Legal Juice

What would you do if you were running late for work? Would you stab yourself in the leg, and then report to the police that you were "approached by someone in his 40s who asked for a cigarette, then .. stabbed you?" Maybe you wouldn't, but at least one person would, a 22-year-old Alpine Township (Michigan) man. Per Woodtv.com, after the initial report ...

The man was re-interviewed and admitted to the fabrication. He told police he had overslept and was late, then decided to stab himself and report the incident.

Investigators are in the process of obtaining a warrant for his arrest for the false report of a felony.

Doh! Here's the source.

Assault by ... breast milk, right from the source. Loyal Juice readers will recall a similar incident from across the pond a few years ago. Here's the skinny, from wkyt.com:

A very unusual assault on an officer has more than doubled the trouble for a woman in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Thirty-one-year-old Toni Tramel was arrested Thursday for public intoxication, a misdemeanor. But it's what she did later that has people talking.

As Tramel changed into an inmate uniform, she squirted a stream of breast milk into the face of the female deputy watching over her.

After the deputy decontaminated herself from the bio-hazard, Tramel was charged with third degree assault on a police officer. Her bond was set at ten-thousand dollars due to the felony charge.

Bam! Here's the source.

After 6 years of litigation, everything else was settled in this divorce, which began just 4 months after the birth of the child at the heart of the controversy. Just what is the controversy? Whether the birth mother can prohibit her daughter's stepmother from calling the stepmother "Mum" or a variation thereof. Really. This was the only issue left for a Judge in Australia to decide. Per the Australian:

The woman, who cannot be named, argued that her ex-husband was deliberately undermining her role as their child's mother, by encouraging his new wife to answer to the terms "Mum" and "Mummy" and "Mummy-D" (D being the first letter of the stepmother's first name).

Biological mum's argument:

... the stepmother should not be permitted to refer to herself "as a motherly figure".

Biological dad?

By consent, her ex-husband agreed that his new wife should not be "Mum or "Mummy" but thought "Mummy-D" was fine.

Sounds like a reasonable compromise. Mum?

Ms Klement [mum] was "adamant that the child should only call her Mum" or any variation of "Mum".

Judge, please, put an end to this.

The court declined to make an order that the child not refer to her stepmother as "Mummy-D" in part because the judge was concerned that such an order would lead to further litigation "where it would be up to the court to determine whether the father had breached the order in relation to encouraging the child to use the term Mummy-D".

Well done, sir. Here's the source.

Putting aside for a moment how creepy this is, think of the logistics involved. Here's the report:

A South Korean who stole 1200 pairs of expensive shoes from funeral homes while posing as a mourner has been arrested, police in Seoul said.

How did he do it?

The man identified only as Park, 59, took off his own shoes before entering mourning rooms and donned more expensive footwear when he left.

1,200 times? And what was he going to do with them?

He intended to sell them through his own second-hand shoe business, police in southern Seoul's Suseo district said.

Making the thefts even more difficult ...

Koreans normally remove outdoor footwear when indoors, especially at funeral homes.

So how did Mr. Park get caught?

Police said they caught Park stealing three pairs of shoes, worth a total of two million won ($1950) when new, at one funeral home.

They then raided his warehouse and found 1200 pairs stored according to size in preparation for resale.

Shazam! You can see a picture of the shoes here.

You have to admit, it's not the most illogical place to hide some sausage... It would appear, though, that this gent may have overdone it. Per The Cairns Post:

A man hit a snag with police after he stuffed his pants with sausages and a meat pack in an alleged theft at an Innisfail supermarket.

It is the region's second case of shop-stealing involving sausages stashed in trousers in recent months. (You can read about the first one here.)

Police officers were called to the store after the 50-year-old was seen allegedly leaving without paying for the stash on Wednesday.

Sorry to disappoint the bargain hunters out there, but ...

It is understood the meat has been disposed of.

The Juice has learned that William Congreve is the source of this oft-quoted passage:

Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,

Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.

Suffice it to say that Mr. Congreve had not met a man such as this fellow:

An inebriated man bit off his ex-girlfriend's ear at a restaurant in Chifeng, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, last week.

The man has been arrested.

Days after the woman broke up with him, the man invited her for dinner at a restaurant and begged her to return to him.

When she refused, he pounced on her and bit off one of her ears.

The ear was only found the next morning, which was too late for doctors to fix it back.

An ear for an ear? This story was reported by the North News (China).

"Shock" can mask a lot of things, but this? Per The Sun ...

