolen jacket, the complaint said.

He faces up to nine months in jail if convicted.

Folks have been making it easy for the police lately. Check out this story, and this one.

Over the 14 years Noel "Nutsy" Campbell and Miss Jasmine were involved (I can't say "together" because at one point, she left him for 4 years!), she left him 13 times. He always took her back. So why did he finally decide he'd had enough? He was tired of the beatings Miss Jasmine inflicted on him, among other things.

She used a machete to beat me all over my body. I ran into my van to get away from her. I managed to get into the van. Nicholas and Noel Jr (his sons) ran me down ... and began beating me in my head. I drive away and left them.

She attacked me with a machete that gave me a cut to my right finger on my right hand. I ran out of the house. I went into the van and was reversing. (She) used a stone to hit out the windshield and she also broke my rear view mirror.

So he went to went to court to get a protective order. The Judge said this was the first time she'd ever seen a man bring a woman before the court for abuse. She also said:

"The court makes a protection order or interim protection order forbidding the respondent from entering or remaining in the (applicant's) residence." The order, among other clauses, forbids Miss Jasmine from entering Nutsy's place of work or education, and from molesting the (applicant) by using abusive language to or behaving towards (the applicant) in any manner which is of such nature and degree as to cause annoyance to or result in ill-treatment of the (applicant)".

Through all of this, Nutsy said he still loves her! Said Nutsy,

... men who are being physically abused by their partners must do the honourable thing and seek legal protection and, if they "can do better, leave the woman, nuh kill har, cause life hard, but it sweet".

You can read more (a fair amount) here.

...I would put "in front of the police station" near the bottom of the list. Of course, the calculus changes, when, like a 40-year-old Appleton, Wisconsin man, you have consumed so much booze that your blood-alcohol level is 4 times the legal limit. He was busted for ... public urination and jailed on a probation violation! (Here's the story.)

Have they not seen "Footloose," one of the best Kevin Bacon movies of all time? People, you can't stop dancing, as Kevin Bacon proved beyond any reasonable doubt. So who dares to question the lessons of "Footloose?" The Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, that's who. Why? To stop obscene dancing. This is sounding very familiar... Just swap preacher John Lithgow for Home Minister K. Jana Reddy.

What does the new law do? It bans "dancing in clubs, bars and pubs." Not to worry though. Per Mr. Reddy, "orchestra and singing accompanied by eating and drinking, however, [is] permitted at these places if the managements obtained amusement licences."

Look, I've seen "Footloose" several times (please, don't tell anyone), so let me tell you how this is going to end. The leaders will realize that dancing is not really a problem, and Kevin Bacon will dance off into the Andhra Pradesh sunset. (You can read a little more here.)

Damn! As reported by the AP:

A man fighting with his girlfriend clung to a car roof and punched her through the window as she drove more than a mile on a busy road, hitting several other cars, police said.

Both were hurt in the brawl Saturday and were arrested, police Sgt. Manfredo Figueroa said.

The man, William Kremer, apparently jumped onto the car and held on as girlfriend Stacey Sperrazza wove along Route 202 with the car's air bag inflated, police said. She eventually stopped the car and hit him with it, police said.

Sperrazza, 37, of Stony Point, was arrested on a felony charge of reckless endangerment. Kremer, 42, of Haverstraw, was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge.

He was treated for a foot injury, she for eye and head wounds, police said.

I'm guessing there won't be any make-up sex.

... and jail them too. Egyptian blogger Karim Amer got four years for criticizing Islam and President Mubarak on his blog. He's now been in jail for a year.

Karim Amer, who is serving his prison sentence in Borg Al-Arab Prison, Alexandria, wrote in his letters to one of his legal counsels that he was beaten on 24 October 2007.

Karim Amer said he was punched and kicked by a prisoner and a prison guard under the supervision of a prison investigations officer. One of his teeth was broken and he was badly bruised. He was then taken to a disciplinary cell, hand-cuffed and his legs tied up and beaten again by the same two individuals on the orders of the prison investigations officer.

After he was beaten, he was put in solitary confinement in a disciplinary cell until 2 November 2007. During this period, he was given only one meal and one bottle of water a day and not allowed to send letters. He was finally moved back to the prison section where he was initially detained on 7 November 2007 and held in an individual cell.

