Legal Juice

Sorry, The Juice gets worked up when a cyclist is involved. He gets that a lot of people just don't like cyclists, though he doesn't fully understand why. But this? As reported by wdrb.com (Louisville, KY):

A Louisville man is accused of assault after police say he intentionally struck a bicyclist with his vehicle.

Now you can see why The Juice is very angry.

Police say 19-year-old Gage A. Dela Cruz was driving in that area when he "intentionally" struck the bicyclist, causing injuries serious enough that the bicyclist had to be taken to the hospital.

Why?

The victim allegedly told police that, "he was operating his bicycle on the left-hand side of the street, and the vehicle being operated by the defendant came from behind and struck him."

Sure, that explains it?

Police say Dela Cruz stopped his vehicle and the bicyclist recognized him. According to the arrest report, a passenger in Dela Cruz's car then leaned out the window and yelled, "That's not all. You have more coming to you!" That's when Dela Cruz drove off, according to police.

Now that explains it. They're just mean.

Officers caught up with him at his home Friday morning and arrested him. He's been charged with second degree assault.

Here's the source, including a mug shot.

The source for today's Juice? A Change.org petition that came The Juice's way. No doubt this law will end homosexuality in Alabama... Clearly a class adhering to the requirements of this law cannot be called sex "education." The law is Section 16-40A-2 of the Alabama Code:

MINIMUM CONTENTS TO BE INCLUDED IN SEX EDUCATION PROGRAM OR CURRICULUM

... (c) Course materials and instruction that relate to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include all of the following elements:

... (8) An emphasis, in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the laws of the state.

This is just stupid and wrong on so many levels. Who is this "general public" referring to? Not the American public. And "homosexual conduct is a criminal offense"? Sure, some of it is (sodomy). But what about two men holding hands? You can read the full text of this small-minded, bigoted law here.

Okay, The Juice ran out of material, so he just flat-out made this up. Ha! No, loyal readers, sadly this is a true story. From The Toronto Star, we have this story of a tremendous waste of government resources.

On a Monday evening in October 2011, 62-year-old Kathryn David returned to her home near Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Eglinton Ave. She pulled into the shared driveway between her home and that of her neighbour, Kevin Cooper. According to the judge’s decision, she got out of her car to move Cooper’s hose that went along the side of Cooper’s house and under a tall wooden gate to the backyard. Eventually, she tugged on the hose, causing it to catch on a patio chair in Cooper’s backyard and tear.

No big thing, you might think? What if The Juice told you this, this awful act was caught on videotape? Right, still no big thing, or ... was it?

The incident was caught on video surveillance cameras set up by Cooper and he called the police to report property damage. David was then handcuffed and taken to a police station in the back of police car, says her lawyer, Erec Rolfe.

What? Why?

That is standard procedure, says Toronto Police spokesperson Victor Kwong, adding that “if the public wants us to be police and not be judge and jury, we go ahead with the charge regardless of dollar amount. And then it’s up to the courts to decide whether to mediate this or go to trial with it.”

The Juice isn't blaming the cops, just the geniuses who set up this ridiculous, overly-inclusive procedure.

“The criminal charges were laid against our neighbour following a detailed police investigation and an independent decision by the Crown prosecutor to pursue those charges,” said Cooper and his wife Sylvia by email late Tuesday night.

So what happened?

“Fortunately for the Toronto Police Service, the Supreme Court of Canada has said that stupidity in relation to the law and negligence is not a case for malicious prosecution.” said Provincial Court Justice William Wolski before dismissing the charge, according to a transcript. “Why these charges were laid is still a mystery to me.”

Next case! Here's the source, including a photo of the scene of the crime.

Prison? Marry this boy? Prison? Marry this boy? This is just so wrong. As reported by wgntv.com:

A school teacher in North Carolina had sex with a 15-year-old boy, but she avoided going to prison because she married him.

42-year-old Leah Gayle Shipman waited until her divorce was final, then married Johnny Ray Ison six days later. By that time, Ison was 17, and his mother had to give permission since her son was still a minor.

Shipman was facing 15 years in prison on charges of statutory rape; but now, under North Carolina law, Ison can’t be compelled to testify against his new wife.

Without his testimony, prosecutors have no case.

Here's the source, including a video news story.

Craigslist is a great resource. However, as has been demonstrated all too often, it's susceptible to abuse by all kinds of strange and bad folks. As reported by The Union Leader:

A Hooksett man with a history of faking a brain injury to get home care workers to change his diaper has been indicted for his latest alleged ruse in Hampton.

Eric Carrier, 24, is facing a single count of attempted indecent exposure and lewdness for his encounter with a home care worker in Hampton on Sept 12. A Rockingham County grand jury handed up the charge while deliberating earlier this month in superior court, according to an indictment made public this week.

Carrier allegedly responded to an advertisement the woman posted on the website craigslist.org, claiming he was a 22-year-old disabled man. When the two met in Hampton, Carrier claimed he needed help changing his soiled diaper in an attempt to expose himself to the woman, police said.

As for the other charges ...

Carrier was charged last year by Hooksett police with indecent exposure for soliciting five other women by posing as a disabled person on Craigslist, according to police. He was convicted of indecent exposure on July 30, police said.

Court documents suggest that Carrier may already be negotiating a plea deal following his latest arrest. A conviction in his latest case could land him in state prison for up to 3½ to seven years. It's unclear whether he may face additional punishment for a subsequent conviction.

Hampton police say Carrier claimed he could not control his bowel movements due to a brain injury. A 30-year-old Nashua woman who met Carrier on Sept. 12 grew suspicious of his behavior and later notified police, according to a court complaint.

Hooksett police said they received reports from several other women during their investigation last year, but could not go forward with those cases because they were beyond the statute of limitations. Carrier will be arraigned on his latest charge in Rockingham County Superior Court on Jan. 31.

Looks like he'll be out of commission for a while. Here's the source, including a photo.

Sometimes "fans" truly are "fanatics." Something happened during the Falcons-Seahawks game this weekend that set a strange chain of events in motion. Per tcpalm.com:

According to an arrest affidavit, the family was watching the game when the 56-year-old Crawford made rude comments about an unidentified player. That led to a family argument and his threatening other people in the house. The argument continued outside where, according to the affidavit, he was quoted as saying he was going to kill everyone "by breaking their necks and spitting on their grave.

Whoa there buddy. How do you get from comments about a player to spitting, er, mass murder?

He allegedly spit on someone just before police arrived and arrested him [for domestic battery] at 2:45 p.m. at the home in the 1300 block of Southeast Floresta Drive.

Thank goodness he just did the spitting part.

On Monday he remained in jail under a $1,500 bail bond.

Click here for the source.

With everything that's available on the internet, legally, do you really need to do this to people? This is just creepy. As reported in The Kennebec Journal (Maine):

The arrest [of William Tibbals, 31, of Pepperal Street] followed a long investigation triggered by reports by customers that a man with a camera in his shoe was capturing images up women’s skirts, said Scarborough Police Detectives.

Can you believe people noticed a guy with a camera in his shoe, hovering around females with skirts? Who would have guessed that? The charges?

... a felony count of visual sexual aggression against a child under 12 and multiple counts of violating privacy.

Tibbals is being held at the Cumberland County Jail. 

You'll find the source here, including a mug shot.

Hey lady, get a life. If you were so offended by what you thought this guy was doing, why did you follow him? For the children? As reported by tcpalm.com:

A 34-year-old woman told Port St. Lucie police she saw a man in his vehicle in a plaza on Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard. He was "making an up and down motion in the area of his crotch," a recently released police report states.

The woman didn't see his genitals but believed the man was masturbating. He started to circle the parking lot, and she began following him and called police.

Get a hobby! Or is being a busy body your hobby? Or is it keeping the world safe from masturbators?

He noticed the woman looking at him and stopped.

Police spoke to the man, also 34, who explained "he got the urge to scratch his testicles," a report states.

"He raised his right short leg up and began to scratch himself because of a rash ... on his testicles," a report states.

The proof is in the, um, er, uh ...

