We have previously discussed difficult cases (here and here and here) where physical appearance is a job criteria — leading to claims of gender discrimination. Now, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Nelson Johnson has ruled that cocktail servers known as the “Borgata Babes” at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa can be required to keep their weight within proscribed limits as part of their job. Johnson ruled against 22 cocktail servers in a decision that found that these positions are part entertainment and part waitress — allowing the company to specify appearance requirements for women described as “eye candy.” The company required women not to gain more than seven percent body weight after their hiring. They wear cleavage-bearing bustiers and high heels at work.
Category: Bizarre
We previously discussed the curious case of Anthony Garcia, 25, who was arrested after police noticed a tattoo on his chest that depicted an unsolved murder. The corpus delicti or body of evidence in this case is the defendant himself who was convicted yesterday for his role in the 2004 shooting at a Pico Rivera liquor store.
Continue reading “Corpus Delicti: Tattoo Leads To Conviction of California Gang Member”
For many years, there has been controversy over the funding of military chaplains and the preferences given certain faiths. The problem is that as much 23 percent of our military list no religious association or preference. While many simply have no religious association with a particular faith, some are agnostics, some are atheists, and some are generally humanists. It would seem logical to have some chaplains who can relate to those groups. However, members of Congress are irate and insist that chaplains must believe in a deity to be funded. They warm that humanist or secularist chaplains would be traumatizing dying soldiers about being “worm food” and dying without hope.
Continue reading “Congress Moves To Block Atheist Chaplains”
These are certain things that you will not easily find in U.S. media like Jimmy Carter declaring that we no longer have a functioning democracy in this country. Another is reading about Snowden as a whistleblower. The White House has been highly successful in telling media not to refer to Snowden as a whistleblower and enlisting various media allies to attack him as a clown and a traitor or mocking his fear of returning home. This week you had to read Moscow Times or other foreign sites (or a link on Reddit) to learn that Snowden has won this year’s Whistleblower Award established by German human rights organizations.
Continue reading “Snowden Is A Whistleblower . . . Just Not In The United States”
We have been discussing how police are using pretext stops to search for drugs in many jurisdictions. Pamela Held, 27, of Deer Park, Long Island, has an added gripe against a NYPD officer from Queens. She says that she was pulled for a missing sticker and police used that excuse to search her car for drugs. They did not find anything, but they seized her cellphone, searched it, and she claims that NYPD Officer Sean Christian found revealing images of herself and sent them to himself. She is now preparing to sue the city.
There is an interesting property case out of Pittsburgh this week. Patricia Hill, owner of the South Broadway Manor Bed and Breakfast, has charged that her former tenant drank 52 bottles of vintage whiskey valued that he was supposed to safeguard. Hill found 104 bottles of pre-prohibition Old Farm Pure Rye Whiskey when she bought the historic mansion. She is accusing her caretaker, John Saunders, 62, of drinking the booze but he denied it. However, police say that a DNA test found his DNA on the empty bottles. The consumed whiskey was valued at $102,400 or roughly $2000 a bottle.
Florida starting linebacker Antonio Morrison has been suspended from the team after he was arrested for barking at a police dog. That’s right, the 19-year-old was arrested for walking up to a police dog and barking at him. Gainesville police then added a second, and equally dubious charge, of resisting arrest without violence. Morrison came up with a novel defense: he insisted that the dog barked at him first.
Continue reading “Florida Gators Linebacker Antonio Morrison Arrested For Barking At Police Dog”
Marty the Magician may be able to make a rabbit appear from his hat but he might want to start practicing making it disappear. The magician recently received a letter from the Agriculture Department beginning “Dear Members of Our Regulated Community . . .” It was about his rabbit.
Brittany Harris, 25, is the latest parent to be arrested for going to a concert or casino and leaving kids in the car. In this case, Harris went to a Lil Wayne rap concert and left her two children — ages 3 and 5 — in a parking lot with hundreds of strangers milling about, including a large number of drunken people.
