Criminal Law Stories

Police said two would-be robbers were arrested early Sunday morning in the parking lot of a Swiss Chalet restaurant in Ajax, Ontario (just east of Toronto), after spending more than half-an-hour trying to open a safe they had stolen from the restaurant by driving back and forth over it with a car.The two men, and a third still being sought, police said, forced two cleaners leaving the Swiss Chalet back into the restaurant at gunpoint, then bound them with duct tape, robbed them, and kicked one cleaner in the head.Then they dragged out the restaurant safe, loaded it into the trunk of one of the cleaner's cars and headed out.That's when they hit the speed bump in the restaurant parking lot. Out tumbled the safe.What to do? They decided the safe would open if they drove over it with the car. They did. If didn't. The frustrated robbers tried again. And again. And again.Damage to the car was extensive but the safe was barely harmed.A half-hour later, one of the cleaners finally freed himself and called 911. When the police showed up, the men were still busy in the parking lot with the reluctant safe.Police dogs ran down two suspects aged 18 and 19, who face a variety of charges. Police are still looking for a 21-year-old male suspect.

This woman filed for bankruptcy. Unfortunately, she just happened to accidentally forget” about the $200,000 piece of real estate that she sold to her father for $1.00 the day before filing her Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition. When she got to the courthouse, she found herself being ripped apart by the federal trustee for bankruptcy fraud. So, believing that she just needed to“explain herself”to the judge, she decided to take the stand in her own defense.The line of questioning went as follows:Q: “Do you know that bankruptcy fraud is a felony?”A: “Yes I do.”Q: “Have you ever previously been convicted a felony?”A: “Yes I have.”Q: “How many times have you been convicted of a felony?”A: “I have been convicted three times.” She then stopped and pondered for about two seconds before continuing: “And this will be four!”Guess what? It was.

One night three boys, ages 12, 13 and 15, broke into the local elementary school. They caused over $50,000 worth of damage to the school, including broken windows and destroyed lockers. They broke into the school office and pulled all the school records out of the file drawers and ran them through the paper shredder. Determined to do as much damage as possible, they started piling trash in the middle of the floor, along with the contents of all the desk and file drawers.“When they got bored with trashing the place, they played with the copy machine, taking prints of their backsides and faces. Being the neat and tidy boys they were, they kept the copies they liked and threw the ones they didn't like into a nearby trash can. The sheriff looked in the trash cans the next morning and found perfect mug shots of each of the boys involved.”

In Forth Worth, about a week ago, a man tried to cash a check at a bank.He had stolen the check from his mother-in-law and then wrote in the amount.The teller immediately realized something was up, and contacted the police, who found the 21-year-old bank customer with a gun in his possession and some marijuana. Oh, the amount of the check? $360 billion dollars.

A man walked into a convenience store, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change.When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled-- leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars.

Two men ordered a couple of pizzas using their real names, phone number and home address. When the delivery man had trouble finding their house, he called and arranged to meet the two men nearby.“The delivery person got out carrying the pizzas and they put a gun to his face,” a police spokes person said. “So the delivery person threw the pizzas at them, got back in his car and drove off.”The delivery man drove back to the restaurant and called the police, who had no problem finding the correct house.

A man had a little too much time on his hands one day and decided to play with a set of handcuffs he had lying around the house. He put the handcuffs on and, lacking a key, couldn’t get them off. Did he call a locksmith? No. He called the police.The responding officers ran a routine computer check on the man and found an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to appear in court for driving on a suspended license. The man was taken into custody - wearing his own handcuffs.“We took them off like he asked,” said a police spokesman. “Only he was in jail at the time.”

A bungling bank robber, unhappy with his small haul, accidentally set himself on fire in front of stunned tellers and customers.The man walked into a Canada Trust branch in Burlington, Ontario, with a lit Molotov cocktail and demanded money. When the robber didn't get as much as he wanted, he grew agitated and began shaking the bottle and screaming. The makeshift bomb exploded, first setting his right hand on fire, then engulfing him in flames.