He asked whether he could show police the rash to prove he wasn't engaged in anything else.

He "presented" his testicles to an officer, who verified the rash.

Police determined the man, who has no criminal history, did not expose himself and found no proof that he was performing lewd acts in public.

Think this one is making its way around the police precinct? Here's the source, which includes the police incident report.

Some people just seem intent on sucking all of the joy out of life. Here's a case in point, as reported by The Seattle Times:

The staff at Lafayette Elementary School in West Seattle has decided to uphold its decision not to allow students to dress up for Halloween this year, according to a Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman.

The decision, however, was centered around the costumes being a distraction during an abbreviated day of school, not around the possibility of offending students from other cultures, or offending some students’ religious beliefs, district spokeswoman Teresa Wippel said in an email sent out this morning.

So you made a bad decision, reviewed it, and decided to stick with it. Brilliant!

“Staff suggested that since Halloween falls this year on a half day of school, the school not allow costumes. It takes students a while to change into their costumes, and students are distracted, taking away from the already limited instructional time,” Wippel wrote.

“The principal said that staff also had a conversation about cultural issues that will also be discussed further, but the reason for the final decision about costumes this year was due to instructional time.”

As Colonel Sherman Potter of M.A.S.H. was fond of saying, "horse hockey!" In keeping with the teachings of Otter in Animal House ("We're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!"), one parent is somewhat defiant.

Although Halloween has its roots as a religious observance, parent Ken Allen said it’s pretty clearly a secular holiday now, and that’s what he’s hearing from other parents.

Allen’s daughter plans to dress up as Hunger Games protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and will get in costume after school if the costume ban holds.

Wippel said there is no district-wide policy on costumes. The decision to allow costumes is up to individual schools.

At least he's a straightforward joysucker. Here's the source.

Just the other day, The Juice blogged about a cancer faker. That lady had nothing on Ms. Lori E. Stilley. As reported by The Gloucester County Times (New Jersey) at nj.com:

Making more than $3,000 from sales of an e-book was far from the only thing a township woman did to rake in tens of thousands of dollars from lying about having cancer, authorities allege.

According to a statement released from the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, the scheme began and ended in 2011.

Lori E. Stilley, 40, told family and friends in February that she had been diagnosed with Stage III bladder cancer, authorities said.

She told them she’d undergone radiation and chemotherapy treatment, prosecutors said, posting the same on Facebook and her personal website.

In April, Stilley allegedly said the cancer had progressed to Stage IV. She told her loved ones she didn’t have health insurance, although authorities said investigation would show she’d never been diagnosed with cancer.

Surely if you're telling folks your cancer is Stage IV, you have an end game, right? Well ... Anyway, in the interim ...

The friends and relatives organized several efforts to raise money for Stilley, including a T-shirt sale. A fundraising banquet in July 2011 raised $8,400. Another fundraiser and cash raffle that summer brought in another $1,000.

Stilley sold her e-book about struggling daily with cancer - posted for sale in October - for $14.99. She reportedly told people she wanted to marry her boyfriend before she died.

So again, loved ones came through for her. They planned the wedding that took place within a week and a half. The organizers haggled the wedding hall price down to $500 and covered the cost on their own.

Then there were the donations of gift cards totaling more than $1,600.

One friend even created a meal calendar - posted on Stilley’s website - by which kind souls prepared and delivered meals to her. They scheduled dates for deliveries months ahead of time.

That's one helluva support group this lady had.

But the alleged scheme wouldn’t include a faked death. In November, when she was supposedly due soon for hospice care, Stilley posted on her Facebook page a message saying she was feeling better and believed a miracle was coming.

A miracle? That's the exit plan for your despicable scheme? And you thought people would buy it? A miracle?

When she postponed hospice, her long-loyal friends became suspicious.

Following investigation, Stilley surrendered Wednesday morning, authorities said, at the Delran Township Police Department.

She was charged theft by deception and was released after posting $25,000 bail.

Here's the source, including a photo of Ms. Stilley.

