Legal Juice

Be honest. You've smacked or kicked a machine - a parking meter, a vending machine, a copier ... But this guy took it to another level. Per The Salt Lake Tribune:

A Salt Lake City mortgage company employee allegedly got drunk, opened fired on his firm’s computer server with a .45-caliber automatic, and then told police someone had stolen his gun and caused the damage.

Maybe he didn't do it?

Salt Lake County prosecutors say Campbell called police late on Aug. 12, claiming a man had stolen his gun and fired into the $100,000 computer server owned by RANLife Home Loans, located at 268 W. 400 South.

A probable cause statement alleges that Campbell told police he had been “mugged, assaulted with his own firearm and drugged” by a mystery assailant.

So don't be so quick to judge. Wait, something is coming in over the wire ...

... acquaintances of Campbell reportedly told police he had earlier been drunk, was armed and had threatened to shoot the computer and maybe himself.

Doh! Of note: "acquaintances" not "friends." The charges?

... criminal mischief, a second-degree felony; carrying a dangerous weapon while under the influence and providing false information to police, both Class B misdemeanors; and public intoxication, a Class C misdemeanor.

No word on whether the server will make it ...

Perhaps the first rule of armed robbery is: Make sure the victim can't identify you. Check this out, as reported by www.wcti12.com:

Doris Edwards, 54, is charged with assault, armed robbery and kidnapping. She's in the Pitt County Jail under $500,000 bond. Last Tuesday, attorney William Wooten told police one of his clients had tied him up and robbed him. At first, police thought no money was taken from the victim, but it turns out the suspect stole a credit card.

She robbed her lawyer! In his office! Do you think this bodes well for her on the charge(s) the lawyer/victim was representing her for? Best of luck to her new lawyer.

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[Here's a classic bungled break-in attempt.]

Lots of people don't like cats. Probably 99.99% of those people just ignore them. But not this woman. Fortunately, the cat's owner had a security camera that caught the whole thing on video. Per The Courier Mail:

The bespectacled, grey-haired woman, who appears to be in her 50s, was filmed about 8pm local time Saturday walking along Stephanie and Darryl Mann’s street in Coventry.

In the recording, the woman spots the Manns' four-year-old rescue cat Lola and strokes it tenderly before suddenly grabbing her by the scruff of the neck and calmly dumping her in a rubbish bin before closing the lid and walking away.

How do you do that? Let's hope she doesn't have kids... You can see the video by clicking here or on YouTube by clicking here (the woman enters at about 24 seconds). And what about the cat?

The couple found Lola some 15 hours later when they heard the cat meowing in the bin. Lola has since recovered from the ordeal.

Cruella remains at large.

This may actually be the first case of "arm-wrestling rage." And this was some serious rage. As reported by The Sun Sentinel:

According to the arrest report, Erick Lee Blanton was visiting a home in the 400 block of Sunrise Drive early Sunday morning when he challenged another man to an arm-wrestling contest and lost. The winner of the match told officers that Blanton then became upset [a gross understatement].

Blanton left the house, got in a red pickup, and allegedly drove it across the lawn and over a mailbox, trying to hit bystanders.

Certainly uncool, but then ...

Witnesses told police Blanton also put the barrel of a rifle against the forehead of his erstwhile arm-wrestling opponent.

Yikes. Time to coin a new saying: "If you can't beat 'em, at least scare the crap out of 'em." The charges?

...four counts of aggravated assault with a motor vehicle and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon...

Anger management issues?

There are lots of ways to show your family some love. You might, say, try to visit your grandson in jail and bring Mary Jane. No doubt he would have appreciated it. We'll never know. As reported in The Dayton Daily News:

Richard Heritz [age 85!], of West Chester Twp., stepped onto the grounds of the Warren Correction Institution Aug. 13 to visit his grandson. Gregory Heritz had been incarcerated at the prison for two years, and had eight more to come from a burglary conviction out of Butler County, according to prison records.

Before Heritz saw his grandson, he was pulled aside by state troopers, who were acting on a tip they had received. A few hours later, Heritz was behind bars as well, accused of attempting to smuggle marijuana onto prison grounds.

Snitch? The crime?

He is charged with attempting to convey drugs on the grounds of a detention facility, a third-degree felony, and possessing criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony.

The time?

If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine.

You can read more (a fair amount, including mug shot) here.

Life lesson: When things are going well, STFU - advice a 19-year-old German man surely wishes he had followed. As reported by Reuters:

A German bank robber led his pursuers straight to him after taunting police in an email over their efforts to catch him. Authorities in the southern city of Wuerzburg said on Wednesday the 19-year-old sent emails to police and two newspapers to point out factual errors in the report of his bank raid in the town of Roettingen a week ago.

