Legal news, some illegal. All of it interesting
1. Sundae Bloody Sundae: Ice Cream Museum Sued
A visitor to New York City’s Museum of Ice Cream says they fudged up safety. His lawsuit claims that when he jumped into the museum’s sprinkle pool – a pit of oversized plastic sprinkles – he broke his ankle and life’s been a rocky road ever since. He says the MIC’s website and social media invite the public to “dive into fun” with its sprinkle pool – which appears to be ankle deep in the pictures. That invitation, he says, was the cherry topper that cone-vinced him it was safe to jump into fun and sprinkles, only to have his dreams bomb popped. The museum’s not commenting.
2. Kicking up a Sandstorm in Malibu
When Malibillionaires draw lines in the sand, they do it with bulldozers, natch. One billionaire financier is suing his other billionaire neighbor – Milwaukee Brewers owner, Mark Attanasio. His lawsuit accuses Attanasio of making a sand grab from the public beach to shore up his sea wall, in violation of the California Coastal Act. Attanasio has a permit but his neighbor’s not digging the huge excavators dredging sand from a steadily shrinking beach. Plus, he says the dozers are a sandhastle – cutting off access and leaking fuel on marine life. Attanasio waves off the lawsuit, calling it Malibull.
3. $1.5M Chicken Wing Thief Not Cage Free
A Chicago school district official pled guilty to trying to make big buck, buck, bucks off chicken wings. The former food service director stole $1.5M worth of food that was supposed to feed remote students who were still picking up school meals. Authorities say Vera “Chicken” Liddel ordered more than 11K cases of wings from the district’s food provider, then picked up the order herself in a district cargo van. The district discovered the theft when a routine audit found that food service costs were $300K over budget, halfway through the school year. Liddel won’t be flying the coop for awhile. She received a nine-year jail sentence.
4. He Didn’t Get the Joke. Lawyer Bombs Lenin Sculpture
A freedom-lovin’, Communist hatin’ lawyer from Florida has pleaded guilty to bombing a Texas sculpture of the Communist leaders Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong in 2022. He also copped to trying to bomb China’s Washington, D.C. embassy in 2023. Apparently, the former public defender really doesn’t like Communists or satire. The sculpture, by well-known Chinese dissident artists, the Gao Brothers, was meant to satirize and criticize the Communist leaders, not honor them. Sigh. Let’s hope he’s prison lovin’ – he faces at least 10 years behind bars.
5. You Don’t Say! They Didn’t. Journo’s Fake AI Quotes
A Wyoming newspaper reporter got caught using AI to write his stories. The quotes from state leaders in his stories had already struck other journalists as “off.” And his phrasing seemed, well, robotic. But that’s not what did him in. The dead giveaway appeared in his article about an upcoming parade. The last paragraph veered from parade to an explanation of the inverted pyramid being the proper structure for news stories. Sigh. The reporter admitted that being new to journalism, he used AI to write his stories before resigning. The newspaper editor says they’ve since discovered that AI invented many, if not all the quotes in his stories.
