Actor Daniel Baldwin detained by police
Wait… there’s a Daniel Baldwin? How many crappy actors can one woman birth?

Man convicted of keeping dead mother in freezer to collect Social Security avoids prison
Okay, I know ignorance of the law is no excuse, but who would have guessed it’s illegal to freeze mom’s corpse for purposes of defrauding the federal government? Keep your laws off my mom’s body.

Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job
BEIJING (Reuters) - “A Chinese headmaster, who tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said Friday.” Well, that’s communism for you.

Cop censured for moonlighting as a hooker
Now, I know ignorance of the law is no excuse, but…. oh never mind.

Come on girls, let’s be brutally honest. Who among us hasn’t murdered a loved one and used the life insurance payoff to get our breasts enlarged?

Cynthia Sommer, 32, was a voluptuous debutante trapped in a flat-as-a-pancake body. A Coach-sporting fashionista hindered by a pleather knockoff budget. Why didn’t she just go marry some old rich perv, like every other self-respecting gold digger?? I guess we’ll never know.

Instead, at age 30 with three kids, she married a 23-year-old Marine. Sgt. Todd Sommer complained of feeling sick in early February 2002, then collapsed ten days later. Police thought he’d died of a heart condition until a little forensic detectiveryness found that his liver contained 1,020 times the normal level of arsenic. His wife explained that his favorite breakfast cereal is Arsen-O’s.

Cynthia’s defense attorney went on about how difficult the arrest had been for her four children (three from a previous relationship). He didn’t mention how difficult it was for the children when daddy dropped dead and mommy spent the next few weeks partying at strip clubs and sleeping with other marines.

Ten days after Todd died, Cynthia scheduled her boob job. She got $250,000 from Todd’s life insurance as well as $1,871 a month from the Department of Veterans Affairs. That easily covered her $23,000 in credit card debt and her $5,000 surgery.

Her lawyer argued that she didn’t really benefit from her husband’s death, since she broke even after about a year. It seems the ability to spend $250,000 in one year is now a murder defense. But dude, I bet she’s totally foxy now, so it was way worth it.

A few weeks ago, Judge Weinstein promised life sentences for the two New York detectives whose entrepreneurial spirit led them to lucrative side-jobs as mob hitmen. Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito were convicted of a racketeering conspiracy that included arranging and/or committing eight murders. But now the judge has changed his mind… it seems the five-year (??!!) statute of limitations has run out on the racketeering murder charges. Evidently, this issue had slipped Weinstein’s mind during the entire trial, during which the defense argued that the statute of limitations had run out on the racketeering murder charges. If you follow me.

How to explain Judge Weinstein’s sudden change of heart? I’m guessing the judge recently received a couple of unscheduled visitors:

Gangster #1: “Say, judge, that’s a real nice Jaguar you got out there in the parking lot. It’d be a shame if some clumsy individual were to yank off the signature hood ornament and toss it in the east river.”

Gangster #2: “Gee, that would be a shame, Ganster #1… especially since it takes 6 to 8 weeks for the manufacterer to send out a new one. Then, you probly have to pay a garage to stick it back on, all professional-like.”

The 12 jurors were instructed on the statute laws before their deliberations, but ultimately agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the murders were part of an overall racketeering conspiracy that continued through the years, finally ending less than five years ago.

After the jury came back with guilty verdicts on all counts, Judge Weinstein stated that the “mafia cops” had committed the most heinous crimes ever heard in his courtroom, and would spend their lives in prison. In his recent decision to overturn the conviction the judge admitted the men were clearly guilty on all counts, siting that pesky statute technicality as the reason they’ll get away with murder. Not only that.. our boys get brand new trials for their additional money laundering and drug convictions.

First of all, how is it that these murders have a statute of limitations? Does wrapping the murders up in a racketeering conspiracy charge negate seperate murder charges? If so, why did the prosecution choose racketeering conspiracy over murder, when racketeering is notoriously difficult to prove? I’m sure there are very satisfactory answers to these questions, but I’m really much too lazy to look them up.