xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
xxxNEWS OF THE WEIRDxxx Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Michael Nelson opened a law firm in an Orlando, Fla., suburb recently (plush leased office space, a Mercedes company car, a letterhead listing law partners) and began soliciting business from drug convicts’ families, offering to negotiate reduced sentences for their kin. However, an investigation by WKMG-TV revealed in November not only that Nelson and his “partners” are not lawyers but also that Nelson “practices” only during the day because he returns to a halfway house every night to finish a five-year bank-fraud sentence. (The station also found that business was good, with “hundreds of thousands of dollars” “received or solicited.”) Amazed at the station’s findings, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons revoked Nelson’s halfway-house privilege and began its own investigation.
In July, to increase membership, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Cape Town, South Africa, voted 19-2 to become the Death Penalty Party of South Africa, with a special “lesbigay” subgroup.
In September, the Manitoba government announced it was ordering 40,000 condoms for prisoners in its 10 jails and specified that they be of “assorted flavors” of “strawberry, banana and vanilla” (though shortly afterward, it cut back on the number).
During filming in a remote area of Italy earlier this year for the controversial Mel Gibson film “The Passion of Christ,” the actor who portrays Jesus was struck during a lightning storm, according to an October report in the trade paper Variety. Also struck was assistant director Jan Michelini, who had been struck by lightning at a previous shoot for the film, in Matera, Italy. None of the strikes created a serious injury. The film’s portrayals of Christ and of Jews are expected to make it extremely controversial.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD