It’s a two-for-Tuesday today at Totally Tortelicious. Some stories are really just too precious not to share—and this baby deserves her very own Tortelicious…
[Note, as you read on, I have another “two” for you—two words: Background Check. Just tuck those away for now…]
So here’s Rebecca Thybulle. She’s an HR Manager in Staten Island, NY—and she’s been a Payroll Manager according to several reports, as well as her LinkedIn profile. That’s right—a Payroll Manager—you know, one of those people who figures out who’s been working when and how much they should be getting paid every two weeks and all. She should know a thing or two about “paid time off“, right? (Not to mention that you’d hope she had a bit of integrity when it came to a company’s purse strings…but I’m ahead of myself.)
Well, she may know about it, but she apparently doesn’t feel the need to play by the paid-time-off rule book herself. First, her latest news…
It seems Rebecca wanted to take some time off from work. Several days’ worth. Clearly, no one would want to blow vacation days on that. And to feign illness and call in sick would only work for a day or two…hard to milk a week or so outta that one—and then you risk that whole short term disability thing, too. No that won’t work. So what else does a red-blooded American have in her paid-time-off (aka PTO) toolbelt to skip out of work for several days and still get paid for it? Hmm…
Well, there’s the death-in-the-family route, but that would probably risk a few do-gooders at work trying to offer their condolences and wondering where to send flowers… Nah…that won’t cut it.
Oh! There’s jury duty! Oh—but wait—you need one of those you’ve-been-summoned-to-jury-duty mailer thing-a-ma-jigs to submit to your HR department. That’s the usual policy at least. And, how fortuitous! How seemingly serendipitous! It appears that Rebecca—or at least someone in her household—had received a jury duty notice! Lucky, lucky Rebecca!
Only thing was, it was apparently for her dad.
No biggie. She allegedly just forged the notice to say it was hers, handed it in at work, and…voila!…she’s a free bird!
But, foolish, foolish Rebecca did not cover her tracks. She—one hopes in her haste vs her stupidity—left the original jury duty notice—the undoctored one—on her desk! Bad move Rebecca! Bad move!
It gets better: she decided to share her jailbreak news on Facebook—and told her best buds that she was “Bmore bound!” and en route to see a Kevin Hart show.
Long story short, she got nabbed bigtime…held in lieu of $25,000 bond and is now facing potentially up to 14 years in prison. Ouch!
Ok, but remember when I said to tuck those two words—background check—away? Well, here’s where they come into play. See, Rebecca is apparently not a “first time offender” as they say. Here’s her recent rap sheet. She is due for sentencing this month on a grand larceny charge. What did she do? Theft of about $6,400 from Coffee Shop (the Union Square eatery) where she had worked as a Payroll Manager.
Huh? And…
Ms. Thybulle was also previously convicted in 2002 for embezzling about $28,000 from an elderly home in Poughkeepsie, NY where she had worked…in charge of payroll.
Ok—I can’t condone what Rebecca has done. Worse, she clearly sucks at it—she’s three for three on getting caught—not on getting away—and let’s just say that when performance review time comes around, well, Rebecca will be getting a “Needs Improvement” on a couple of things. Seriously, if Rebecca were part of the animal kingdom, predators wouldn’t have to work too hard—it’d be like, “oh look, yep, there’s Rebecca’s paw prints—she went thataway”.
But where the hell are the hiring managers who put her on payroll—and put her IN CHARGE of it—to begin with? Have they not heard of doing background checks? And heck, we’ve established that Rebecca’s not that good at covering her tracks so how hard could it be to uncover her rap sheet?
And people wonder why we have things like elder abuse, consumer fraud, malpractice…and on and on…
Life imitating art—or art imitating life? Or is it something a little more sinister. Clearly these guys haven’t mastered that fine line between fantasy and reality… At least two men staged a rather dramatic robbery of a Maryland video-game store during the weekend. The haul? More than 100 copies of a highly valued video game that hasn’t yet hit the market, according to local police.
The men entered the GameStop video store in the Festival at Bel Air shopping center just as it was closing (note to self—don’t go renting games and videos at the end of the day). The dudes in black were armed with semiautomatic weapons. They stole four cases of “Black Ops,” the newest game in the “Call of Duty” series, along with cash and other games.
According to the Harford County Sherriff’s office, this is the second armed robbery of a Harford County GameStop within three weeks, and it’s possible the same bad guys are responsible for the initial robbery on October 21 at GameStop’s Aberdeen location.
In addition to the staff, two would-be customers also experienced the first-hand adrenalin rush of being held at gunpoint— as they had the misfortune to come into the store as it was being robbed. They were escorted into a storage area. No one was hurt.
The game, which is due for release today (yes, TODAY!), October 9, is rated “mature” for intense violence, strong language and “blood and gore.” I wonder how far these guys were prepared to go with their own black-ops?
Well, he didn’t walk the line, but maybe he crossed it a bit… but I think he gets straight A’s for having his sense of humor and creativity. A teen from Nebraska was arrested for DWI on Halloween—while dressed as a Breathalyzer—that’s him over there at the right. That in itself indicates some skill with duct tape…which I also think is worthy of mention.
Demonstrating his creative flare, Matthew Nieveen’s costume consisted of a box-like plastic sack that read “6.0 Blood Alcohol Level.” And, if anyone wanted to test their own limits, he had included a nozzle strategically placed in a ‘sensitive area’ which read “Blow Here.”