Surely you will agree with The Juice that this food company has crossed the line. Fortunately, there's a watchdog group who is on it. As reported by redhotrussia.com:

The Prosecutor General’s Office received an official complaint from the public organization – “Russian People’s Council“. Its activists accused Wimm Bill Dann (food company specializing in dairy products) in promotion of homosexuality.

Reason: packages of milk and yogurt contain the image of rainbow, which according to the head of People’s Council is “the universal symbol of LGBT movement and therefore is the open propaganda of vice“.

No! Not ... a ... rainbow!

Complaint was filed by the Saint-Petersburg section of the organization. It should be noted that in the beginning of this year Saint Petersburg passed the law banning propaganda of “sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality or transgenderism among minors”. In its current draft the violation of this ban is punishable by fine.

Word is the group is working on a super-secret device that will zap rainbows whenever they appear in nature ... Here's the source.

This woman who pretended to have breast cancer to raise money for a certain elective surgery deserves some jail time. Think she got it? Read on, as reported by The Arizona Republic:

The Phoenix woman accused of pretending to have cancer to raise money for breast implants was sentenced to a year in jail and three years of probation Wednesday.

Jami Lynn Toler, 27, accepted a plea agreement in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. The agreement included paying restitution in addition to her sentence. The jail time began Wednesday.

Well done, your Honor. That sentence works for The Juice.

Toler pleaded guilty last month in Superior Court to theft, officials said. She told her former boss and her family that she needed a double mastectomy and that breast reconstruction was uninsured, according to court records.

Authorities said Toler raised more than $8,000.

What about the money?

Medical records had shown she did not have cancer and paid for the operation in cash.

So, so low. Here's the source.

A recent police blotter from The Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada) has several examples of just how stupid people can be when they're drunk. Of course, it might not be any different when they're sober ... but at least they wouldn't put the lives of others at risk. This dipstick apparently forgot that McDonald's is a fast food "restaurant" ...

Staff at McDonald’s call police when a man ordering food at the drive thru appears to be drunk. They stall the customer until officers arrive. The 26-year-old Hamilton man is charged with impaired driving and refusing to give a breath sample.

Briliant! Being that The Juice is a personal injury lawyer, he gets especially pissed at dolts who flee the scene, like this guy.

A driver involved in a collision at Upper Wentworth and the Linc leaves the scene at 3:15 a.m. Half hour later, police locate the suspect trying to change a flat tire, stalled going the wrong direction on the eastbound QEW at the Red Hill. A 34-year-old Hamilton man is charged with fail to remain, impaired driving and over 80.

A well-deserved flat tire. This next miscreant is a bit more run-of-the-mill.

Witnesses call police at 1:20 a.m. when a woman who appears intoxicated leaves a variety store and gets into a vehicle. Officers find the woman asleep in the driver’s seat with the car running. The 44-year-old from Hamilton is charged with impaired and over 80.

Good idea, that, going to the variety store when you're hammered.

The term "road rage" is used a lot, probably too much. But this case right here, this is definitely road rage. As reported by The Tampa Bay Times:

The onslaught began when Bonnie N. Coleman, 31, was driving west on Tampa Road in Oldsmar and Therese O'Neill, 29, cut in front of her 2012 Saturn station wagon.

Oh no you didn't just cut in front of her.

Coleman didn't like that, deputies said, so she ran into the rear bumper of O'Neill's 1992 Dodge station wagon. "They didn't know each other," said Pinellas County sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda. "It just appears the victim had switched lanes and the suspect became very angry."

So she bumped her. Not cool, but ... oh wait, there's more.

Coleman trailed O'Neill and bumped her car several times, officials said, before they reached East Lake Road and were stopped by a red light.

Coleman then tried to push O'Neill's station wagon into the intersection, deputies said.

Holy crap! Sure seems like she trying to get Ms. O'Neill either killed or seriously injured.

That's when O'Neill retaliated. She backed up into Coleman's car, then ran the light to try to escape the enraged driver, according to the Sheriff's Office.

"I think she was trying her best to do what she could to get away from this woman," Barreda said. "But (Coleman) continued and continued and was so persistent. It didn't end.

