Articles Posted in Oops

Attorney David Cwik represented the Plaintiff in a medical malpractice case. He was not pleased when defense attorney Marilee Clausing filed a Motion to Dismiss because she claimed Mr. Cwik failed to disclose his expert witnesses. How did Mr. Cwik repond? He wrote her a letter with the following sentence:

Should you succeed on your motion, we would merely dismiss the case, refile it shortly thereafter, and in the interim send somebody over to perform a clitorectomy on you.

Dude! Dude! And here’s what he told the disciplinary commission:

He had the letter personally delivered on August 18, 1989 believing that Ms. Clausing would “get a kick out of this.”

As it turned out, the only kick came from the disciplinary commission, which reprimanded Mr. Cwik. You can read the commission’s entire report here (search “Cwik” and click on the last result.)

No, not that. This guy fell asleep while … burglarizing a house! He must have been exhausted, because he slept through the homeowner coming home and calling the police, and the police coming to the home. So what finally woke the burglar up? A police officer tripped over him while gathering evidence and taking photographs! As reported in the Herald Sun:

An officer was having a look around taking photos when he tripped over something on the floor… A 30-year-old man from Keysborough, Victoria [obviously not cut out for a life of crime, like the guys in the video below] was swiftly arrested, interviewed and charged with burglary and theft.

To read more (very little) click here.

… with someone in it! Over a $28 debt! And the tipper was running for city council! True! And there’s more. Here’s the story from the Salem News:

Ken Sawicki, a candidate for Salem City Council, spent two weeks of the campaign behind bars this fall for allegedly locking a man inside a portable toilet and knocking it over in an attempt to collect a $28 debt.

Police said Sawicki confronted the man over the missing money at Riley Plaza one morning in October. The man said he needed a moment to use the bathroom and stepped inside the portable toilet. Sawicki then allegedly locked the man inside with a padlock and began rocking it back and forth.

(For the uninitiated, that’s from Animal House.) I have no idea if Christopher Kelly is fat or stupid. I do know that on a recent night, he was incredibly drunk. Here are some highlights of his bender, as reported in This Is Lancashire:

When the story of Christopher Kelly’s escapes were told to magistrates, a probation service officer had to leave the court in fits of laughter.

The court heard that Kelly, 31, of Railway Street, Nelson, had got extremely drunk on lager and vodka during a night out in Morecambe.

Kelly lost his friends, who were celebrating a friend’s birthday and were also drunk, and wandered onto the beach where he got stuck in boggy sand and lost his shoes, trousers and jacket.[Really? He lost his pants in a sand bog? Hmmm.]

Cold and wet, he staggered across the road to Morecambe Town Hall where, seeing a window open, he climbed inside. There he went in various rooms, took a camera and a mobile phone which he tried to use to call his friends.

Then he soiled his underwear which he threw into a black bin bag. [Personally, I would have left that little detail out.]

He found a ‘Grim Reaper’ fancy dress outfit and put this on before leaving the town hall and wandering down Lord Street towards Poulton Square where he eventually arrived at the police station which was, at that time, unmanned. He stood there for three hours, still in the Grim Reaper gear, until police arrived.

Mr. Kelly admitted the crime. [This may have been made easier since some of it was recorded on CCTV.] The time? A six-month conditional discharge and payment of prosecution costs.

A police car! A MARKED police car! Said the owner of the towing company, Gary Coe, “I think he just lost it.” Gresham, Oregon police officer Tom Pohlman was resonding to an assault-in-progress at 2:20 a.m. When he was told over the radio that “They’re towing you’re car,” Pohlman said “#@!&* + !&%*^#!” Actually, he said “You can’t print my response.” [Note to Officer Pohlman: This ain’t The Oregonian. Contact the Juice. We will print your response, unedited.]

Why would tow truck driver Steven Syverson, who had 8 months on the job without incident, try to tow a police car? Because the car was parked in a fire zone. Guess what? The police can do this. What happened to Syverson? Lots of bad stuff. As reported in The Oregonian, he was fired AND “arrested on accusations of car theft, obstructing governmental administration, interfering with a peace officer, and third-degree criminal mischief.”

So where does this rate on the weirdness scale? Per Officer Pohlman:

“I’ve been around cops and done this stuff since 1974,” says Pohlman, who, at 55, is eligible to retire. “And this is in the top five or six things that I can say I’ve ever seen people do. And I’ve seen some pretty weird things.”

So this dude, Omid Tahvili (per the Globe and Mail, “a top member of a Persian gang in the Lower Mainland that supplied drugs to Toronto”), was the number two flight risk in all of British Columbia. He was being held in the wing of a high-tech prison with 60 other inmates. Guess how many guards were on duty when Tahvili escaped? ONE! With major issues, too! He’s been charged with aiding Mr. Tahvili’s escape.

Where is Mr. Tahvili? Nobody knows, though he does call his lawyer occasionally. He’s willing to turn himself in on one condition – that his sentence is time served! What does his lawyer think about the chances of him returning?

I have no doubt whatsoever that Mr. Tahvili has absconded … and has no intention of returning for his sentencing hearing.

[Remove the “Liar” graphic? Let me know with the “Contact Us” box at the top of the page.]
15-year-old Eric Crespo was charged with attempted murder and illegal possession of a gun. On the night of his arrest, he was interrogated by Detective Perino for over an hour. In court, though, Perino sang a different tune. As reported in The Village Voice:

Under cross-examination by Crespo’s attorney, Mark DeMarco, Perino denied 11 more times that he had any conversations with Crespo after he was in custody.

“I never interrogated your client, sir,” Perino told DeMarco.

Turns out that was 12 outright lies!

After questioning Perino, DeMarco turned over the MP3 recording to the prosecutor prompting the district attorney’s office to drop the most serious charge of attempted murder. Crespo eventually pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a gun.

Doh! And it was quite an interrogation, too. Check out this morsel from Detective Perino:

DET PERINO: NOW EVEN IF I WENT TO A COURT OF LAW…THEY’RE
GONNA FUCKING ACCUSE ME OF TRICKING YOU, THEY’RE GONNA ACCUSE ME OF FUCKING PUTTING WORDS IN YOUR MOUTH. THEY ALWAYS DO THAT TO THE DETECTIVES. I’M THE BIGGEST FUCKING LIAR IN THE WORLD WHEN THEY BRING ME INTO THE COURT.

At least he was telling the truth then. You can read a huge chunk of the recorded interrogation in The Village Voice piece.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Anthony Vakeva’s bird-flipping days are over. In January 2005, Mr. Vakeva flipped off Mr. Blackwell at a red light. I’m guessing he would have thought twice about doing so had he known that Blackwell was a TRAINED AMATEUR BOXER (with a very short fuse.) It didn’t end when Blackwell sucker-punched Vakeva and kicked him in the head many times. After he was arrested and released on bail, Blackwell went and shot Vakeva! He was just sentenced to …. 8 years. You can read more here.

Boston Herald reporter Michele McPhee, while reporting on a purse-snatching that took place in a church, reported this:

In 1997, as a New York Daily News reporter, I covered the bizarre arrest of Episcopal priest Rev. Chester LaRue in my own neighborhood, Bay Ridge Brooklyn.NYPD detectives had received a tip that LaRue was selling cocaine out of the parish house at St. John’s Episcopalian Church. When detectives arrived with a warrant, they found the Rev. LaRue smoking crack as he typed out his sermon for Sunday Mass.

The crack-smoking priest was convicted of illegal drug possession, served three years’ probation and was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service at the Salvation Army soup kitchen.