Karim Amer was first detained by the Egyptian authorities for twelve days in October 2005 because of his writings on his blog (karam903.blogspot.com) about Islam and the sectarian riots that took place in the same month in Alexandria's Moharram Bek district. These riots followed reports that the video of a play believed to be anti-Islamic was being screened in a Coptic church in the district.

In March 2006, disciplinary measures were taken against him by al-Azhar University and he was dismissed. The university's disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam.

He was rearrested in Alexandria on 7 November 2006 following a complaint made against him by al-Azhar University. He remained in detention since then until his sentencing, following a series of extensions.

The things we take for granted ...

If nothing else, that's gotta bring some seriously bad karma. As reported by the AP,

Police [in Rogers, Arkansas] are conducting an internal investigation into an allegation that a lieutenant used his stun gun to shock a cow and shared a videotape of the incident with other department employees.

Police Chief Steve Helms said Tuesday the inquiry began after he received a complaint from the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A letter dated Feb. 11 from PETA representative Stephanie Bell complained that Lt. David Mitchell filmed himself using the electronic stun device on the cow.

Bell said in the letter that Mitchell distributed the video as a joke among friends and co-workers and she notes that animal cruelty is a misdemeanor crime in Arkansas.

Helms didn't immediately return a call for comment on Wednesday. City Attorney Ben Lipscomb said Tuesday that the alleged incident happened 2 1/2 years ago, which would be beyond the statute of limitations for misdemeanors. Lipscomb said there would be no point in pursuing a criminal investigation.

Helms said a captain in the department will conduct the investigation and Mitchell will remain on regular duty.

Charles Chambers went to the Anderson County (South Carolina) Sheriff's Office "to demand the return of nearly $2,000 officers seized from him during a drug arrest last June," per the AP. After they told him to pound sand,

... an officer noticed he got into a car that matched the description of a vehicle stolen about three hours earlier.

Another officer pulled the man over and told him to stop the car. The officer said Chambers stuck a screwdriver in the ignition to shut it off because the vehicle's key switch had been removed.

Authorities say Chambers was charged with possession of a stolen automobile, driving under suspension and a tag violation.

Damn, a tag violation too? Cold, very cold, on an otherwise already really bad day.

If your dog is looking over your shoulder, be warned that this story may really disturb her. Hell, it really disturbs me. As reported by Kansas station KAKE:

Police make an unusual arrest Tuesday evening. A woman in the 3700 block of E. Clark heard someone break into her garage. When she went to check on the noise, she says she found a man sexually assaulting her four year old female rottweiler.

Police arrested Josh Coman, 20, for aggravated burglary of a home and criminal sodomy. Coman pleaded guilty last year to a similar crime involving a dog in Reno County. Police say the state's new Magnum's Law, designed to protect animals from abuse, does not cover sexual assaults. However, state law prohibits sexual contact between humans and animals.

Authorities say Coman knew the family of the dog he reportedly attacked. Investigators plan to present their case to the District Attorney later this week.

A serial dog cornholer? Dude has some serious issues (not that a one-timer doesn't ...) Here's the source.

Reverend John Dear and 8 others "occupied the elevator of Sen. Pete Domenici's Santa Fe office for more than five hours" in 2006, per the The Albuquerque Tribune. They were protesting the Iraq War. They remained in the elevator because they were denied access to the Senator's third-floor office.

Keep in mind that Reverend Dear was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Gandhi Peace Prize. U.S. District Court Judge Don Svet was unimpressed. Said Dear to the court:

"This war is unjust, morally sinful and just downright impractical," he said.

Dear added that he had contemplated the words of Mohandas Gandhi, who Dear said advocated to reject a court's sanctions if the cause was just.

"I want to take my case to a higher court, to a higher judge ---------------- the God of peace," Dear said before uttering a prayer.

What did the judge have to say?

... Svet would have none of it, calling Dear a "renegade priest," "a coward" and "no Gandhi."

"Mr. Dear, you frankly are a phony," Svet said. "You preach nonviolence but you are the same man who took a hammer and a can of paint against a U.S. aircraft."

Huh? Technically taking a hammer to a plane is "violence," but really. The sentence? 40 hours of community service and $510 in fines and court costs. Will Dear appeal? Nope. You can read more here. And here is Reverend Dear's website.

Yup, according to a Staten Island judge. As reported by the AP:

The ruling this week lets stand charges that a 16-year-old broke the law when she sent friend requests on the social networking site to a woman and her two daughters.

