My Cousin - a Criminal - is this fair_____?

[Half Smoke]

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my Cousin, who was a high level professional in the public eye, committed a crime

it wasn't a violent crime but it was pretty bad - I don't want to go into details

he was convicted and served his sentence

but now, every time his name is googled 3 or 4 stories come up about him and his crime

is this fair__________?

he's already been punished

30 years ago he would have had a chance to move on from this - to regain anonymity and resume his life

now, because of tech, additional humiliation is being heaped on him

I don't think it's fair - I know I can't change it

I know that some will say that the scumbag deserves this

I was friendly, but not very close to him - now I feel sympathy for him


would like to hear opinions about this


it just occurred to me that some might think that I am saying this is my Cousin, but that it's really me

I can assure you - this is not about me


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[Half Smoke]

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too late to edit

I have never committed a crime in my entire life

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[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by Half Smoke

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too late to edit

I have never committed a crime in my entire life

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Unless Half Smoke is your legal name, I wouldn't worry too much

[Tom]

Of courde it's fair.It's the public record.

[Bustin Stones]

I understand you can change your name after 10 years.

[thaskalos]

The criminal serves only the time that the judicial system decides he/she should serve. The victims of this crime may feel that a further penalty should be paid by the offender. If it's a serious crime...then I think it's fair that it shows up whenever the offender's name is googled. Our past should follow us.

[Inner Dirt]

To me it depends on what he did. To me there are some crimes that make a person lifetime shit, and no amount of time served and remorse whether genuine or not redeems you. That is just me. Such crimes are in the category of a man putting his hands on a female, child and elder abuse.


I have a few sordid individuals in my past that turned up when Googling people's names during bouts of insomnia. I found two people on the sex offender registry, one was my best friend in High School that I last had contact when he was in his early 30's. He ended up a vagrant in possession of child porn. A co-worker told me about another co-worker who fled the country over 30 years ago, indecency with someone under 14, that was odd.
I shared an office with the guy for 3 years all the women he made comments about were all in their 30's, no idea he liked kids. The funniest one was a guy who I got in a fight with before I attended my first class at a new Junior High. He was caught with a storage unit full of used golf balls. He was doing after hours diving in golf course ponds. He had a one of a kind last name, it had to be him.


So if your guy was stealing golf balls and he did his time, I will give him a clean slate, if he was playing grab ass with 13 year old girls while in his 40's no forgiveness.

[Tor Ekman]

Reminds me of this joke:

A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland, and he stops at a pub to get a drink. The only people in the pub are the bartender and an old man nursing a beer. The tourist orders a pint, and they sit in silence for a while.

Suddenly the old man turns to him and says: "You see this bar? I built this bar with my bare hands from the finest wood in the county. Gave it more love and care than my own child. But do they call me MacGregor the bar builder? No."

Then the old man points out the window and says: "You see that stone wall out there? I built that stone wall with my bare hands. Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold. But do they call me MacGregor the stone wall builder? No."

Points out the window. "You see that pier on the lake out there? I built that pier with my bare hands. Drove the pilings against the tide of the sand, plank by plank. But do they call me MacGregor the pier builder? No. . . . But you fuck one goat ... "

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by Half Smoke

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too late to edit

I have never committed a crime in my entire life

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I did a few, but I was smart enough not to get caught. The most common one was reckless driving. For the record most of the time I was only risking my own ass. I used to have my own road course on a lightly traveled road, just me and my Chevelle 454 SS and a stop watch. Once I had a CHP far behind turn his light on. Funny thing I was just making a slow run checking the track for debris. A couple taps of the whip and I was long gone. That was late 70's CHP cars were slow dogs. That coming from my CHP dad who I asked about the top speed of all the models they used. Some of them would not even get to 120 mph, I could damn near do that in 2nd gear. I had my car set-up for top end.


Probably the worst crime I would have done time for was administering some vigilante justice on a guy who raped my girlfriend's best friend who was a virgin at the time. I just used my fists mostly but damn near killed the guy.

