Matthew Whitton and Ricky Dyer in Georgia seemed eager to grab their 15 minutes of fame to the point of claiming to have the actual body of a deceased Bigfoot frozen in their freezer. It turned out to be a rubber suit and the question now is whether the two will be criminally charged with fraud for their efforts. Whitton is a police officer in Clayton County who is on leave after being wounded in the line of duty and Dyer is a former correctional officer.
While the men succeeded in captivating the national media with their Bigfoot story, here, they notably proved reluctant to show reporters the body in their freezer.
Being a simple liar is not a crime.
However, it now appears that the men may have taken their hoax one step too far: they accepted money for their Bigfoot cadaver — which turned out to be a rubber suit.
A website called SeachingForBigfoot.com has confirmed that it paid the men for the body.
The Executive Director of the site, Steve Kulls issued the following statement:
“On August 15th, 2008, Tom Biscardi, Ricky Dyer and Matthew Whitton held a press conference at the Cabana Hotel in Paolo Alto, California, announcing that the corpse of a creature fitting the description known as ‘Bigfoot’ had been discovered. A police officer of seven years, on medical leave, labeled as a hero for being wounded in the line of duty, got up in front of the world and told the world of how he and Ricky Dyer uncovered this creature. This has since been proven a lie. It is notable that Rick Dyer insisted on this press conference and told Tom Biscardi he would not release the ‘body’ unless the conference was held on this specific date.”
When the site managers began to thaw out the frozen body, they discovered the rubber suit and sought out the men. Whitton and Dyer, however, had hotfooted it by the time the Bigfoot hoax was uncovered.
Taking the money potentially moves the matter from realm of a childish prank into the realm of criminal fraud.
LUXURY FASHION LATEX DRESShttp://jonathanturley.org/2008/08/19/police-officer-and-former-correctional-guard-accused-of-fraudulent-bigfoot-story/
Vince Treacy:
“Good description of the elements of fraud. But I always thought that the plaintiff’s reliance on the seller’s representations had to be reasonable. For element 7, you must show that the buyer “reasonably” relied on the representation that the seller had the body of bigfoot.
That representation is inherently incredible. No reasonable person could believe the unsupported claim that the seller had a geanuine bigfoot carcass.
Look at the old X-Files episode where Scully performs a video autopsy on an alien body and discovers a rubber suit. You cannot commit fraud by tring to sell an alien body.
Next exhibit on the tour: the rare and exotic Egress!:
No matter how well crafted, on just this speech alone, you have challenged some of the most ardent arguments against Bush & Co
-assumptions NOT in evidence!
But the Bigfoot guys are such trustworthy fellows! I’m sure they just put a rubber suit out by mistake. Will the real Bigfoot be revealed?
O.K., this is only related by feces…
The city of Denver has banned the carrying of feces and urine for “nefarious purposes.”
I’ve been looking at the free speech “pens” for protestors at the Democratic convention. Here’s a link. I don’t know whether it is accurate or not. It seems like it from the pictures and other info I’ve seen. but please check this out independently from me! The quote is priceless!!!
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20080807171437447
When I was a kid there were travelling sideshows that would come through our area from time to time. In them we’d see everything from the bearded lady to the “monkey-boy”.
It was billed as authentic however we all knew it was fake, yet we still paid our 50 cents and took the tours, just to see the sideshow someone was putting on for us.
Anyone dumb enough to be fooled by these clowns obviously had a good time believing for a few days that Big Foot had actually been located.
Anyone smart enough to know it was a put on, was also not put on in any way.
No harm.
No foul.
The law needs to start doing its job and focusing on people hurting us.
Not those entertaining us.
Vince Treachy,
The element of reasonableness is implicit throughout the analysis.
Thus the chore some attorneys face is proving that which is true yet the judge and jury choose not to believe.
Vince Treachy:
I like that analysis. For the same reason it would be hard to compensate someone who bought the Brooklyn Bridge from a guy on the Street. The transaction is inherently absurd, and no reasonable person could have relied upon the representation.