Criminal Court Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr. ruled that even though MySpace users can ignore, deny or block friend requests, "that request was still a contact, and no contact was allowed" by the temporary order of protection.

The defendant is charged with misdemeanor second-degree criminal contempt; a trial date has not been set. Her attorney has declined comment.

Per the St. Petersburg Times:

To prove he's incompetent to stand trial on multiple felony charges, Robert Sinclaire Lee hid a razor in his mouth and used it to cut his wrist in court.

He smeared feces on his face.

And Monday, he entered a courtroom with feces hidden in his jail jacket pocket.

Did it work? Nope. Why not? Well, among other evidence of malingering,

Prosecutors also have jail phone call recordings on which Lee laughs about acting "crazy."

Who knew that prisoner's phone calls were monitored, other than EVERYONE (except Lee)? To read more, click here.

As reported in the City News:

It is a tale that could only happen in the age of the Internet and it's become the focus of worldwide attention. A German woman has won a court battle to force an Internet service provider to reveal the names of the men who may have gotten her pregnant. That's unusual enough, but the circumstances surrounding this case are even more bizarre.

She doesn't know who the guy is because the six men on the 'possibility list' all won the chance to have intimate relations with her as part of an Internet auction. The Stuttgart woman offered up her services to the highest bidders in April and May of last year. She only knew the 'winners' by their screen names.

When she found out she was expecting, she decided she had to know the father's name. But when the ISP refused to provide their identities, the reluctant mother-to-be took legal action. "The woman wanted to discover which one of the men had made her pregnant," a court spokesman explains. "So she needed their contact details."

After hashing out the arguments, a judge has now ruled that it's the child's right to know who the real dad is and that the Internet provider must give her the names of the men involved.

But this legal battle is far from over. Once she learns their I.D.s, there's no indication whether the men involved will cooperate with her search. And that may take her back before yet another judge. "If they're not willing to go along with the gene test, she'll have to take them to court," the spokesman admits.

Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee had been arrested three times in the past 18 months, and was involved in several other incidents.

He was arrested (that's #1) for shouting an obscenity at Blockbuster employees. In the aftermath of a protest following the Blockbuster incident, he did not contest "a municipal charge of resisting and obstructing an officer."

He was arrested again (that's #2) after threatening to kill Kimley Rucker, a woman with whom he had an affair and who later gave birth to his child. Rucker's attorney claimed McGee threatened her in open court, saying "if you drive by my house, I'm going to kill your ass."

He was investigated for perjury, when, under oath, he denied any "romantic" relationship with Rucker. (remember her!)

Currently, he is under arrest (that's #3) and being investigated on charges of public corruption. According to sources, the arrest was made earlier than planned because investigators suspected the potential for violence.

And that's not all. McGee held drivers licenses in two names: not only "Michael McGee," but also "Michael I. Jackson," a name which he alleged to be his birth name when he petitioned the state to legally change it. He withdrew the petition, but not before the Department of Transportation discovered that McGee had driver's licenses in both names! And his "Jackson" license was revoked in 2000. In June 2006, the state also revoked his "McGee" license!
During the recall campaign, an opponent's campaign manager got a restraining order against McGee because the man (Todd) feared for his life. During a radio broadcast, McGee said that Todd "should be 'hung' for his 'betrayal of the community.'"

Okay, so would you vote for this man in the recall campaign? Do you think he won?

Continue reading "Would You Vote For This Man?" »

Well, the bailiffs told reporter Mike Longaecker (of The Republican Eagle) that the message on the woman's flashing belt buckle read "fuck you." Shazam! Why? Per Mr. Longaecker:

While the attorney for a suspected Red Wing murder accomplice argued for his client’s release, a supporter of the suspect had a courtroom message she also wanted to deliver... A family member said after the hearing that the belt’s message was in regard to “the situation.”

So what happened to her? To the clink for contempt? A judicial tongue-lashing? Nope.

She was warned by a bailiff not to wear the belt again during future court proceedings.

You can read more (a little bit) here.

So this 52-year-old dude was growing pot in the loft of a house he owned with a 59-year-old woman. She dropped by the house to tell him to kill the weed. An argument ensued, after which she tried to tear down the wall that partitioned off the weed room. Uh oh. The dude [the couple is not identified "for legal reasons" per the Bundaberg NewsMail] went ballistic.

The woman testified that he grabbed her from behind and "... picked her up and dangled her over the loft's staircase before throwing her down the stairs."

