We previously discussed the bizarre arrest of leading Gay YouTuber Calum McSwiggan in Los Angeles. Now McSwiggan has been charged with felony vandalism. It is a truly odd turn over events for the an online personality who allegedly filed a fake police report that he had been beaten and attacked by three men in West Hollywood last June. He originally said that the men also damaged a Lexus, which police now say that McSwiggan damaged.
McSwiggan, 26, allegedly damaged the car mirror and bumper of a vehicle and blamed the vehicle’s driver and two other men. He then posted this picture of bruises, broken teeth, and injuries but police say that he used a pay phone inside the sheriff’s station to cause the damage to his face.
He now faces a possible maximum sentence of three years and six months if convicted of the felony and a related misdemeanor.
Karen, Absolutely. Her third book in the series will be coming out soon. She just got it back from the editor. This one has the same lead characters but there are Gypsies involved. It follows Taken For Granted and Taken by Surprise. The new book coming out hopefully by Christmas is Taken For a Ride.
Nick, “gypsies”?? Don’t you know the correct term is Roma? =) Seriously, very cool to learn that your wife is an author!
No the term is ‘gypsy’. Your affectations are not obligatory for the rest of us.
DID SOMEONE SAY GYPSIES?
COULDN’T RESIST. . .ONE OF MY FAVORITE CLIPS. . .A CLASSIC. . .
Look forward to reading them, Nick Spinelli that name would be great in a detective series,
Another example of increasingly perpetuating a lie until it destroys someone: a negative feedback loop of sort.
I hope this Vermin gets the maximum prison time allowed, but I’ll be surprised if he gets anything but a reprimand by some bleeding heart liberal judge.
Vermin? Really? This man is obviously mentally ill and did stupid stuff for attention – 15 seconds of fame and all that.
I would reserve that harsh description for the amoral criminals like the executives at Wells Fargo, Goldman, HSBC, etc.
Mentally ill, give me a break, I would bet the farm that a team of independent psychiatrists would fine this guy sane, as for the Vermin in the banks you mentioned they are just smarter than this moron but dangerous
There is no indication that the M’Naghten rule would ever apply here, or that he has a disabling problem (e.g. schizophreniform disorder or brain injury). Punish away.
Nick! I know you’ve mentioned your wife’s books on here a long time ago, but I forgot to ask you if it was OK if I referred to them!!! Sorry.
Autumn – there is an increasing sentiment that sentencing guidelines are completely arbitrary. Nick’s wife wrote some mysteries from the perspective of the court system. Her use of sentencing guidelines was really interesting. Do court systems not hold to such guidelines? The room for subjective adjustment should be relatively small.
And I am still irate about Brock, too. Although I think his employability and social life will be more adversely affected by public outrage at his light sentence than if he’d served a fair term.
Karen re: “Although I think his employability and social life will be more adversely affected by public outrage at his light sentence than if he’d served a fair term.”
You are right – however I wish he’d at least spent his 3 months in the Big House. The letter written by the rape victim is one of those I wished I’d never read – oh the horror!
You’re irate? He was not convicted of rape, he was convicted of a generic ‘sexual assault’ because he never penetrated her. Both he and the woman were blotto (BAC 0.17 and 0.22 respectively), but he’s the only one held responsible for anything.
Karen it depends on who the judge is, but mainly how much money one has, remember O.J? there are guidelines in place but they’re not always followed.
The OJ trial had several features: a stupidly biased jury (and, by some accounts, Marcia Clark knew at the start of the trial that the composition of the jury was a problem), a crucial witness who was tainted (Mark Fuhrman; for some curious reason his untainted partner Brad Roberts was never called to testify), misallocations of effort by Marcia Clark (per Steven Brill, “she spent days cross-examining witnesses to whom she should have devoted an hour”), and a weak presiding officer (see the contemporanous comparisons of Lance Ito with Richard Match). Expensive counsel does not buy you any of these things.
This seems to be the new thing.
I fear that our youngest generation is becoming neurotic. There is the constant need for fame and attention, now attainable for regular people through the Internet and Reality TV. There is the sense of entitlement. The boredom. The neurotic over-excitement of the limbic system in the constant encouragement of fight or flight at every little stimuli. The paradigm that the world must conform to your personal feelings regardless of facts.
Now there is rage profiteering and victim profiteering. Combine that with the above, and we have the rash of false allegations that keep popping up.
Our young generation lack a strong internal compass of right and wrong, and are becoming little Neros.
We are going to pay for this, perhaps with the fall of an empire.
Karen S: America is on the same path as the once mighty Roman Empire and for many of the same reasons. America has already imploded due to the massive debt, printing more and more money is what’s hiding this reality; there’s no such question will America crash, the question is When, but Obama just keeps piling up more debt, either he’s one ignorant fool or he is deliberately destroying this country from within, I choose the latter.
I agree with Olly re: “capricious sentencing” 3 years seems excessive – obviously this guy needs mental health care. I am still angry about Brock – the Stanford rapist who only served 3 months – and that wasn’t even in a prison!
That’s the ‘possible maximum’. The smart money says he gets nothing anywhere near that.
Young, cute, he will love prison. Fresh meat coming. 🙂
Yeah. A real punishment for this gay nutjob, who probably views prison as a singles convention.
you are kickin’ it today – hard to type as I am laughing so hard.
Spastic, Cop haters like to point out it is not as dangerous as some other professions like oil drilling. However, that statistic includes all the rural, small town, cops. Being a cop in a big city is about as risky a job there is.
I agree with you, but I wasn’t talking about the risks of police work.
I’m sure there is not a job in a big city that even comes close to being as dangerous as a police officer has today, If I had my way I would double their salaries. especially when some Vermin in human form can just walk up shoots or stabs you, not to mention false alarms that can lure police officers to their death. I had some insiders at NYPD I could have been a police officer but backed out.
Nick –
I do not dispute police work – especially in major cities – is dangerous.
However, being a “revenue collector” is NOT “about as risky a job there is”:
The Most Dangerous Jobs in America
May 13, 2016 – The most dangerous job in the U.S. belongs to lumber workers, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/
Other occupations at top of the list above cop include Mining, Farming, and Aircraft Carrier Flight Operations.
SkaterDude – I think farming is safer since they decided to put roll-bars on tractors.
You said on the other thread:
Gays, lesbians and bisexual people face serious threats of violence and a hoax only serves to reinforce critics who question the need for added protections.
Not a whole lot. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has estimates of the prevalence of violent crimes against homosexuals qua homosexuals which has it that there are round 45,000 such crimes in this country annually. About 2.3% of the general population can expect to be a victim of a violent crime in a given year per BJS surveys, so homosexuality enhances one’s risk by about 28%. Electing to live in a satisfactory core city neighborhood as opposed to a surburban neighborhood would likely enhance an ordinary person’s risk as much.
Had he decided to rob a bank, he’d apparently be facing only 18-36 months. Sentencing guidelines seem so capricious.
One’s a federal crime and the other’s a state crime. Different sets of sentencing rules.
One of the biggest problems with this is that it can make it more difficult for someone to prosecute a true case of assault.