A mugging victim had a six inch knife plunged deep into her back — and she didn't even feel it.

Skeptical? Check out the picture here.

Incredibly the 22-year-old, who was knifed by a mugger on her way home from work, failed to notice the appalling injury and managed to calmly stroll to safety.

The office worker had grappled with her attacker when he snatched her handbag as she walked to her parents' house in the Russian capital Moscow.

But she was so shocked by the ordeal she didn't know that the thug had buried a kitchen knife in her neck just fractions of an inch from her spinal cord.

When she got home her horrified parents rushed her to hospital where surgeons managed to remove the blade without damaging Julia's spine.

Crazy.

In many households, there is a debate over piercings of various body parts. What body part? How many piercings? At what age? But what about this: piercing a kitten's ears! That's what a Luzerne County, Pennsylvania woman has been charged with, as reported by WNEP-TV. In fact, the jury is deliberating as this is being written.

Investigators slapped three counts of animal cruelty on [Holly Crawford] in December, 2008 after SPCA officials took several kittens and a cat from Crawford's home in the Sweet Valley area.

Officials accused Crawford of piercing the kittens ears and trying to sell them on the internet as "Goth kittens."

So uncool. But is it a crime?

At the heart of the argument is whether or not Crawford's actions fit the mold for animal cruelty.

During the trial a forensic veterinarian testified for the prosecution that Crawford maimed, disfigured and tortured the kittens, a legal statute for animal cruelty.

Said the defense ...

"Parents take their kids to get pierced at a young age. That's not a crime! If you say it's wrong to pierce a cat's ears. Then you're holding the cat to a higher standard then children."

Here's the source, including a video.

Crime must be down in Strathclyde (Scotland). Why? Because police there apparently have nothing better to do than to give a man a ticket for blowing his nose! And his car was stopped! As reported by Sky News:

Michael Mancini had stopped his van in traffic and wiped his nose with a handkerchief.

When he moved off, he was pulled over by police who told him he had not been in control of his vehicle.

Mr Mancini, from Ayrshire, was handed a £60 fixed penalty and given three points on his driving licence.

He told Sky News: "I thought they were joking and that it was a wind-up."

If it is a joke, kudos to the police for letting it play out for so long ...

"I was stopped in traffic and had the handbrake on and thought to myself, 'Ive just got time to blow my nose.'

"Then police pulled me over and I was booked. I genuinely thought they were joking, that it was a wind-up."

The incident occurred in October, but Mr Mancini has refused to pay the penalty.

Well done, sir!

His solicitor wrote to prosecutors earlier this month explaining the offence could not have occurred because Mr Mancini's handbrake was on.

But prosecutors replied the next day warning that if the fine wasn't paid, the case would be taken to court.

Mr Mancini added: "I intend taking this all the way to court. I still don't believe it actually happened."

A Strathclyde Police spokesman said: "A 39-year-old man is the subject of a report to the procurator fiscal in connection with an alleged traffic offence on October 26."

Now that would be a fun trial to watch! Here's the source.

Public urination must occur almost as frequently as ... um ... public intoxication? Anyway, you probably wouldn't be reading this if the gentleman in question, Mr. Nathan Strawn, had not allegedly urinated on the Nativity scene in a public square in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania! The Juice is not a criminal lawyer, but how about this defense:

Public? I thought it was some old, abandoned barn. Damn you pea-sized bladder!

Back to the crime scene. As reported by The Times Leader:

[King’s College student] Nathan Strawn, 22, was arrested after “he was observed fully exposed urinating on the Nativity scene located on Public Square,” city police said in a press release.

The incident occurred at approximately 1:54 a.m., police said.

Strawn was charged with indecent exposure, desecration of venerated objects, open lewdness, public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.

Say what? "Desecration of venerated objects?" Venerated by who? Regardless of one's religious beliefs, the problematic nature of this vague charge should be axiomatic. As for the rest of the charges, well ... er ... uh ... um. "Say, how 'bout those [fill in sports team]?"

You can read more (a fair amount) here.

Now The Juice can certainly imagine parishioners thwarting a robbery attempt during a church service. But a church office is a pretty soft target. Nevertheless, as reported by The Charlotte Observer:

A northeast Charlotte church became a crime scene Wednesday evening, after a man tried to rob the place, police say.

It happened about 8 p.m. at the Written Epistles Church of Jesus Christ, in the 2900 block of Derita Road. That is off Gibbon Road, near the intersection of West Sugar Creek and Mallard Creek roads.

