On one level, Sarah E. Muller was successful. Muller, 23, did not want to serve on a jury at the Marion County Courthouse Monday. When County Judge R. James McCune Jr. refused to dismiss her, she called him a seven-letter word for an anus. She is now off the jury list and facing a potential six months in jail for contempt.
Continue reading “How Not to Avoid Jury Duty: Florida Women Curses Judge and Goes to Jail”
In a prior entry, the bizarre case of murderers Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, were discussed. The two women (known as the “Black widows”) who killed homeless men for insurance benefits have now been sentenced to two consecutive life terms each.
Continue reading “Black Widows Get Two Consecutive Life Sentences”
In Omaha, Nebraska, a police officer and his family won $40,000 in a lawsuit against a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant after it served them food tainted with the saliva and urine of one of the employees. Officer Keith Andrew and his two sons were sickened by the tainted food and, for some bizarre reason, the lawyers for the restaurant thought that this would be a good case to fight in court. Now, “thinking outside the bun” will have a lasting and different meaning for Taco Bell and “finger lickin’ good” for Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Seasons Restaurant in Grand Chute, Wisconsin likes to proclaim that “our achievements are the result of your expectations.” However, it is the expectations of Debbie R. Miller, 41, that is now the subject of a criminal case. Miller has been arrested for allegedly planting a dead lab rat in a dish and the demanding $500,000 to keep quiet. Prosecutors served up a steamy dish of extortion this week..
In an entry yesterday, we looked at the curious case of Saudi prince, Bader Al Saud, 26, who killed Orlando Ramos, 37, in a crosswalk while driving drunk without a valid license. His punishment was a year in a converted home. He then disappeared. The Court has now ordered him to appear to answer for violation of his probation.
Continue reading “Royal Treatment II: Prince Ordered Back to Court in Martha’s Vineyard”
Below is today’s column on a growing national trend of parents taking bullying cases to court after receiving no action from school officials. This may be a case where litigation is needed to concentrate the minds of some school officials (and parents of bullies) on the costs of such violence in schools.
No this is not a story out of Tehran. In Georgia, a federal court is considering an interesting challenge to the state’s sex offender laws. Wendy Whitaker, 28, has had enough. She was put on the sex offender list after being found guilty of having oral sex at 17 with a 15-year-old boy. She has now had to move twice because she is not allowed to live within 1,000 feet of places where children congregate. She has been told that her new home is also off limits because it is near a church.
Continue reading “Wendy Whitaker: Another Outrage Emerges From Georgia’s Statutory Rape Law”
In Moscow, dozens of audience members received retinal burns from a laser light show — some experiencing 80 blindness in affected eyes. It is an astonishing act of negligence in a country with an extremely rudimentary torts system.
Continue reading “Russian Rave: Party Organizers Blind Dozens with Lasers”
A Salinas, California woman was killed by Salinas police early Sunday morning when she threatened officers with a metal crochet hook. Her family says that Maria Irma De La Torre, 45, was disabled and suffered from seizures.
Continue reading “California Police Shoot and Kill Woman Approaching Them With Crochet Hook”
Windsor Hills Baptist had to cancel its plan to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle to a teenager because one of the organizers hurt his foot. While the church has been ridiculed nationally for the event, it is planning to give away the assault rifle next year instead as part of its promotion for its weekend youth conference.
The council of elders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints likes its mission Mormons in white shirts and black ties, thank you very much. On Sunday, the council excommunicated Chad Hardy for producing his “Men on a Mission” calendar — showing hunky Mormons sans shirts who are on different missions around the world.
Dominic DiAngi, 7, received a fractured skull this week from a foul ball hit by Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly. Dominic needed CPR and only recently was transferred from intensive care in Chicago.
Continue reading “Foul Ball: Boy Injured from Hit at Wrigley”
In Dublin, Ireland, Sharon Collins, 45, a divorced mother-of-two, has gotten a bit too comfortable with Internet shopping. Collins arranged to hire a hitman on wwwlhitman.com only to have the assassin-for-hire, Egyptian Essam Eid, contact her former husband to bargain for a no-kill contract.
In Winnipeg, a white nationalist mother thought it was fun to draw a swastika on the arm of her seven-year-old daughter. When a teacher rubbed off the mark, the mother drew it back on. The second time, the school reported the incident and child welfare officials took both the daughter and a two-year-old boy away from the mother. It is a case that raises very serious questions of free speech balanced against child welfare.
Continue reading “Children Taken Away From Nazi Mother in Canada”
Kentucky pastor, Gregory James Coots, 36, is in jail this week after wildlife officers found dozens of snakes in his possession. He was one of 10 people arrested in the sweep. Coots is the head of Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro — a snake handling sect that recently came under investigation with the death of a woman bitten by one of the venomous snakes.
Continue reading “Laying Hands On Religious Snake Handlers: Police Arrest Pastor of Fundamentalist Church”