So, I pick up the gauntlet, and open the thread in question. I will expand here a bit about my cousin.
As I mentioned in the other thread, he is a criminal, a conman, and not recommendable at all. Also, he is tremendously inept.
He has managed to avoid jail because (1) he is so bad at it that most of his intended victims get wise to what he is trying to do and get the hell away from him, and (2) in the few cases he has managed to actually con somebody, his dear mom --my aunt, poor woman-- has actually paid compensation and otherwise convinced the victim not to press charges.
Some years ago he tried to steal my identity and impersonate me for some scheme of his. Fortunately I heard of this before any excreta hit any air-displacement device, and took the necessary steps to nip the thing in the bud. I proved that the whole time I was supposedly cajoling somebody in Spain I was actually in the Netherlands, and later, when I was in Spain, gave my cousin a very stern talking-to punctuated with threats of unspeakable violence if he dared to try something like that again.
I wish I could say that he has somehow reformed, but it is not the case. He still is a thief and a conman, he still is an inept good-for-nothing, and (as I mentioned in the other thread) I half-expect that one of these days he will get mixed up with something too big for himself, and will end up killed.
sigh as somebody said, you can choose your friends, but not your family.
Outstanding OP, JoseB, and thanks for taking the initiative with the spinoff.
The person I think of first in this category is the childhood friend of my brother’s whom I alluded to in that linked thread. My mother tried her hardest to keep the kid away from my brother as early as pre-school! He was into everything! He was one of those kids who had older siblings who were already grown with their own families by the time this guy was born. He had no supervision or guidance to speak of and was under the “charge” of at least three baby-sitter nanny types while we were living in the same town.
He was into all sorts of petty crime and dirty dealings and after we were both grown my brother visited him in jail (or prison) and reported that he had “dead eyes” and was no longer very much aware of my brother. Probably drugs related, but still…
I don’t remember the circumstances of his murder but it was related to some of his criminal activity.
Another guy that comes to mind is one I only met once at a party at my brother’s place (and no, my brother is a cool and stand-up guy himself) at something like Halloween or the like. I chatted with the guy for almost an hour before he just happened to mention that he had done some “hits” for some outfit. I gradually eased myself out of that conversation and left. I asked my brother what all he knew of this fellow and my brother said something like, “He’s just a guy that showed up at the party.” Weird, but memorable.
As for relatives in the “disreputable” group I just have the typical assholes. None that ought to be in jail or worse.
My idiot brother-in-law (my husband’s sister’s husband, so he’s really no relation at all to me except through marriage) is currently in prison awaiting sentencing for a string of bank robberies across several states. His first robbery took place about two, three weeks after his wedding. Nice.
It’s made my sister-in-law’s life interesting, that’s for certain.
I never met him (he was executed before I was born), but my grandmother’s sister married into the family of Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. My grandmother kept the connection secret from her second husband.
I guess I can mention one of my first wife’s uncles, if that counts as a “relative.” He was a short man, maybe 5’4", and had a short temper. One day at his favorite watering hole another man at the bar started picking on him and he left and came back soon afterward and unloaded a .38 into the guy. At the trial (and I can’t remember what he was convicted of) members of the dead guy’s family swore vengeance on the “relative.” I never did hear how that turned out, but the “uncle” was as mild-mannered as you would like most of the time. just not when he had a few beers in him, and not when he was being picked on.
No challenge here: my uncle. He and my aunt (my mother’s sister) have five kids and she stayed home because they couldn’t afford childcare. We found out just over a decade ago that he had been cheating on my aunt with numerous women for several years, he had spent tons of money on gifts and “business trips” with them, and they were about $30,000 in debt. Oh, and by the way, he had been molesting their middle daughter (10 at the time) during the “study time” he had with her.
He took off to live with his parents (who still say my cousin made it up, because a 10 year old can fake a medical exam. Oh, and don’t forget he admitted it) and she moved 1000 mile away with 5 kids, no savings, and no job. They lived right around the corner from my family for several years and they had some family issues, as you can imagine a single parent of 5 would. I’m pretty sure he’s on the sex offender list but he never did time; if he had she couldn’t have gotten any child support since he wouldn’t have had a job.
My cousin actually lived with my wife and me for just over a year so she could save for college, and she still has some issues. She has trouble trusting any guy she dates, always thinks they have other motives for compliments or nice things they say or do, and has blocked probably 95% of her memories from around age 7 – 12.
I was very impressed to find that she called him a few weeks ago; the first time they have spoken since everything happened. She said she had forgiven him and that there were no hard feelings.
I’ve got a couple. One uncle with whom I’ve had fairly little contact for several years has been described by several relatives as a slumlord. I’ve heard that he once nearly got his mother (who was in her late eighties or early nineties and suffered from dementia at the time) to sell him her house for far less than it was worth, paid over a term significantly longer than she was likely to live. Intervention from his siblings put a stop to his plan, but it seems he would likely have gone through with it otherwise.
On the other side of the family, I’ve got a cousin who is probably my most famous living relative by virtue of having made it onto America’s Most Wanted. I was pretty young when it actually happened but as I recall, he was in and out of jail for years on a variety of charges (I think there were several robberies, possibly armed, on the list) before getting himself mixed up in an even worse crowd than usual and murdering a man in the parking lot of a convenience store and went on the run. I do remember my parents telling me that if I ever heard a knock on the door and saw this cousin outside, I wasn’t supposed to let him in and should call the police. My cousin’s still in jail; I honestly can’t remember how long the sentence is, though I’m certain it isn’t for life.
My cousin Frankie had little to no supervision after his parents divorced; his oldest sister couldn’t keep him out of trouble any more than his mom could and the other sister was too busy w/ guys twice her age.
Even though his mom sent him to live w/ relatives in another state for a year, Frankie fell in w/ a criminal element as soon as he returned and when they weren’t stealing from my aunt by shimmying a smaller kid through the ducts in their old house in Detroit they were knocking off convenience stores. To this day Frankie claims he only sat in the car and waited for the armed friends to come back (ha ha, it is to laugh) but he got more time than the others.
Then he stabbed another inmate w/ a broken broom handle in prison and wound up doubling his stint.
He married the sister of a cellmate a few months after he was paroled. She told him she’d send him back if he raised a hand to her; seven years later he smacked her in front of their two kids and he was back in the pokie for parole violation and I’m about the only person in the family who’ll talk to her. The best chance of success he ever had was to be a good husband w/ her and no one’s to blame for that failure but him.
I just have one cousin I won’t have anything to do with. He’s a heroin addict, been in and out of prison, stole everything he could from my grandma while she was still alive, and is a general miscreant scumbag. He’s in a state far, far away and I’ll probably never have to deal with him, but what a lump of dirt.
I have a cousin with mental health issues. About 15 years ago, around the time of her divorce, she had a break and ran away for 6 years. During her non-medicated years she was arrested numerous times for prostitution, public nuisance, public drunkenness all over the west coast. Finally, she was incarcerated in Nevada, they helped her get back on her meds, and she moved back home upon her release.
She’s the only living family member that has had issues. I’ve posted before that my mom’s grandfather was a Yiddish Chicago mobster, low on the totem pole. I also discovered another relative was an Italian mobster, not as low a great-gramps, decided to move to the great north to escape death.
Many of my disreputable relatives tend to wind up dead from their own actions. My mom’s first cousin got himself murdered by a drug connection. My mom’s sister and her family are/were the white trash archetypes. The sister and her husband became “professionally disabled” and from there descended into prescription drug abuse use/dealing. The sisters kids joined in with the drug lifestyle resulting in the overdose death of the oldest boy and his wife on separate occasions.