Assorted Stupidity #46

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  • Yes, it's frustrating when the bank teller screws up a simple request—"give me $20,000," for example—but you shouldn't really complain about being shortchanged if the money you demanded wasn't yours. A 28-year-old man was arrested in October after he demanded that amount from a teller in Syracuse, New York, and then left the bank, only to return after realizing she had not given him the full $20k. He arrived at the (now locked) front door of the bank about the same time police did.
  • Still in prison: William Jefferson, the former congressman from Louisiana who had difficulty explaining the $90,000 that FBI agents found in his freezer. Jefferson was convicted of bribery in 2009 for taking money to promote certain ventures using his position on the House Ways and Means Committee. (The donor of the $90,000 turned out to be an FBI informant, so I guess they already had an explanation.) The Supreme Court recently turned down his last appeal, so Jefferson, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972, will be leaving federal custody in 2023.
  • Still a dick: Joe Francis, who's refusing to pay $6 million he owes a St. Louis woman who won a case against him in June. Francis didn't show up for trial, but did show up for a hearing last week at which he invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent several dozen times but talked constantly when he wanted to, despite being told by his own lawyers to shut up. Francis also still owes casino owner Steve Wynn $7.5 million, a judgment also awarded by default. Both plaintiffs' attorneys claim Francis is hiding assets, although somehow he still owns a couple of ginormous mansions that aren't very well hidden at all.
  • "Based upon the folk wisdom that counsels that some things are better left to the imagination, we will resist the temptation to 'go there' and explore the subtleties of 'toeballs.' The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit did not favor us with an explanation, and none readily suggests itself to us. Perhaps … for those who understand 'toeballs,' no explanation is necessary. For those who do not understand them, no explanation is possible." Gucci America, Inc. v. Daffy's, Inc., 354 F.3d 228, 238 n.11 (3d Cir. 2003) (puzzling over a reference to "toeballs" in a citation to a case that turned out to involve Barney the Dinosaur).