Deputies said Coleman followed O'Neill from Tampa Road onto Mayfair Place in Palm Harbor, where the two women got out of their cars and began to fight. Coleman pulled O'Neill's hair, kicked and punched her, officials said.

A 45-year-old witness to the road rage incident, Jill Ann Atwood, stopped nearby, called 911, then got out of her car, ran up to the brawling women and attempted to help O'Neill.

That's got to be it. No?

Coleman struck Atwood in the eye with her fist, deputies said.

That, actually was the end of it, pretty much.

Coleman was charged with aggravated battery, aggravated assault with a motor vehicle and simple battery. Deputies said she was uncooperative to the last and acted "agitated" as she was taken into custody.

As for the victims ...

Both O'Neill and Atwood were taken to Mease Countryside Hospital in Safety Harbor with non-life-threatening injuries following the attack.

Whew! The Juice is exhausted. Here's the source.

When he was a kid, in addition to being a tool, this California elected official must have really sucked at baseball. Sadly, below you can see him taking it out on his stepson.

You can read more about it here.

If you don't recognize the title of the post, go watch "Animal House." Now. Since you've seen the movie, or at least the clip, The Juice can tell you that Dorfman has nothing on these two. As reported by the Volusia County (Florida) Sheriff's Office:

Volusia County Sheriffs investigators have put the brakes on a two-man vandalism spree believed to be responsible for damage to nearly two dozen vehicles in the DeLand area over the past month. The two people arrested this week by investigators -- 20-year-old Keith Dekoeyer and 21-year-old Christopher Jackson -- said they were drunk during their escapades, acted out of boredom and for the most part hit vehicles at random.

And things were going just fine (for them, anyway), until they got really stupid.

But mad at his boss over some workplace issues, Jackson told Dekoeyer one night to drive to his boss’ apartment complex on Ayesbury Circle. Once there, Jackson got out and slashed all four tires on his boss’ truck and then the two fled the area. The very next night, they drove by the apartment complex again and saw that the victim had replaced his tires. Jackson thought it would be funny to slash the new tires, so he did. But after Jackson started bragging to co-workers, word got back to the victim, who contacted the Sheriff’s Office.

Shades of the wet bandits.

On Wednesday, Investigator Amy Smith confronted Dekoeyer with the evidence -- including the fact that a Jeep Wrangler had been spotted fleeing from a couple of the crime scenes -- and he confessed to his role. At the same time, Sheriff’s investigators who had Jackson under surveillance spotted him driving down the road and pulled him over as he drove into the Winn-Dixie in DeLand to report to work. Jackson was arrested Wednesday for driving on a suspended license. During questioning, Jackson initially denied being involved with the vandalisms, but later confessed to Investigator Smith. He was arrested Wednesday for driving with a suspended license and taken to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach. After bonding out, Jackson was re-arrested on Thursday and taken back to jail on a felony charge of criminal mischief connected to the first incident on April 23 involving his boss. Dekoeyer also was arrested on Thursday and charged with being a principle to criminal mischief.

Here's the source.

In a country where past cases have made it quite clear that one may not insult police officers with impunity, this would seem to be a no-brainer. But what is considered an insult is unclear, as this case demonstrates. As reported by DutchNews.nl:

A homeless man has been cleared by the High Court of insulting a police officer by calling him a mierenneuker - literally ant-fucker - a term used in popular speech to describe people who stick obsessively to the rules.

The court said it depended on the context in which it is used whether or not the word should be considered swearing. Only if mierenneuker is used with the intention to insult or cause offence is it a swearword, the NRC quoted the High Court as saying.

The case dates back to 2010 when the man, known as Sietze J, called a policeman a mierenneuker for throwing away his can of beer. Lower courts ruled J had insulted the police officer and the case went to appeal.

This is all stupid, but really? Just to show you what a stupid and subjective mess the Court has created, check out these cases:

In 2009, a 31-year-old man from Tilburg was fined €170 for insulting behaviour after wearing a t-shirt combining the word 'corrupt' with the police logo. People have also been fined for waving a middle finger (the Dutch equivalent to the two-fingered V-sign) at a police officer and calling a policeman 'homo'.

