I saw the Seinfeld ep “The Statue” last night. Jerry’s grandfather dies and leaves him some knickknacks, including an old statue of a woman, which resembles one George broke as a kid. George leaves the statue at Jerry’s, and a grad student comes over to clean the apartment (he’s dating the woman who wrote the manuscript Elaine is editing). Later, when Jerry and Elaine go over to the couple’s place, Jerry sees the statue and assumes it’s stolen. The guy denies it when asked later, and Kramer takes matters into his own hands and takes it back (dresses up in the old grandpa suit and pretends to be a cop).
It’s ambiguous as to whether or not it’s Jerry’s statue, but his statue is missing from the apartment. Seems pretty obvious it’s his. I’ve always wondered–if it really was his statue, is what Kramer did illegal? And was it his statue? I always thought it would end with Jerry finding his actual statue somewhere, but it didn’t–just ended with George accidentally breaking the new one.
As far as the legality, it sounds like Kramer might be off the hook for actual theft if he was truly reclaiming stolen property, but still guilty of trespassing or breaking and entering. (Based off a google search and Yahoo answers, so take with plenty of salt.)
To the extent there’s a trespass it’s a lesser part of the impersonation. And the other guy (Ray) would have to tell him to get out. If I recall correctly, Kramer sort of bullied his way in under the cop pretense. (Breaking and entering would be forcing entry through the door when it was closed/locked.)
And it can’t be theft if he’s actually recovering Jerry’s statue. But since they left that vague we can speculate on that also.
Kramer pushing Ray up against the wall is assault. And in Arizona, at least, this would be a(nother) felony if it could be shown that Kramer entered the apartment with this intent.
Yeah, it’s funnier without an answer. And it ensures we can go back and forth on it for days. “But he was the only one in the apartment!” “But why would he leave it out so brazenly!” etc.
Heh. Maybe we should just open a long-running Seinfeld thread and add questions each night as the episodes air.
It’s definitely George’s statue. “The guy who sold it to me retired and moved to Singapore”? Come onnnnn. Also, this is the third Seinfeld question we’ve had in a week. What is the deal.
