# Anybody ever known someone that did something so wrong it made the news? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339 "2001-08-21T14:32:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/61 "2010-08-17T20:47:39Z")
CEO for a software reseller my then-wife used to work for was a complete slimeball. Cooking books, double charging credit cards, etc. He was an LDS bishop and brought in one of his pals from church as the new CFO, and the two of them started skimming cash right off the top. All would have been fine except the guy who started the business, and whom they were buying out in installments, kept his fingers in the operation and when he noticed revenue going down but sales going up, brought in an outside auditor. He filed embezzlement and fraud charges against them and the case went federal because of the fraudulent credit card charges in multiple states. Their perp walk was on the local news. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/62 "2010-08-18T09:32:49Z")
I knew a kid that grew up to murder his mom. He was such a nice little boy. In lighter events, I was standing on later next door to a building that blew up. Some idiots were welding/cutting on an empty fuel tanker truck and they flashed the vapors which flattened the shop. The building went boom. Meanwhile, I ducked… standing about 12 feet off the ground! Other than the workers being deafened, nobody was hurt. They were sheltered because they were laying on the ground between two sets of tires. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/63 "2010-08-18T10:37:18Z")
Depending on the location and how slow the news day is, you can get in the news for really minor stuff, and avoid the news for major stuff. A guy I grew up with got busted as a teenager for stealing hood ornaments, and got on the front page of the newspaper; it happened in a suburb and on a slow news day. A few years later, he and a friend shot two children (killing one) who they thought were messing with their cars (stealing hood ornaments?). It took place in Indianapolis proper and on a busy news day, and it didn’t make the news. The neighbors of my in-laws unfortunately were in the news a decade ago for a multiple-murder/suicide; a man shot and killed his infant children and his girlfriend, then himself. Sadly, none of us were really surprised. In my apartment complex, a puppy got stabbed a while back, and it was in the newspaper and on television for _weeks_, while a man who had a night-long armed stand-off with police and killed himself after police shot in tear gas and kicked in the door earned almost no coverage whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/64 "2010-08-18T10:45:48Z")
My sister’s ex live in boyfriend murdered his new girlfriend and is on deathrow in VA. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/65 "2010-08-18T10:56:41Z")
I’ve posted this before, but [David Copeland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copeland), who set off three bombs in London in 1999 and killed three people, was in my year (and some of my classes) at school. He lived in the next street from me. By coincidence, I was also drinking at a pub a few hundred yards from the third bomb when it went off. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/66 "2010-08-18T13:15:01Z")
I knew a guy, Jeremy Duffer, who made the news a couple of times. He worked in a game store nearby, which is how I knew him. A lot of kids would hang out in the backroom playing Pokemon, D&D and other games. Turns out Jeremy was hanging out with at least one of the boys in inappriate ways. The child told his mother, and Jeremy was arrested on charges of child rape. He was placed under house arrest with an ankle bracelet to await trial. Then he escaped! He cut off the bracelet and got away. There was a big manhunt and he was on billboards and [America’s Most Wanted](http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=37932). They caught him a few months later working at a traveling carnival in eastern Tennessee. He’s in jail now - he was sentenced to 137 years. I know raping a boy is pretty abhorrent, but 137 years seemed a little excessive to me for someone who clearly needed mental help. But at least he won’t be abusing any more kids. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/67 "2010-08-18T13:23:49Z")
My neighbor across the street became the first civilian ever shot by the police in the history of my town. His wife called the police during a domestic violence incident, he was drunk and tried to get at a knife on the counter in their kitchen, and in the subsequent struggle was trying to get one officer’s pistol out of the holster. He ignored pepper spray and repeated warnings (he was really drunk) and one of the cops shot him. It not only made the news, it got **me** on the news - I was interviewed on one of our local news stations. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Minnie\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Minnie\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Minnie_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/68 "2010-08-18T14:48:38Z")
The Laurie Kellogg case happened not just in my town, but in my former neighborhood. We had moved by the time the murder happened. [Free Laurie Kellogg](http://www.grandpaws.net/lauriekellogg/) Laurie was in the same class as my sister in high school, her stepdaughter (the daughter of the victim, her husband Bruce) was in my class. They made a TV movie out of it starring Jennie Garth. One of the conspirators, Nicole Pappas, was just a year older than me (and Bruce’s daughter). It was widely known that Bruce was a bastard, but the actual circumstances surrounding his death are still widely debated. The largest detail being did Laurie put the teenagers up to it or did she not know they were going to kill him. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/69 "2010-08-18T14:59:47Z")