According to daily Bild, he mocked the police for getting his age, height and accent wrong then pointed out he escaped in a car, not on foot.

Police traced his email and arrested him in a gambling hall in Hamburg just a few hours later.

So not only does his taunt provide factual information that would assist in his identification, he uses a traceable email account! Brilliant! Based on all this, the young man's reaction upon being caught shouldn't surprise you.

"He was completely shocked," the spokesman said.

Doh!

Sure, everyone has either heard about, or engaged in, a love tumble in a strange place or two. But, as Maxwell Smart often said to the Chief, "would you believe" a couple in British Columbia was caught having sex IN A GARBAGE TRUCK!? As reported in the Courier Mail, there were " ... reports of people walking suspiciously behind a business ..."

"When the officer was out of his car having a look around, checking doors he could hear noises coming from the dumpster," said Sgt. John Price.

The officer called out and got no response, so he pulled out his flashlight and took a look inside.

"He peeked over the edge and in the bottom of the dumpster, a man and a woman (were) full-on nude, intertwined, oblivious to his presence," Price said, confirming the pair were in the act.

Since they were having sex in a garbage truck, I guess it's not surprising that they didn't notice the police officer. The dude was "taken into custody on an unrelated outstanding warrant." The "30-year-old woman was simply told to go home."

You're trying to get out of a bad situation. You have at your disposal a knife and ... your [alleged] flesh-eating-bacteria-infected penis. Which do you deploy first? Not a tough call, right? Here's how it played out in a Seattle Radio Shack, as reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

According to police reports regarding the Jan. 16 incident, a clerk at the 3rd Avenue electronics store spotted Anthony Joseph Urga attempting to steal two iPod Nano players. When the clerk and another employee confronted Urga, the man returned the iPods but refused to open his backpack to see whether he was attempting to steal additional items.

Should of just done it ...

"Urga then proceeded to plead with (the clerk) to allow him to leave, because he was sick," a Seattle police detective said in a June 9 affidavit. "When (the clerk) said no, Urga dropped his pants exposing his penis and stated that he had a 'flesh eating bacteria' and that he would expose (the clerk)."

Really? Not the knife?

The detective said Urga then drew a knife from his belt but was tackled before he could unfold the blade.

Too late ...

Urga was arrested and taken to King County Jail, which declined to admit him due to an unspecified medical condition, the detective said. The 42-year-old Loyal Heights resident was then driven to Harborview Medical Center; the detective told the court. Urga then walked out of emergency room.

Just walks right out of the ER!

Charged with second-degree assault, Urga is not currently in custody, according to jail records. A $50,000 warrant for his arrest has been issued.

Here's the source.

A big "shout out" from The Juice to Mr. John Long of Loxahatchee, Florida for the assist (along with, or course, the Sun Sentinel) in further entrenching "legal juice" into our lexicon. How did he do this? Here's how, as reported by the Sun Sentinel:

[Mr.] Long ... is the alleged orange juice burglar, suspected of breaking into three Wellington homes Sunday night while residents were inside and stealing orange juice, reports WPTV News in West Palm Beach.

The Sun Sentinel went on to say (drum roll please) ...

Now he'll need a little legal juice.

Yes! Yes! Yes! I, er, I mean The Juice has arrived! ... The Juice would like to thank the Academy, and everyone who has worked to make Legal Juice what it is today (whatever that is) ...

But back to the story. Why steal OJ? Well ...

"He did some ecstasy and PCP and hasn't been right since. He's having delusions of grandeur and other issues," his father Vincent Long told WPTV News.

Here is the story of the century (for obvious, very Juicy reasons). (In all seriousness, please note that The Juice is basking in this worldwide recognition, not denigrating Mr. Long.)

Perhaps the only time it's safe to laugh in open court is when the judge does. A North Carolina man thought otherwise, and paid for it in a big way. As reported by The Fayetteville Observer:

A Cumberland County judge didn't find it funny when a man kept laughing in her courtroom Friday.

Judge Toni King asked Johnny Montgomery, 47, what was so amusing. According to the Sheriff's Office, Montgomery told her, "It's none of your business."

Um. It is now. Note that Mr. Montgomery was in court for misdemeanor charges "of communicating threats and trespassing."

[Judge] King ordered him removed from her District Courtroom. As deputies searched Montgomery, they found more than 3 grams of crack cocaine on him, Sheriff's Office said.

Oh my. Those misdemeanor charges are looking pretty trifling.

Now [Mr. Montgomery] is charged with felony possession of cocaine. [He] ... was taken to jail where his bail was set at $1,500.

Here's the source, including a photo of Mr. Montgomery.