Criminally Moronic Tales

January 21, 1999

WELL, HIS BUDDY SHOULDA SEEN IT COMING...
A Murfreesboro, Tennessee man who smashed a friend's BMW into a tree was blind drunk -- literally. The 39-year-old man, who has been totally blind since the age of 6, told Tennessee troopers that he and the friend had been drinking and decided to go for a drive. The blind man thought he knew his own road well enough to drive the car -- with a little help from his friend -- so the two of them put the top down on the convertible and went for a spin in the rain. Troopers say during the joyride, the blind man missed a sharp left turn and slammed head-on into a tree. When the cops arrived, he reportedly told them, "Never let a blind man drive." Both men were charged with driving under the influence.

SEE? I TOLDJA THAT STUFF WOULD MAKE YOU STUPID!
Judge Dan Stack of Edwardsville, Illinois presided over a man's wedding ceremony, then sentenced him minutes later for bringing marijuana into the courthouse. as the groom was entering the courthouse with his bride-to-be and their infant son for the wedding, a deputy's metal detector discovered a metal pipe in the man's pocket. That led to a search that turned up a bag of pot. Authorities were going to release the man with an order to appear later, but after Judge Stack talked it over with him, they decided to do the wedding ceremony and the criminal case back-to-back. Stack married the couple, then sentenced the groom to a 100 dollar fine and a year's probation.

FILET OF SOLE?
A Springfield, Oregon burglar got stuck while trying to break into a restaurant after hours. The owner arrived the next morning and found the burglar's legs dangling from a ceiling vent, with one of his sneakers on the grill and the other in the french fry basket.

BOY...AND WE THOUGHT "I SPIT INTO YOUR GROCERIES" WAS ROUGH...!
The New York Daily News reports the story of a grocery store customer who became upset when another woman got into the express checkout line with more than the maximum number of items. This precipitated a loud argument, which culminated with the angry woman shouting at the line-abuser, "I spit into your groceries." Not a good idea, since the other woman was Victoria Gotti, the wife of convicted mobster John Gotti. Mrs. Gotti said she "used connections" to trace the woman's license plate, went to her home, and dumped a box of dog feces on her.

DIDJA EVER HAVE ONE OF THOSE DAYS...?
A Toledo, Ohio stickup artist had a world of trouble during a recent robery attempt. First, he tried to disable the cash register by cutting the power cord...and received a nasty electrical shock. Then, he asked for a bag to put the money in and became confused when the clerk asked "paper or plastic?" The hapless thug fled, leaving his knife behind. He was arrested several hours later after robbing a pizza shop. Police picked him up on a streetcorner, where he was waiting for his getaway driver, who was running a few minutes late.

ODB? MEET BLT.
Randy Thomas -- now known as "The BLT" to his fellow inmates -- was sentenced to 3-and-a-half years in prison for a bacon-related assault. Thomas and a co-defendant beat a man up, tied him to a tree, and covered him with bacon in the hopes that wild animals would attack. The victim, though greasy, survived.

SAY....THAT'S ODD!
A woman in Petersburg, Virginia was charged with thratening a police officer, after he tried to stop her from waving a gun at passers-by at a busy intersection. When the woman appeared in court the next day for her arraignment, she was accompanied by a mannequin dressed in an Arabic costume and holding a sword. The woman told a sheriff's deputy the mannequin was going to testify on her behalf. The deputy explained to the woman her companion couldn't come in with her because there are no weapons and no smoking allowed inside the courthouse. (In addition to having the sword, the mannequin was smoking a cigar.) The deputy offered to keep an eye on the woman's friend, and if the judge called him to testify, he would bring him right in.

HEY! HE'S NOT A SUPERHERO -- HE'S A DUMB*SS!
A man who was hit by a bus won a $600,000 judgment against the Washington, D.C. transportation authority. The plaintiff was awarded the money despite the fact that he was drunk at the time and partying on a public street in a Batman costume. During the trial, the man's lawyer managed to suppress from the jurors' ears another fact about his client: at the time of the collision, for some reason, he was wearing a condom.

EVERY PARENT'S THOUGHT ABOUT THIS AT LEAST ONCE...
A mother and father in Cape May, New Jersey were sentenced to six months in jail for child abandonment. Authorities say that while their unruly 13-year-old son was hospitalized, the couple had packed up their belongings and moved to Inglewood, Calif.

AND FINALLY...
A man pleaded innocent to a domestic violence charge while being arraigned, live on video, from the county jail in ravenna, Ohio. Then, thinking the camera was off, he turned his back to the camera and dropped his pants. "He mooned me and said 'This is for you, Judge,'" recalled Judge Barbara Wilson. The judge replied, "How nice. And this is for you," and sentenced the man to ten days in jail.