Whipped Cream Difficulties

As expected, the NYT has a longer story on the “Rebecca” arrest.

The stockbroker, Mark C. Hotton, collected $60,000 for his efforts before his arrest early Monday by federal authorities, who described the scheme as a complex fraud that was “stranger than fiction.”

It looks like Hotton was using some of the same phony “investors” to scam other people as well. And:

…Mr. Hotton and several accomplices, including his wife, Sherri, had secured $3.7 million by creating sham invoices for companies they controlled and selling that debt at a discount to unsuspecting companies.

I’d never thought of that kind of scam before. That’s clever.

George Whitmore Jr. died a week ago Monday.

(waits for the cries of “Who?” to die out)

Whitmore was at the center of a famous criminal case in 1964. He was picked up for “questioning” by the police for an attempted rape; by the time the police finished their interrogation, he’d confessed to three murders (including the murders of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert, aka the “Career Girls” murder case).

Whitmore later recanted his confession, and the police developed evidence showing someone else was responsible for the Wylie/Hoffert murder. Ultimately, all the charges against Whitmore were dismissed.

The Supreme Court cited Mr. Whitmore’s case as “the most conspicuous example” of police coercion when it issued its 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing a set of protections for suspects, like the right to remain silent. Mr. Whitmore was tried several times in the Edmonds murder, with each trial ending in a hung jury.

The city of Eagle Rock, California, had an election over the weekend. Eagle Rock is engaged in a fight over medical marijuana dispensaries: the neighborhood council passed, and then repealed, a ban. On the pro-dispensary side is the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has “organized workers at more than two dozen dispensaries across the city”.

Here’s interesting thing #1:

City rules allow anyone who does business in a neighborhood to cast a ballot as an “at-large stakeholder.” [Rigo] Valdez [of the UFCW union] urged supporters to “go into Eagle Rock and purchase gas, coffee, or whatever … and keep a receipt as proof” of doing business in the neighborhood.

And here’s interesting thing #2:

Most disturbing to some neighborhood activists were fliers circulated before the vote that promoted pro-dispensary candidates and offered $40 of free medical marijuana to those who could show evidence of casting ballots.

Only two of the pro-dispensary candidates won, but I can’t tell from the LAT article how many seats were open, or what the pro/anti-dispensary breakdown on the council was before the election.

James Kwon is the “Maritime Director” of the port of Oakland. James Kwon was in Houston for a conference in 2008. James Kwon decided to take “about a dozen shipping industry executives” out for a party.

James Kwon decided to take them to Treasures. I probably don’t need to tell you what Treasures is, as I imagine you can guess. Strippers. Always with the strippers. Mr. Kwon spent $4,537 on this “drink and dinner” reception. (If you figure 13 people, including Mr. Kwon, that’s about $349 per person. That seems like a lot for strip club food, but I’ve never been to Treasures. Maybe they have Beef Wellington. And who knows what they paid per drink for strip club drinks.) Now port officials are asking questions, four years after the fact.

Kwon’s strip-club spending spree didn’t come to port officials’ attention until just recently. The timing is especially terrible for the port, which is in the midst of a protracted labor fight with maintenance and other workers over terms of a new contract.

As the HouChron notes, Treasures also has a colorful history of “prostitution, drug dealing, weapons crimes and sexual assaults”.

I’ve written previously about the strange and sad case of Robert Middleton, and the legal wrangling over whether the boy who set him on fire can be tried for murder. New development:

…[Montgomery County attorney David] Walker has dismissed the murder petition he had filed against [Don] Collins seeking to have his case transferred from juvenile to district court and plans to refile it as a felony murder. This charge requires the murder to have occurred in conjunction with the commission of another offense – in this case the alleged sexual assault.