I kind of like having these old threads back. An high-school acquaintance, someone I knew but not really a friend, was big into hunting. Of course since I grew up in central PA a lot of kids were, but he was kind of known for it. His favorite thing to do in life was to go hunting with his older brother, who was really like his best friend in the world. I came home from college over one weekend and was watching the local news. Top story was about my high-school acquaintance, who had accidentally shot someone in a hunting accident. The victim was his older brother. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/70 "2010-08-18T15:03:03Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > I know someone that brought a nine year old zombie back from the grave! I was reading the thread just now, and noticed - “Hey, that link is to Geocities! This must be a zombie!” Yep. Joe ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/71 "2010-08-18T15:05:05Z")
Whoa. For a second I got all excited because I saw that **Eve** had posted. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/72 "2010-08-18T15:41:17Z")
Someone I knew as a teen killed himself rather than letting the police catch him. He was also believed to have shot and killed the local grocer in an attempted robbery the day before Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/73 "2010-08-18T16:56:34Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > A friend of mine was convicted of embezzling $150,000. It made all the papers. I’ve got you beat by $400K. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031201426.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031201426.html) This happened about 18 months ago. I saw this guy almost every day and we worked on several projects together. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/74 "2010-08-18T17:20:55Z")
I used to run around with a guy who was convicted (IIRC) of kidnapping and extortion. He got the idea from the movie _Crazy Larry and Dirty Mary_. I think that was the title. The guy I knew was basically a career criminal with a sideline in gambling. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/75 "2010-08-18T17:25:12Z")
I used to work with this woman: > [@](#): > > Earlier this month, four jail officers reported seeing Burns and his then-public defender, **Theresa Olson** , having sex in a jail conference room. The alleged encounter led to a series of court hearings in which the judge and a roomful of lawyers tried to figure out how to handle the situation. [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/84506\_olson28.shtml](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/84506_olson28.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/76 "2010-08-18T18:13:48Z")
> [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > They were sheltered because they were laying on the ground between two sets of tires. Screwing around on the job, eh? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/77 "2010-08-18T18:18:01Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I used to work with this woman: > > > [@](#): > > > > Earlier this month, four jail officers reported seeing Burns and his then-public defender, **Theresa Olson** , having sex in a jail conference room. The alleged encounter led to a series of court hearings in which the judge and a roomful of lawyers tried to figure out how to handle the situation. > > [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/84506\_olson28.shtml](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/84506_olson28.shtml) Is that frowned upon? I have to claim ignorance.. if anyone had told me I shouldn’t have sex with my public defender… ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/78 "2010-08-18T18:41:52Z")
I had a copyright professor in law school who I remained in contact with after graduation. I hired some of his copyright students as unpaid interns in the years following my graduation, and I came to speak to a couple of his classes. Nice guy. He wrote a book on copyright for the layperson; I went to his booksigning and I have an autographed copy. Imagine my surprise when I read that he had just been arrested for possessing, on both his work and home computers, what was then the single largest collection of child pornography in New York State. > **[The Professor and the Porn - Nymag](https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/n_8815/)** > > For 26 years, Edward Samuels was a highly respected New York Law School professor. And then the tech department stumbled onto his stash of child pornography. But if you thought he’d > resign, you’d be wrong. Instead, he sat back while his colle \[...\] ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/79 "2010-08-18T18:50:17Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > > [@Procrustus](#): > > > > I used to work with this woman: > > > > [http://www.seattlepi.com/local/84506\_olson28.shtml](http://www.seattlepi.com/local/84506_olson28.shtml) > > Is that frowned upon? I have to claim ignorance.. if anyone had told me I shouldn’t have sex with my public defender… From Washington State’s Professional Responsibility rules: > [@](#): > > Client-Lawyer Sexual Relationships > > The relationship between lawyer and client is a fiduciary one in which the lawyer > occupies the highest position of trust and confidence. The relationship is almost always unequal; thus, a sexual relationship between lawyer and client can involve unfair exploitation of the lawyer’s fiduciary role, in violation of the lawyer’s basic ethical obligation not to use the trust of the client to the client’s disadvantage. In addition, such a relationship presents a significant danger that, because of the lawyer’s emotional involvement, the lawyer will be unable to represent the > client without impairment of the exercise of independent professional judgment. Moreover, a blurred line between the professional and personal relationships may make it difficult to predict to what extent client confidences will be protected by the attorney-client evidentiary privilege, sinceclient confidences are protected by privilege only when they are imparted in the context of the client-lawyer relationship. Because of the significant danger of harm to client interests and because the client’s own emotional involvement renders it unlikely that the client could give adequate informed consent, **this Rule prohibits the lawyer from having sexual relations with a client regardless of whether the relationship is consensual and regardless of the absence of prejudice to the client**. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/80 "2010-08-18T18:55:27Z")
I went to high school with a dude who ended up stabbing his girlfriend to death in her driveway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339.md?page=5)