Police say a man armed with a shotgun entered the church office and demanded money.

But the man fled without taking anything, according to police. No arrests have been made, and there were no injuries.

I'm not sure how The Juice missed this one (perhaps he was busy with his daytime gig), because it's not often that an attorney gets busted for doing cocaine, in the courthouse, in the midst of a trial. As reported by the The Wininona Post (Minnesota):

The assault trial for accused murderer Jack Nissalke came to an abrupt and unexpected end Thursday when his Twin Cities-based attorney was arrested for alleged possession of 5 grams of cocaine.

Police believe that the attorney, Charles Alan Ramsay, 41, of New Brighton, Minn., was using the cocaine inside a conference room at the courthouse during breaks in the jury trial. Investigator Jay Rasmussen noticed Ramsay behaving strangely outside the courthouse bathrooms, said Police Chief Frank Pomeroy. He said that Ramsay was touching his face as if he’d just ingested something through his nose.

Then, evidence technician Angela Evans went into a conference room that Ramsay had been using and noticed trace amounts of a white powder on the table. That powder field-tested positive for a controlled substance, which police used as probable cause to arrest and search Ramsay’s belongings.

You can read more (a lot) here. And if you want to read about what happened to Mr. Nissalke (guilty), click here.

I would imagine it does not get more embarrassing than this. As reported by lite-news.com:

A pensioner was caught engaged in a sex act with a horse when the animal’s owner drove past and could not believe what he was seeing.

Retired farm worker David Chamberlin was watched as he led the horse towards bushes at the side of a field in Billingham, near Stockton.

The owner pulled over his car and approached, and saw the animal’s head being pulled down towards the 71-year-old’s groin, a court was told.

Shocked and disgusted, he smacked Chamberlin with a stick, which caused the horse to run off, dragging the grey-haired pervert across the field with it.

Noel Brockbank, prosecuting, told Teesside Magistrates’ Court yesterday that the man saw Chamberlin’s flies were undone, and called the police.

After being arrested, and confessing, it emerged that Chamberlin has a lengthy history of sexual deviance going back four decades.

Egad. To read the rest of the story (a fair amount) click here.

Hey, it's not so easy to start a cult. Just ask Tennessee resident Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey. As reported by News Channel 9:

He called himself "The Impaler". He claimed to be a vampire. Now, Jonathan Sharkey can call himself an inmate.

Sharkey wanted to start up a commune in rural Grundy County. Now, Sharkey is headed to jail after pleading guilty to threatening to torture and kill a judge in Indianapolis. Sharkey who calls himself "the Impaler" will spend more than two years in jail for making those threats. Prosecutors say Sharkey threatened to beat, torture, impale and decapitate Judge David Certo, who is presiding over another case involving Sharkey. Last October, Sharkey spent time in a Grundy County jail on outstanding warrants from Minnesota.

The Juice enjoys skiing, but this is just nuts. A Colorado woman tried to pass herself off as her boyfriend so that she could use his ski pass! From The Aspen Times:

The trouble started when a woman was caught trying to use a man named Daniel's ski pass at Keystone Resort. When asked for a date of birth, she complied but “was slow to recall it” according to a report from the Summit County Sheriff's Office.

The woman claimed to be in the middle of a sex change and couldn't provide any personal information beyond the birthday and middle name.

“The female stated her parents knew of her sex change, and she stated they disowned her when she told them,” according to the report.

So if we call your parents ...

[Daniel's] father was “shocked” last weekend when a local deputy called asking whether his son was having a sex-change operation.

So shocked that he called the police back to make sure the call was legit. The jig was really up when ...

An hour later, the Keystone scanning supervisor told the deputy there was a phone number on Daniel's ski pass file. The deputy called the number and Daniel answered, informing the deputy that he had given the pass to his girlfriend, Wanda.

Doh! Time to come clean?

The woman spoke with Daniel then told the deputy that she was actually Wanda.

Case closed, the investigation anyway...

[Wanda] was arrested and booked on charges of theft of more than $500 and criminal impersonation.

I would bet that even troglodytes are aware of the depth and breadth of the Xbox craze. Even people in their - um - 40s are caught up in it. Even amidst this craze, I think it's fair to say this guy overreacted. As reported by WXYZ (Troy, Michigan):

Clerks inside the Gamestop store at the Oakland Mall weren't allowed to talk on the record [really?], but say it was a bizarre scene that played out inside the store Wednesday around noon.

They say one of their regular customers, whom they describe as odd, walked into the store wearing a blue fur coat. He was irate even before talking to the salesmen, cursing and demanding a refund for his Xbox.