Continue reading “Florida Mom Arrested After Leaving Kids In Car During Lil Wayne Concert”
We have previously discussed the rage of powerful politicians embarrassed by the disclosures of Edward Snowden. The President and the Congress suddenly found themselves having to explain years of false statements and an unprecedented attack on privacy in America because of Snowden. Our governing class had long ago adopted a type of dismissive paternalism toward the public as shepherds to so many sheep. Then one sheep goes and spooks the flock. The response has been bipartisan rage that has included demands to cut off aid to entire nations if they grant sanctuary to this whistleblower. As usual, however, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., will not be outdone. After hearing that Snowden has asked Russia for sanctuary, Graham has suggested boycotting the Olympics. That’s right, he is taking one of Jimmy Carter’s most controversial ideas and suggesting a repeat — thereby ruining the ambitions and tossing out years of preparations for hundreds of athletes. Why? To punish a country for protecting someone most people in the world view as either a hero or a whistleblower.
One of the most damaging moments for the prosecution in the trial of George Zimmerman trial was the inexplicable decision to lead with Rachel Jeantel, a friend of Trayvon Martin’s. Jeantel proceeded to admit to previously lying and then gave conflicted and at points unintelligible testimony. Her statement that Martin called Zimmerman a “cracker” further helped the defense in balancing the derogatory statements of Zimmerman. After the verdict, Jeantel has made statements that seem unhinged and again raise the question on why the prosecutors would place her so prominently in their case in chief. The latest controversy is a new allegation from Jeantel that she warned Trayvon that Zimmerman might be a gay rapist. She is not the only person associated with the trial who seems to be courting the press in the case with disastrous results.
Continue reading “Jeantel: “I Told Trayvon, [Zimmerman] Might Have Been A Rapist.””
Jon Andrew Meyer Jr. could be the poster boy for gun control. Meyer is responsible for shooting a little girl with an assault rifle. His defense? He was using the assault rifle as a crutch when it released a burst of fire into the ceiling and killed 5-year-old Alysa Bobbitt of Shady Cove and wounded apartment resident Karen Hancock.
After an Asiana Airlines passenger jet crashed and burned at San Francisco International Airport on July 6, 2013, a Bay Area TV station published what it claims were the names of the pilots, including Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Low, Ho Lee Fuk, and Band Ding Ow. Unbelievably, as shown below, no one at KTVU-TV picked up on the joke and the anchor read the names in all seriousness. It turns out that a summer intern with the National Transportation Safety Board was the culprit in passing along the names. Now, Asiana is suing the station for injury to its reputation, a novel claim that could raise questions over not just the fact of injury but the degree of injury in such a prank.
Some New York drivers were startled when they saw a man waving his arms, honking his horn and flashing a silver badge in a frantic effort to get them to pull over in traffic.
Even more surprising was the person suspected of doing it: a respected New York City and Westchester rabbi.
Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski, 49, clearly does not like people driving slow or cutting him off. Unlike other road rages, however, Borodowski has been arrested for allegedly impersonating a police officer to pull over offending drivers in his Camry. He would allegedly flash a badge and scream “Police! Police! Pull Over! in order to scream at drivers. To his credit, he appears to pulled over Goyum (non-Jewish) and non-Goyum drivers alike without prejudice in what could be a new reality series, “Road Rabbi: Life In The Fast Lane.”
As I mentioned in today’s column, the prosecution team of Angela Corey in the Zimmerman case have been accused of repeated prosecutorial abuse in the withholding of evidence from the defense. Circuit Judge Debra Nelson seemed intent on the most recent charge of withholding text messages to want to avoid the issue, but she earlier held a sanctions hearing with the testimony of the man who brought the violation to the attention of the defense: IT director Ben Kruidbos. Corey has been widely criticized for over-charging the case by experts, including an article out today, and her team was widely criticized for putting on a weak case for prosecution. Now, before Nelson has ruled on her office’s withholding of evidence, Corey has fired Kruidbos. His termination before a ruling on the alleged prosecutorial abuse only strengthens his claims as a whistleblower and throws the ethics of Corey and her office in great question.