Husband says he moved in flying book?s path
In Yorktown, N.Y., in June, one spouse who was roughed up by the other during a domestic eruption tried (as sometimes happens) to talk police out of filing charges. However, the battering spouse this time was Emily Hanlon-Tarasov, a novelist, and the explanation of her husband (who was knocked unconscious when Hanlon-Tarasov angrily threw a book) was fittingly creative: “A few things began flying at the wall,” he said, “and one of them was a telephone book. And unfortunately, my head moved into the space that the book was flying into.” Hanlon-Tarasov was nevertheless charged with assault.
The Litigious Society
Jay and Laura Flynn of Lilburn, Ga., filed a $111 million lawsuit in June against Home Depot and the maker of Tile Perfect Stand?N Seal Grout Cleaner, charging that a defect caused toxic fumes that permanently destroyed half of Jay’s lung capacity, which, among other effects, according to Laura, ended the couple’s “extremely active love life.” She added, “I mean every day. But now that is over.”
? There Must Be Somebody We Can Sue: Daughter Carriel Louah, 25, is suing her parents for at least $75,000 for the broken ankle she suffered in a fall on their property when she paid them an unexpected visit in Darlington, Wis., in 2005. The mother said she appreciated the surprise birthday visit, but denied any negligence. (A judge refused to toss out the lawsuit in July.)
The Laws of Irony
(1) In July, former peace activist Christiaan Briggs, 30 (who had gone to Iraq in 2003 to protest the impending U.S. attack), was arrested in Islington, England, and charged with knocking a man out (leaving him in a coma) in a fight after he allegedly hit on the man’s girlfriend.
(2) The British watchdog Environmental Agency, which prosecutes pollution violators, was fined the equivalent of nearly $14,000 in May for allowing toxic waste to flow from its monitoring station along the River Exe in Somerset.
(3) In July, municipal officials in Provincetown, Mass., held a community meeting to air numerous complaints by heterosexuals that they are targets of hate speech by the town’s large gay and lesbian population.
? What Goes Around, Comes Around: Colin Watson, 63, one of Britain’s most notorious illegal collectors of rare bird eggs (having been convicted six times and having had nearly his entire collection confiscated by the government), fell to his death in May from a tree he had climbed in south Yorkshire to check out a nest.
? In June, the Ministry of Higher Education of Saudi Arabia (home of 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers), along with the country’s civil aviation authority, jointly announced scholarships for Saudi men and women for bachelor’s and graduate-school study in the United States in such fields as “air traffic control,” “flight safety” and “other majors related to the airline transport industry.”
People With Issues
In June, Betty Jean Barachie was sentenced to 27 months in prison for embezzling $1.5 million from her employer so she could indulge a mindless compulsive-shopping habit; among her inexplicable, 1,500-item haul were 58 coats, 16 chain saws, more than 3,000 books, and a John Deere tractor.
Least Competent Criminals
A federal appeals court in June affirmed the conviction of Aaron Fraser (aka Asante Kahari) for defrauding a Michigan woman he had met in an Internet chat room and had eventually taken for $38,000 in a counterfeit check scam. Kahari had sent the woman bogus checks for deposit into her account, and then met her to collect the cash, and was gone by the time the bank realized the checks were counterfeit.
Kahari had denied the charges, but the prosecutor introduced portions of a book, “The Birth of a Criminal” by Asante Kahari, which describes in precise detail the very scheme Kahari was accused of pulling on the Michigan woman. “I would get online,” he wrote, “meet a broad and be mailing her the (computer-generated counterfeit) check the next day.”
Fighting the Good Fight
(1) A 47-year-old man was arrested in Milwaukee in June and charged with stabbing a 54-year-old man in (according to the police report) an argument about not having an argument.
(2) Marine veteran Christopher Marlowe, 25, was arrested in New Orleans in June and charged with shooting Army veteran Erik Beelman after an argument over which branch of service is tougher.
(3) Pamela Majdan, 23, was charged with domestic battery in Wood Dale, Ill., on Memorial Day after allegedly repeatedly beating her sister, Joyce, 31, in a dispute over who had caught the most pieces of candy tossed during the town’s holiday parade.
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