I bet Matthew could sell a few of those costumes…
Time to bug outta here? As for this dear old boy—he didn’t actually get himself arrested, but I think he likely came pretty close. A team of emergency responders was called out to a senior citizens’ high-rise residence in response to reports of intense fumes coming from a second-floor room. Just to be clear, we’re talking about firefighters and hazardous materials specialists—you know—guys in white paper suits and plastic helmet hats that are way out of proportion to the rest of the outfit…anyway…
The emergency crews arrived and were so bowled over by the intensity of the fumes that they evacuated the entire second floor—late in the evening. Always fun, those late night fire alarms. Once the fuss had died down and people were outside shivering in their PJs, the firefighters located the source of the problem—which was—insect foggers. A resident had decided to take pest control into his own hands and set off several of the devices in his apartment. This in turn caused the smoke alarms to go off. Oh—I’m betting that this little caper cost him his bridge partners at a minimum. And what’s the betting the bugs survived. Maybe the video game store should have some of these devices on hand…
Sweetie, can you even spell N-E-G-L-I-G-E-N-C-E? This is one of those ‘the truth is stranger than fiction’ moments. A six-year old girl can be sued, a New York Supreme Court justice has ruled, for her actions when she was four—yes, four years of age—which involved running her training bicycle into an elderly woman. The incident resulted in 87-year Claire Menagh falling, breaking her hip and subsequently undergoing hip surgery. However she died three months later (not related to the bike accident).
So, who’s to blame? Well according to Justice Paul Wooten, then four-year old Juliet Breitman could be, and the courts should decide. The ruling by Justice Wooten also clears the decks for Juliet’s partner in crime, Jacob Kohn, who was also 4 years of age at the time, to face a similar lawsuit, as both of them allegedly struck the woman.
Juliet’s mother was present and reportedly supervising the children at the time of the incident, and based on that fact and Juliet’s tender age, the lawyer representing the child argued, unsuccessfully, that that the case against his client should be dismissed. (Can a five-year old legally retain a lawyer? She’s not even old enough to vote or drive…)
Justice Wooten’s ruling, made public last Thursday, reportedly ruled Juliet is old enough to be sued and the case can proceed. “For infants above the age of four there is no bright-line rule,” he wrote, adding that the girl had been three months from turning five.
“A parent’s presence alone does not give a reasonable child carte blanche to engage in risky behavior such as running across a street,” Wooten wrote. He added that “the term ‘supervising’ is too vague to hold meaning here.” Those seem like reasonable statements to me.
In his concluding remarks Justice Wooten wrote that there was no indication or evidence that Read the rest of this entry »
Some like it hot—and others—well…How hot is hot? A couple in Tennessee are so heated up about an incident that landed their son in hospital that they’ve filed a lawsuit.
In October 2009 the Ganns went to a Steak ‘n Shake restaurant with their son—a minor—who ordered chili—which tends to be hot. But maybe not hot enough. So, the boy was also given hot sauce to liven up the chili—just in case. Problem was that the sauce the boy was given wasn’t the ‘usual’ sauce the boy was given—if you know what I mean.
Sadly, this stuff had a little too much kick and the boy ended up in the hospital—he had difficulty breathing and suffered hives, severe pain and inflammation of his digestive system. Yikes!
The Ganns claims that the employee who served them failed to warn them about how hot the hot sauce was. But the name of the sauce should have been a bit of a giveaway—it was “Blair’s Mega Death Sauce.” Hello! I think given that name the boy was lucky to have escaped with his life.
By the way, if you’re trying to gauge just how hot Blair’s is, one vendor states Blair’s should not be used undiluted given it packs a punch “500 times greater” than your average jalapeno.
Ahh…long live pizza margherita…
Duck, Duck, Gooses? And this is a little worrying, on several levels. A young mother from Pennsylvania who took her children to Disney World in Orlando, Fl, is suing Disney over Donald Duck’s interpretation of “Hello”.
She took her kids to Disney World, as millions of parents do every year, for a chance to have some good clean fun. As I understand it, never having set foot in the place myself, that typically involves close encounters of the fluffy kind—you know— warm fuzzy welcomes from larger- Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to Totally Tortelicious—a review of some of the more bizarre legal stories making news—and there’s certainly no shortage of them.
Talk about getting some booty. A man in Florida who alleges he was injured at a strip club in West Palm Beach when an exotic dancer kicked him in the face, has been awarded a $650,000 settlement.
Michael Ireland received the out-of-court settlement after claiming he suffered a punctured eye socket, broken facial bones and permanent double vision as a result of getting booted in the face by a dancer named “Suki.”
Suki’s side of the story, however, is slightly different. Cheetah (yes—that’s the name of the establishment) boss Rod Kimbrough, said last year that the dancer in question is a “very nice, young small girl” who only kicked Ireland because she had been smacked first. This according to MyFoxOrlando.com. (btw, you can see earlier news coverage of the mess here on this video…)
“A patron violently slapped the young woman on her buttocks and she was walking around the top of the bar and I guess out of a natural response she turned around and kicked him,” Kimbrough said.
As kicking patrons, to my limited knowledge I will emphasize here, is likely not considered the best way to entice customers into spending their money, I think something likely happened to prompt that action. Perhaps it was all in a night’s work?
Wheee! Let’s Ride the [Baggage] Carousel! Many’s the time I’ve thought of doing this—not for the fun of it—but to try and expedite reunion with my luggage. Good thing I never actually tried it—riding on an airport luggage carousel or conveyor belt, that is.
However, 40-year old Bradley Ray Bromelow did not, apparently, give the idea a second Read the rest of this entry »