"All of a sudden my body was looking down (from the top of the stairs). I was terrified," the woman told court. "He smashed my body with full force down the stairs. There was nothing I could do."

Then he took her to the hospital, right? Not even close.

While outside she was allegedly punched several times and made to wait for hours before the man carried her by wheelbarrow to his car. The man then allegedly drove her to the Bundaberg Courthouse and made her wait in the car before taking her to the hospital.

You'll never guess what he was doing at the courthouse. He was filing for a domestic violence order! She required immediate surgery for a fractured femur, after which she spent 8 days in the hospital, and a month in a wheelchair. The case is now in trial. Here's the source.

Sixty-one-year-old Janusz Nowak of Sosnowiec, Poland was sick and tired of people vandalizing his bus stop. So, he pasted the following notice on the pavement:

"Dear Vandals - please stop destroying the bus-stop."

And guess what happened? He was arrested for vandalism!

A police spokesman said: "Although the man had good intentions and wanted to express his indignation towards hooligans' behaviour in the neighbourhood he unfortunately broke the law himself."

What a brilliant use of police resources. Here's the story.

Anthony Rentas, husband of Attorney Kathy Brewer Rentas, was sentenced to 90 days house arrest for violating his probation. Call it a hunch, but I don't think Ms. Rentas was thanking Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenifer Keene when she shook her hand after the hearing. Here's what went down, as reported by the AP (and brought to the Juice's attention by Ms. Cindy Hill):

A court security officer reported that Brewer Rentas shook Keene's hand so forcefully that the prosecutor's arm was nearly ripped out of its socket.

"With Keene in hand, Brewer made an upward, then a quick downward motion and pulled Keene toward the ground moving her forward, almost causing Keene to fall to the ground," Deputy U.S. Marshall Robert Kremenik Jr. wrote in an arrest report.

The consequences?

Brewer Rentas spent a night in jail and was freed Friday on $100,000 bail. She was ordered to stay away from Keene and undergo a psychological evaluation to determine whether she needs counseling.

"Assaulting a federal officer is something that we will take very seriously and prosecute vigorously," said Alicia Valle, a U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman. "As a member of the bar, she should know better." Indeed.

Especially if you're doing it with a random nude body and your ex-girlfriend's head. Rustan Ang now knows this. As reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

The Court of Appeals has affirmed a four-year prison term, P100,000 fine ($2,470 U.S.) and mandatory psychiatric treatment for a man who threatened to spread a pornographic picture with his ex-girlfriend's face on it after she rebuffed his attempts to rekindle their relationship.

... On June 5, 2005, Ang sent her a picture through her cell phone of a nude woman with her legs apart. The face was hers. The day before, Ang, who is married, asked her to be his textmate but she refused.She said her face was apparently lifted from a photo taken with Ang when they visited Baguio during their three-month relationship.

Ang warned her in a subsequent text message that it would be easy to post the pornographic picture on the internet, and asked if she wanted him to send more lewd pictures of her.

So she went to the police, and Ang was busted. He was found guilty of violating the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act. Four years in prison! To read more (just a little) click here.

How can a 34-year-old man, who admitted to a four-month-long sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl not see the inside of a cell? He was originally sentenced to 3 years but, on appeal, the court reduced the sentence to 1 year and 4 months. Why? The court concluded there was "real love" between Vicenza butcher Antonio de Pascale and the girl. Truly frightening, as are the comments of Judge Simonetta Matone of Rome:

The law must 'always look to be reasonable in these cases. Every relationship is a relationship and the real maturity, whether physical or psychological, of the minor must be weighed, with the help of experts.'

What? No! No weighing, your honor. I wonder where she would draw the line. Twelve? Ten? And why is it likely that de Pascale won't do any time? Because Italy currently has a general amnesty for anyone sentenced to less than 3 years. A fitting end to an outrageous case. To read more (a little), click here.

So the husband, Ravi, wanted an omelette for dinner. And he's not real flexible (at least he wasn't at the time). Wife Kavitha, a school teacher, didn't feel like cooking no stinkin' omelette. After an argument, she began chopping onions for the omelette. After another argument ensued, she took that old knife and planted it right in Ravi's chest. Do NOT mess with Ravi! (And, generally speaking, don't argue with a knife-wielder.) The fuzz took Kavitha away, while neighbors took Ravi to the hospital. Here's the article. (Trust me, my write-up is better.)