Articles Posted in Injustice

So far it hasn’t set David King back any, either. And this has to go down as the slowest getaway in the history of crime. Mr. King rented a narrowboat for 2 weeks in Cheshire, England. The boat’s top speed – 4 MPH! You can probably guess what Mr. King did when his 2 weeks on the $80,000 boat were up. He kept right on going. Despite a national manhunt, King avoided capture for 5 weeks! And we’re not talking about open water. We’re talking CANALS!

What did the Judge have to say?

Your behaviour was quite bizarre and I’m bound to say quite inexplicable. Due to stress engendered by debts and family pressures you went off the rails and stole a narrow boat and then went off for a month. That is very off behaviour.

(For this story, you can safely put aside your position on legalizing marijuana. It’s not about the pot.) So back in April 2006, then-Cpl. Edward Sanchez, of the Dearborn, Michigan police, called 911 and said:

I think we’re dying… We made brownies and I think we’re dead, I really do.

As you might imagine, this sparked an investigation, during which Sanchez resigned.

Not exactly your fall-on-the-sword type of guy, Sanchez first told investigators that, while he was sleeping, his wife took the pot out of his car. His wife (who admitted to taking cocaine from her husband’s police car and using it during a 3-week binge!), truly a stand-by-your-man woman, told investigators that she tricked her husband into eating the pot brownies.

It wasn’t long, though, before Sanchez cracked. He admitted that, not only had he taken the pot from his car, but he also made the pot brownies! And, per investigators, he admitted to taking the pot “off the street from unknown persons.” Wow. So many laws broken, yet neither Sanchez nor his wife was charged with any crime! It’s not over yet, though. Said Dearborn Councilman Doug Thomas, who said he will investigate the matter further:

If you’re a cop and you’re arresting people and you’re confiscating the marijuana and keeping it yourself, that’s bad. That’s real bad. That’s like apprehending a bank robber and keeping some of the money for yourself.

So at long last, the slumlord, anesthesiologist Esmat Zaklama, appeared before Guttenberg, New Jersey Municipal Judge Frank Leanza. Here’s a little history on Dr. Zaklama (from the New Jersey Law Journal):

“Dr. Zaklama has a history in North Jersey of being a slumlord,” said Judge Leanza. Summonses issued to him by Guttenberg and other towns would go ignored for years, and fines continued to mount up. “The police had to find him and arrest him.”

When Zaklama was finally brought before Judge Leanza in March 2006, he had amassed over $200,000 in fines.

Leanza said Zaklama had appeared before him once before and, facing high bail, appeared to fake a heart attack but then checked himself out of the hospital the next day without undergoing any tests.

So guess what Zaklama did when he appeared before Judge Leanza?

“He grabbed his chest again,” said Leanza. “We [the judge and court staff] looked at him and laughed. We assumed he again feigned a heart attack.” Eventually, Zaklama walked out of the courtroom.

So why is Judge Leanza, a judge in good standing for 17 years, facing a reprimand? Because after hearing Zaklama’s excuses for ignoring all those summonses, he called it “a lot of bullshit.” Zaklama told the judge that he had not answered the summonses or warrants because he was away. How did Judge Leanza know this was bullshit? Because he had run into Zaklama in different town halls on numerous occasions! Frankly, it’s bullshit that the judge is facing any charges! Here’s hoping he walks. You can read more here.

Some of us, like Michael Righi (and me), have a real problem with groundless intrusions into our lives, even small ones. (If you’re inclined to give up your rights because “you have nothing to hide, so what’s the big deal,” you might want to skip this one.) Mr. Righi was leaving a Circuit City store in Pittsburgh, after paying for his item. Per Mr. Righi’s blog, here’s what happened next:

As I headed towards the exit doors I passed a gentleman whose name I would later learn is Santura. As I began to walk towards the doors Santura said, “Sir, I need to examine your receipt.” I responded by continuing to walk past him while saying, “No thank you.”

As I walked through the double doors I heard Santura yelling for his manager behind me. My father and the family had the Buick pulled up waiting for me outside the doors to Circuit City. I opened the door and got into the back seat while Santura and his manager, whose name I have since learned is Joe Atha, came running up to the vehicle. I closed the door and as my father was just about to pull away the manager, Joe, yelled for us to stop. Of course I knew what this was about, but I played dumb and pretended that I didn’t know what the problem was. I wanted to give Joe the chance to explain what all the fuss was for.

