Lead Stories
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In September in Perth, Scotland, Edwin Young was ordered to pay Yvonne Rennie over $9,000 in damages for a 1998 traffic accident in which he crashed his car into hers while suffering an epileptic seizure. Part of the compensation was for Rennie’s minor injuries and subsequent “fear of driving,” but over $5,000 was awarded because of her mild post-traumatic stress–brought on, she claims, because Young’s seizure continued after he was removed from his car, and his contorted face made her fear he was dying of a heart attack.
In August in Inverness, Florida, 55-year-old school-board candidate Don Bates, one of the self-proclaimed “God guys” opposing the diversification of the board’s opening prayer, withdrew from the race after a local paper reported his 1994 arrest for indecent exposure in a mall parking lot: a young man he’d called over to his car found him naked from the waist down and masturbating. The day before the scandal broke, a letter Bates had written his supporters had also been made public–quoting scripture, he’d asked them to raise $5,000 for him (“Ye have not because ye ask not”).
Least Competent Criminals
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belshwender.
