# Who's committed the most crimes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348 "2009-04-08T02:44:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/1 "2009-04-08T02:44:26Z")
By the standard of individual criminal charges found guilty of, who’s got the title of most crimes committed? And as a side question, how long did the trial take? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/2 "2009-04-08T03:08:20Z")
I have no clue, but here I was about to nominate [Vasili Blokhin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin), who single-handedly executed over 6000 prisoners one by one as part of the Katyn Massacre, but was never brought up on any sort of charges for it. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/3 "2009-04-08T03:15:37Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I have no clue, but here I was about to nominate [Vasili Blokhin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Blokhin), who single-handedly executed over 6000 prisoners one by one as part of the Katyn Massacre, but was never brought up on any sort of charges for it. That’s nothing… they’re trying to get this guy for 29,000 counts of accessory to murder: [BBC NEWS | World | Americas | 'Death camp Nazi' can be deported](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7986249.stm) Maybe there needed to be a non-war criminal caveat in the OP? ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/4 "2009-04-08T03:19:16Z")
[Here’s the rap sheet](http://digg.com/d1aUEL) for Henry Earl, a Kentucky man who’s been arrested 1,333 times – mostly for public intox. I must be a heathen. I don’t see the “crime” in being drunk in public (assuming he’s not bothering anybody). ---
**Author:** ![Erasmus\_Darwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@Erasmus\_Darwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erasmus_Darwin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/5 "2009-04-08T03:46:45Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I must be a heathen. I don’t see the “crime” in being drunk in public (assuming he’s not bothering anybody). In his case, that’s apparently a very incorrect assumption. He was discussed over on another forum after one of the news stories about his lengthy rap sheet – probably when he hit the 1k milestone. Someone posted their personal encounters with him, and it readily became apparent that he was a genuine nuisance rather than just a rascally drunken folk hero. In particular, I recall that the police weren’t throwing him in jail just because they were bored – he would keep deliberately amplifying his misbehavior until he’d get arrested. He also apparently had some communicable diseases and would try and forcibly kiss women from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/6 "2009-04-08T04:22:05Z")
Is the OP asking for the most “counts” of crimes, or the widest variety of crimes? E.g. if I commit 1000 counts of murder, then I have 1000 counts but only one type of crime (murder.) Someone who has commited theft + drunk driving + aggravated assault + murder will win over the guy who murdered 1000 people, if we’re looking for the widest variety that went up in a single court case. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/7 "2009-04-08T13:13:55Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > By the standard of individual criminal charges found guilty of, who’s got the title of most crimes committed? And as a side question, how long did **the** trial take? Bolding mine. So is the question about the most crimes prosecuted in one single trial, as the the second question suggests? That would certainly be different from the most crimes committed in a lifetime. Clarification of the actual information sought here would be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/8 "2009-04-08T13:21:41Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Bolding mine. So is the question about the most crimes prosecuted in one single trial, as the the second question suggests? If so, then I’ll nominate Terry Nichols, who was charged with 161 counts of first-degree murder in Oklahoma in 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/9 "2009-04-08T17:18:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Is the OP asking for the most “counts” of crimes, or the widest variety of crimes? E.g. if I commit 1000 counts of murder, then I have 1000 counts but only one type of crime (murder.) Someone who has commited theft + drunk driving + aggravated assault + murder will win over the guy who murdered 1000 people, if we’re looking for the widest variety that went up in a single court case. The most, whether that’s in many different crimes, or the same type repeatedly. The most overall number. [QUOTE=Gary T] Bolding mine. So is the question about the most crimes prosecuted in one single trial, as the the second question suggests? That would certainly be different from the most crimes committed in a lifetime. Clarification of the actual information sought here would be helpful. [/QUOTE] Either, really, though I had “prosecuted at one time” in my head at the time of writing, which is why it came out like that. ---
**Author:** ![2nd\_Law](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/f475e1/32.png) [@2nd\_Law](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2nd_Law)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-committed-the-most-crimes/492348/10 "2009-04-08T19:54:19Z")
Since the OP didn’t require what kind of crime, I’d nominate a postal worker who stuffed his workload into a closet instead of delivering his workload. I seem to recall a Chicago postal carrier getting charged with that a number of years ago, and a quick google search lead me to an article about a Malaysian postal worker who stashed away 21,000 pieces of mail, which presumably would be 21,000 counts of mail theft. [link](http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:xizRePVJsCAJ:www.chicagopostalworker.com/News_Archives/0804archive.html+chicago+postman+stealing+mail&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)