Anything Fun Blog

From a Felony to a Phone Call: Texas Prop 13 Will Allow Innocent Men to Be Jailed Without Bail

Texas voters will decide on November 6 whether to approve Proposition 13, a dangerous measure which will harm innocent men by greatly eroding the rights of those accused of domestic violence. The measure grants judges the ability to hold without bail those accused of nonviolent, trivial, or accidental violations of temporary restraining orders, as long as there is “evidence substantially showing the guilt of the accused.”

Restraining orders cut men off from their children and forbid them many routine behaviors. Men can and are arrested for violating their orders by such acts as: returning their children’s phone calls; going to their children’s school events; sending their kids birthday cards; or accidentally running into them at the park or the mall. Prop 13 doesn’t even make a distinction between long-term protection orders, where accused men have some (limited) ability to contest the charges, and ex parte temporary orders, which are often issued without even providing the man an opportunity to appear in court to defend himself.

According to the Texas House of Representatives’ House Research Organization, Prop 13’s proponents claim that accused men “would retain all their rights to due process and other protections. For example, the determination to deny bail would have to be made at a hearing in which the defendant could appeal the denial of bond or make a case for another bond.”

This ignores the fact that protective orders often seriously impair men’s ability to obtain legal representation and defend themselves. Protective orders make men homeless and can cut them off from their financial resources. In cases where they work with or near their wives, or operate businesses partly or wholly out of their homes, their incomes can disappear overnight. By contrast, women obtaining protective orders are afforded free legal services by victim advocates at local domestic violence shelters, and remain in the marital home. Prop 13 is reflective of a dangerous legal trend, and may victimize many innocent men and fathers.

Souce:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=41307

This is so NOT FUN, say NO to Prop 13!

A Shepherdsville jury has awarded $6.1 million to a former McDonald’s employee, Louise Ogborn, who sued the company and the store’s assistant managers for being strip-searched, humiliated, and sodomized.

This case began from a call made from a man who impersonated a police officer, and convincing assistant manager, Donna Summers, that Ogborn had stolen money from a customer. The mysterious caller asked Summers to strip-search Ogborn. As the situation proceeded, a middle-aged man, Walter Nix Jr., came to the store to watch the search while continuing to the phone call with the mysterious caller.

When Nix took over the phone call, he continued to listen to the caller’s instructions, and Ogborn was further humiliated by having to jog in place with her hands in the air, do jumping jacks, stand on a chair. Nix also spanked Ogborn several times, and eventually ordered her to perform oral sex on him.

The abuse finally stopped when a maintance worker at the store took over the phone and refused to follow the caller’s instructions.
This whole incident was fully recorded on the security camera on the room.

The mysterious caller turned out to be David Stewart, a Florida correctional officer. He was charged with making the phone call. According to Ogborn’s lawyer, Stewart had been making this calls for 10 years, and some 70 stores in more than 30 states had led to criminal charges for more than one set of unwitting employees.

Mt. Washington police Detective Buddy Stump said, "[Stewart] was just a slick con man. He’d end up talking the manager into doing a strip search on the employee. His conversations generally lasted for quite some time — an hour-and-a-half to three hours." Stump found the evidence against Stewart after he traced a phone card used in the call to a store in Florida. An investigator there found surveillance video of a man they thought was Stewart buying the card, wearing a corrections uniform, and Stump flew down to assist in the arrest.

Stewart was charged with impersonating an officer, soliciting a sexual act and soliciting sexual abuse, but eventually became the only person charged in the incident to be acquitted.

Stewart’s defense attorney Steve Romines, at first insisted that it was unknown if the man shown on tape buying the calling card in question was actually Stewart. Then, when investigators claimed to find a calling card at Stewart’s home used in another of the hoax calls, Romines argued that having the card didn’t mean Stewart actually made the call. In the end, Romines convinced the jury that the evidence which did not include any witnesses or a recording of the caller’s voice was insufficient to convict Stewart.

Even after the acquittal, prosecutor Mike Mann continued to insist Stewart made the call. Meanwhile, Nix was later convicted of sex abuse, sexual misconduct and unlawful imprisonment and sentenced to five years after pleading guilty in the case.

The jury also found that McDonald’s was 50 percent at fault in the case, as was the caller, which will affect the amount apportioned. Ogborn claimed that McDonald’s did not sufficiently warn its employees of the ongoing hoax calls. McDonald’s attorneys claimed that the company had, but managers at the Mt. Washington store failed to relay the information.

Despite being sued by Ogborn, Summers also sued McDonald’s concurrently with Ogborn for $50 million. For the claim by Ogborn, the jury found that Summers and the other manager were not liable. On the other hand, the jury awarded $1.1 million to Summers from her claim agains’t McDonald’s, Summer said she’d use her settlement to take care of her family.

After the trial, Ogborn said she felt closure, and intends to go to law school. Her settlement includes $5 million in punitive and $1.1 million in compensatory damages.

Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21151994/

This case really shows that don’t trust people too easily….,  and it might not sound to be anything fun if it happen to you, BUT $6.1 million reward is pretty SWEET, isn’t it?

I came across this funny phone card ad, but I can’t figure out how to insert a video in this FriendsterBlog, so just click on this link: http://phonecardstop.blogspot.com/2007/10/source-www.html Enjoy!

PS: If you know how to to make a video blog, let me know

Revelers take aim at tomato-throwing event: Tens of thousands make sea of red mush in Spain’s annual event

BUNOL, Spain - Tens of thousands of warriors-for-a-day hurled tons of ripe tomatoes at each other Wednesday in an annual food fight that transforms this Spanish town into a sea of red mush.

At precisely 11:00 a.m. (5 a.m. ET), on the cue of a rocket fired from town hall, municipal trucks hauled 117 tons of plum tomatoes into the main square of Bunol and dumped them, setting the stage for exactly one hour of good-natured warfare.

“It has been great, excellent, crazy, fantastic,” said Alan Doyle, a 21-year-old Dubliner attending the festival called the Tomatina for the first time.

“It’s like a mosh pit in a rock concert; you just keep going,” he said. “The street was like a red river.”

At noon a second rocket shot up into the air, signaling it was time to cease hostilities. Bunol residents used garden hoses to spray down the tomato-tossers and the rest of the town.

The event has its roots in a food fight between childhood friends and has become something of a calling card for Bunol, which is 25 miles north of Valencia on Spain’s eastern coast.

World’s largest food fight
The Tomatina, held each year on the last Wednesday in August, is said to be the world’s largest tomato fight.

The festival draws tens of thousands of revelers from around Spain and abroad, including from countries as far away as Japan, Australia and the United States. This year an estimated 40,000 people took part.

Doyle, who serves in the army in Ireland, learned about the festival while vacationing in Spain and did not want to miss it. “I recommend it to everyone who wants to have a great time,” he said. “I’ll definitely come back.”

There were no reports of injuries in this year’s fight, said city councilor Pilar Garrigues. She said participants receive a list of recommendations on how to fight without hurting anybody.

Lots of fighters take their red-soaked shirts off, and they are not supposed to throw them, just the fruit. Nor is it considered fair to throw tomatoes that are a bit on the green side because they’re harder. And the red ones? Squeeze them first, please, to ease the sting.

“People normally respect these basic rules. That’s why there are hardly any incidents,” Garrigues said.

Local legend claims the event began in the mid-1940s after a group of youngsters waged a food fight near a vegetable stand on the town square. They met again the next year and pelted each other — and passers-by — creating the annual tradition.

Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12609655/

How FUN is that?