Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Doofus Of The Day #659


Courtesy of Australian reader Snoggeramus, today's winner is from the same country.

A DRUG trafficker ... phoned police to rescue him from a luxury yacht he had stolen, a court has heard.

. . .

Mavropoulos's lawyer Peter Waye told the court that his client ... made a spur-of-the-moment decision to steal the yacht, which he was unable to drive. "It is amazing that he didn't become a drowned rat, sink the boat and sink himself," Mr Waye said.

Mr Waye said Mavropoulos had made no plans on what to do with the "massive cabin cruiser" and was "just sailing away from his troubles".

"He was just lucky he didn't bump into something or crash the boat and drown himself ...  just lucky he didn't steal a bulldozer, I guess. It could have been worse." he said.

There's more at the link.

That's a unique legal strategy in my experience - telling the court that sure, your client did it, but 'it could have been worse'!  Is that an attempt to obtain leniency?  If so, and if I were on the jury, I'd be thinking that if he got out sooner than absolutely necessary, it would be worse, so why not lock him up for as long as possible?

Peter

1 comment:

trailbee said...

Probably smoked his own stuff. He forgot there is as much tonnage under the water as there is above it, which results in bad decisions. :)