And these ...

Last January, the High Court ordered the retrial of a man who was given a fine of €200 for wearing a jacket featuring the letters ACAB because it was insulting to the police.

The letters are said to stand for All Cops Are Bastards. Earlier, three other men were fined €330 each for wearing t-shirts with the numbers 1312 printed on them, which stands for the same thing.

To borrow a word from the Dutch, too much ant-fucking. Here's the source.

People do need to have private lives, though at least one school superintendent feels otherwise. He suspended Kimberly Hester, a teacher's aide, because she wouldn't show him her Facebook page. Here's the story, as reported by wsbt.com:

“It was very mild, no pornography,” she said of the picture she posted in April 2011. The picture shows that co-worker’s pants around her ankles, and a pair of shoes. “It wasn't at work, it was off work time,” Hester added.

Wait, naked ankles? And pants around those naked ankles? No wonder she was suspended! Think of the children!

At the time, Hester was a teacher's aide at Frank Squires Elementary in Cassopolis. According to a letter from the Cassopolis schools superintendent to the Lewis Cass Intermediate superintendent, a parent who was friends with Hester on Facebook notified the school about the picture.

The Juice feels for that parent's kids.

A few days later, Lewis Cass ISD superintendent Robert Colby called her into his office.

“He asked me three times if he could view my Facebook and I repeatedly said I was not OK with that,” Hester told WSBT.

In all seriousness, The Juice applauds Ms. Hester's principled stand.

In a letter to Hester from the Lewis Cass ISD Special Education Director, he wrote “…in the absence of you voluntarily granting Lewis Cass ISD administration access to you[r] Facebook page, we will assume the worst and act accordingly."

It's kind of funny that the fired teacher's aide is doing the real teaching, while the idiotic superintendent is teaching kids that personal privacy and boundaries are essentially nonexistent. So what's Ms. Hester doing now?

Hester said Colby put her on paid administrative leave and eventually suspended her.

Much to her credit, she's fighting it.

“I stand by it,” Hester said. “I did nothing wrong. And I would not, still to this day, let them in my Facebook. And I don’t think it’s OK for an employer to ask you.”

But what about the legality of the superintendent's actions?

... University of Notre Dame labor law professor Barbara Frick said the school didn’t break any laws by asking for Hester’s Facebook information.

Right now there are no state or federal laws protecting social media privacy in the workplace, Frick said.

This needs to be remedied. Good luck to Ms. Hester, who goes to arbitration on this in May. Here's the source, including a video news story.

Unlike some folks out there, The Juice is not about denigrating women. The "dog" in question is actually a dog.

As reported by The Helena Independent Record: At about 11:30 p.m. [on March 1], East Helena police responded to a report of an intoxicated dog being cared for at Smith’s Bar and found Arly II, a Pomeranian or Pomeranian cross, who could not walk a straight line and kept falling over when placed on the floor, according to an affidavit filed by police in District Court.

An intoxicated person who claimed part ownership of the 20-pound dog told police that ]Todd Harold] Schrier [age 49] had given the dog about a “to-go cup of vodka,” police wrote.

Police took the dog to Alpine Animal Clinic, where veterinarian Dr. Michelle Richardson drew blood and sent it to St. Peter’s Hospital, which found a blood-alcohol level of 0.348 percent. The legal limit for driving is 0.08 percent.

Richardson said alcohol affects dogs similar to the way it affects humans. An alcohol level of 0.4 percent can be fatal in humans.

What about Mr. Schrier?

Police caught up with Schrier at the VFW in East Helena and say they found a bag of hydrocodone pills on the ground outside where he had been standing smoking, leading to the [felony] drug charge. He is also on probation for a pair of previous drug charges.

Schrier is in the city-county jail with bail at $30,000. He is scheduled for an initial appearance in District Court today.

Looks like Arly II will have the last laugh. Here's the source.

Certainly domestic life often presents challenging situations. But this? As reported by
BeeNews.com (New York):

Police responded to a North Seine Drive residence where a 
male and female
 were having an argument about how the pizza had been 
sliced.

Really?