His friends turned on him when they found out what he did. I probably should have brought my boxing gloves, my hands were sore for a while. I got some feedback, he ended up spending a week or so in the hospital. He had one of those Trans Ams with the bird on the hood. The bird ended up dented and bloody, I used his face for that.

[proximity]

life is not fair half smoke, but you already know that.

i do know a person like this, a friend of a friend really.

he's served his time but his very lucrative original career was ruined and he had to start over. he did seem to be having some success as he even found a new relationship and was working on his fitness and building a new life and didn't seem too bitter but my friend says now his life has hit another downswing and the bitterness over his circumstances is starting to bubble.

i do wish the guy well because i've seen him do good when it didn't really benefit him so i know like most of us he's not completely bad. probably though people do have the right to know about the past. jmo.

[Bustin Stones]

Like everything else, it varies and depends a lot on the individual. I roomed with a guy at OSU who was eventually convicted of growing and distributing major quantities of weed. He came out after serving and became one of those on site tv reporters for a local station.

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by Bustin Stones

Like everything else, it varies and depends a lot on the individual. I roomed with a guy at OSU who was eventually convicted of growing and distributing major quantities of weed. He came out after serving and became one of those on site tv reporters for a local station.

I always thought if alcohol is legal so should weed. That opinion of mine has never changed. No problem with your roommate. Is that OSU as in Ohio State? If so were you there when Woody Hayes was? He got canned the year I graduated from High School.

[Bustin Stones]

Ohio State and I started in '67 thru '72. Woody was there for the whole thing. My roommate had a tackle box that looked like a pharmacy, but I never saw money change hands in or near the house. We had another guy who dropped out and was making a living hustling pool (he later graduated and became a successful restauranteur). And another guy who worked his way through college being a part time job lotter, I think they call it. He'd buy end of run or end of season women's apparel and drive them in his trunk somewhere to a retailer and earn a markup. He was making more than his dad. Today, he's a successful attorney.
I was just happy to stay out of the dorms.

[Inner Dirt]

Originally Posted by Bustin Stones

Ohio State and I started in '67 thru '72. Woody was there for the whole thing. My roommate had a tackle box that looked like a pharmacy, but I never saw money change hands in or near the house. We had another guy who dropped out and was making a living hustling pool (he later graduated and became a successful restauranteur). And another guy who worked his way through college being a part time job lotter, I think they call it. He'd buy end of run or end of season women's apparel and drive them in his trunk somewhere to a retailer and earn a markup. He was making more than his dad. Today, he's a successful attorney.
I was just happy to stay out of the dorms.

The QB at from my High School is also a successful attorney, he graduated from Stanford, he is a grade A ambulance chaser if there ever was one. He chose not to enter the family deli food business. Their products are in grocery stores across the USA. His family bought him the QB job, 3 year starter and I don't think he ever cracked 100 yards passing. We did have all the latest and greatest equipment, no 20 year old two bar suspension helmets for us, we had every face mask style under the sun and water helmets, in the 70's.
Our practice jerseys were in better shape than other schools game jerseys.
We even had game helmets. The trade off was never getting past the 3rd round of the play-offs. If I was an o-lineman I would have been tempted to whiff blocks to get the back up in there.



What was Woody's reputation outside the football field? Some of those coaches act like a person does not exist unless they are involved with the football team.

[Bustin Stones]

With 40,000 students on campus I had one lecture with a football player, total. He never showed up except to take the tests. I knew nothing of Woody. There weren't any basketball or football players that I knew of in the engineering programs. I was always more of a basketball junkie anyway.
The flavor of the off campus scene at that time were the vanilla students from off campus and dorms, the Greeks who kept to themselves and the townies who were young people of Columbus that enjoyed hanging around campus.
At that time, Columbus had no major league franchises. So, football Saturday was the thing for everybody around Columbus. If you didn't have a student ticket to the game, you needed serious money to get a ticket. A lot of students bought a season pass just to resell it.