One of the salesmen figured his behavior could spell trouble and, as trained, went into the mall to alert security.

Mall security came to the store and spoke with the 43-year-old customer from Detroit, his anger heightened as he threatened to kill someone.

That's when security called Troy Police.

Admit it. You're swept up in the story now... And then ...

Store employees, knowing police were on their way, tried to stall the customer, and told him they needed his receipt. The customer went to his car and came back with the proof of purchase. Moments later, four police officers arrived, armed with rifles and clearing out the store. Officers say they frisked the man, and according to workers, they held a gun to his head and took him into custody.

That's it? A proof of purchase and a stun gun? The charges? Making threats against mall workers. The Juice hopes the gent opts for a little more life, and a little less Xbox live.
 

Maybe it's a good idea to give a prisoner at least a few bucks upon his release? And maybe it's not such a good idea to try to rob somebody right after you are released from jail? Anyway, this guy definitely picked the wrong woman to try to rob. From China Daily:

[Mr.] Zhang, left for Qingyuan county soon after being released from the Xinbin Man autonomous county prison.

With no cash for food, Zhang barged into a 48-year-old woman's house, hoping to steal some money. The woman, however, convinced Zhang that he looked very tired and should take a nap, promising him to give him some money once he woke up.

So much for TCB.

The woman tied the intruder with a rope as soon as he slept off and phoned the police.

Damn you, crafty, hypnotic lady! What kind of time do you get for a crime like this? In Qingyuan County, Liaoning Province in China, you get six years! Just a little bit more than you would get in the U.S....

And what exactly was this man referring to when he asked his neighbor if she "wanted a piece of this?" His penis! Brilliant! And of course his name is "Mr. Smart" - really. Here's the skinny, per The Cairns Post:

A man taking a pee in his front yard waved his penis at the woman living next door then sprayed her car with urine during a neighbourhood row at White Rock, Cairns.

Father of four Stephen Charles Smart, 42, who pleaded guilty to wilful exposure in Cairns Magistrates' Court recently, also asked the neighbour if she "wanted a piece of this".

Yes, of course there's a defense. Here it is:

Smart's lawyer Tom Eckersley said ... there had been an ongoing feud between the neighbours for some time during which [Mr. Smart'] roof had been rocked and stones thrown at his dog.

and ...

Smart ... had been having a barbecue in his front yard in Malibu Close and had gone to urinate against his own front fence when he called out to the neighbour, thinking he was semi-shielded.

Continued the lawyer:

But Mr Eckersley said the woman had walked further down her driveway than he thought and was able to see him clearly.

The time?

Magistrate Suzette Coates .. released Smart on a six-month good behaviour bond and did not record a conviction ...

Seems just to the Juice.

No doubt there are many ways to smuggle things into a country. But check out this lizard-smuggling story from KTLA-TV:

A man was arrested at LAX for trying to smuggle 15 live lizards into the United States by strapping them to his chest.

Special agents with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife arrested Michael Plank, 40, of Lomita, as he tried to clear U.S. customs at the airport on a flight from Australia last week.

Agents say the lizards were concealed in a money belt that was strapped to Plank's torso. Inspectors seized two geckos, eleven skinks, and two monitor lizards. Monitor lizards are a protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The lizards are valued at $8,500 according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Mona Ianelli.

The crime and the time?

Federal law required that travelers declare items brought to the United States from abroad, including wildlife. Concealing the illegal import of wildlife into the United States is a felony. The maximum penalty is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Zoinks!

No doubt coffins are heavy. But it's probably easier to carry them when you are sober! As reported by The Local:

Two sisters are claiming damages [20,000 kronor ($2,895 US] from a firm of funeral directors after their father's coffin was plunged ungracefully into a grave by undertakers unsteady on their feet.

During the funeral, which took place in February 2008, they claim a number of undertakers were clearly drunk while being in charge of the coffin.

Not cool.

As they approached the grave they are reported to have lost their grip which resulted in a heavy fall into the ground with the coffin landing on its side.

Having earlier been close to overturning the coffin whilst in the church, it was the final blow in a number of incidents the grieving sisters list in a summons sent to Södertörn district court in Stockholm. "Both daughters were in chock and ran away in tears from the cemetery,” their lawyer Michael Abejon wrote in the claim. “They didn’t dare to look in the grave as they were convinced the coffin had opened and their dead father had fallen out.

This will make for some great PR, no? Pay the claim! Here's the source.