Then high-school junior Amy Doninger was ticked off that the battle of the bands (Jamfest) was cancelled. So, at home, on her own blog, she posted an entry stating that

Jamfest is canceled due to the douchbags in central office.

As events unfolded, it turns out her characterization was pretty accurate. Her punishment? She was told to apologize to the school superintendent, show her mom the blog entry, and withdraw her candidacy for Class Secretary (an office she held since entering high school). She agreed to the first two, but would not withdraw from the race. So the school refused to let her run (she would have won as a write-in candidate, but the votes were ignored!), and she filed suit, claiming that the school violated her right to free speech.

Her name isn’t “Fannie.” It just sounds better than “Fudge Shop Catherine.” Ms. Catherine Delgado recently moved to Maryland from Massachusetts with her 2 and 4 year old kids. Per her attorney, last month her boyfriend was charged with beating her and fracturing her eye socket. So things weren’t going real well for Ms. Delgado. Maybe that’s the reason for what happened next.

According to the police in Annpolis, Maryland (and the survellance footage, doh!), Ms. Delgado broke into Uncle Bob’s Fudge Kitchen (located on “Main Street” of course) and stole $89 in fudge. She was busted soon thereafter when a police officer saw large bricks of chocolate in her purse. And what did Ms. Delgado do then? Obviously, she tried to flush it down the toilet (really). You can imagaine how that went down. (sorry)

So she was arrested, and held on $100,000 bond! She had been in jail for 28 days when she appeared before Judge McKenna. Said the Judge to Assistant State’s Attorney Carolynn Grammas:

I’m underwhelmed. Do you suspect she is part of a chocolate stealing ring or something?

All Randy Miller ever wanted to be was a soldier. He achieved that in 2004, when he enlisted and was assigned to the elite 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He volunteered to be a paratrooper, not the safest of choices. He made 22 jumps and, along the way, picked up two Army Achievement Medals and a Combat Infantryman Badge.

One of the jumps didn’t go so well. Miller’s parachute didn’t open, and the backup only partially opened. He hit the ground pretty hard after falling from 900 feet, but walked away, though not uninjured. He didn’t know it, but he had torn the meniscus in his knee.

Then he was shipped off to Iraq, where he served from the winter of 2005 until the spring of 2006. Upon his return, his knee having gotten much worse (the meniscus tear increased to four times it’s original size) he went to a bunch of military doctors, none of whom did anything.

You may have heard a lot of media noise about the potential bursting of the housing bubble. Well, a correction in the real estate market is the least of Kwaku Atta Poku’s worries.

Mr. Poku—a hard-working immigrant from Ghana and owner of a small taxi business—carefully paid and kept a record of every mortgage check. In fact, some months Mr. Poku paid more than was required on his mortgage. So you can imagine Mr. Poku’s surprise when he learned that his house not only had been put up for sale, but that it had been bought ten days later by a real estate investor.

The most tragic part of the story is that it looks like Mr. Poku never did anything wrong. He lost his house because his mortgage company couldn’t find key documents that would prove his initial loan had been paid, a bank didn’t have its paperwork in order, and the title company that handled Mr. Poku’s refinancing is now out of business. Even though Mr. Poku kept photocopies of all his mortgage checks, he couldn’t prove that the original check issued to pay off his first mortgage was accepted because he only had a photocopy of the front part of the $96,599.74 check.

So What Happened to Mr. Poku?

Continue reading →

No amount of money can give these falsely convicted men back their lives (2 of them died in prison), but the $101,750,000 awarded by U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner certainly makes a statement. In 1965, a small-time hoodlum named Deegan was killed. One of those known by the FBI to be involved in the killing, Joseph Barboza, turned FBI informant. In order to protect him, with Barboza as the star witness, the FBI framed four innocent men. Louis Greco, Henry Tameleo and Peter Limone were convicted of Deegan’s murder and sentenced to death. Joseph Salvati was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted as an accessory to Deegan’s murder and two counts of conspiracy.

Tameleo died in prison after serving 15 years. Greco died in prison after serving 27 years. Salvati was released after serving 30 years, Limone after serving 33 years.