It may be unethical, antisocial and a whole lot more, but you’ve got to give her credit for knowing how to pick a vulnerability in the system (they wouldn’t/couldn’t check the contents — ie, assumed it had to be drugs) and taking advantage. Just think of all the other ways you could get falsely arrested, then sue for big buck$!
Woman settles case over flour-filled condoms
A U.S. college student imprisoned for three weeks for trying to take flour-filled condoms onto an airplane has settled her lawsuit against Philadelphia for $180,000, a city spokesman said on Friday.
Janet Lee, 21, a student at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport in 2003 after police and security officials thought the flour was an illegal drug.
She was held in Philadelphia on drug-trafficking charges and released only when tests proved the substance in the three condoms was flour.
The condoms, which are sometimes used to smuggle drugs, were a joke among the students, and Lee was taking them home to Los Angeles.
Her civil rights case against Philadelphia, which had been set to go to trial on Thursday, was settled for $180,000, said Ted Qualli, spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor John Street.
What if some Narco didn’t like being mocked and planted some real coke in one or two? I’d say this girl is lucky.
OMFGROFLWTFBBQ!!!!
thats hillarious, this chick is my new hero (or heroine)
I think she just did it for the cavity search.
Ha, what a scumbag.
Dumb bitch. Cut her vagina out.
It took them 3 weeks to determine it was flour?
Stick it to the man, sister!
Next I hope this little bitch wave a fake gun at some police officers in L.A..
It’s always nice when the law-unto-themselves jackbooted thugs get something shoved up their Nazi asses for a change.
Where’s evidence suggesting she did it for the money?
What about the field tests that falsely indicated the flour was a mixture of several illegal drugs?
I miss my insecure homeland.
#10, agreed.
The settlement just kept 5 or 6 patrolmen off the streets for a year. A field test would have been so much better then automatic assumptions.
#12, and we miss you.
I’m guessing the headline was sarcastic, but some dipshits on this site are just jealous about the money… Weirdos. They fucked up the tests and throw her in the slammer? And you think she DOESN’T deserve the payola? 3,4,5,9. You guys would have had your asses ripped to shreds in the slammer, and you’d be begging for more. And then you’d sue.
That “joke” is what they mean by Sophomoric humor. But – three weeks to confirm her story that it was flour? #1 is right, she was lucky someone didn’t mix something illegal (from the storage room) into the flour just to avoid looking too stupid to do a field test.
I gotta say this item drew an interesting mix of intelligent comment and pointless hostility. What’s with the “bitch” this and “asses ripped” that? She’s a college kid, probably rich (Bryn Mawr after all), who did something stupid. Is it worth all the venom?
16. “She’s a college kid, probably rich (Bryn Mawr after all), who did something stupid. Is it worth all the venom?”
The fact that she’s a rich college student who did something stupid misses the point. The reason people are pissed is that she got paid a ton of money for doing something stupid.
For some reason most people don’t like the idea of rewarding stupidity.
I read the original article which explained the entire fiasco. First, she was waiting to board her plane when she was paged and told to report to security. Then she was then arrested and informed that a field test showed opium, cocaine and meth in the condoms. She explained what they were and told them it was only flour. They supposedly tested them again, and supposedly again found all three drugs. She was in jail for three weeks without bail before the full lab tests showed it to be flour. The flour filled condoms were supposedly just like those relaxation fist flexy things that many tech companies gave out during the 90s to hopefully combat carpal tunnel syndrome.
They can hold you for 72 hours, without any problem.
after THAT they have to file charges…
I takes 3 WEEKS??? to figure out it AINT anything bad??
She didnt even Swollow them…they were In her bag…
All the cops had to do was Taste it, or call in Narco..
About damn time.. I’ve been condoning this type of behavior for years..
When I was a young man, I once got falsely busted for shop lifting and this same thought occurred to me at the time — you could milk this system pretty easily.
I just let the issue drop but I felt like I could have sued — I was falsely detained and searched.
If you WANTED to sue, it seems like you could purposely get yourself busted and even roughed-up a little and easily get a few thousand out of it, to make the issue go away for the store.
GA,
Store detectives CANT hurt you…By LAW… but if you make a mis-step, thats your fault.
If you fight back, they CANT harm you…
#16, The fact that she’s a rich college student who did something stupid misses the point. The reason people are pissed is that she got paid a ton of money for doing something stupid.
Wrong. It isn’t that she did something stupid. It is the law enforcement that did something stupid. Her previous net worth is totally irrelevant. I would imagine that a good chunk of that money would be used to pay her lawyers anyway.
I really hate this euphemism but here goes,
When you ASSUME you make an ASS out of U and ME. The police assumed and assumed incorrectly. The fact that she was held for three weeks indicates she either wasn’t given bail or the bail was excessive to her net worth. In order to do that, the court had to have been told that tests showed she had cocaine and other drugs.
If people are pissed at her, their anger is misguided. They should be pissed at the stringent, unnecessary, cruel imprisonment given an American who we presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. This another case where the War on Drugs has collected another collateral damage hit.
23. “It is the law enforcement that did something stupid.”
What did they do that was stupid?! A person tried to board an airplane with condoms filed with powder. What possible reason could there be for that other than transporting drugs. I think the police’s assumption that drugs were involved was well founded.
“The police assumed and assumed incorrectly.”
They were incorrect, but once again their assumption was reasonable. No one expects the police to act perfectly. If they had to pay boatloads of money every time they made a reasonable mistake, we would no longer have any police.
#16 – Sorry it took so long to reply. But – actually, she didn’t get paid for doing something stupid, the city got penalized for letting its cops do something even more stupid. C’mon – three weeks to determine she told the truth about the flour? That award didn’t reward stupidity, it penalized it.
“C’mon – three weeks to determine she told the truth about the flour?”
Unfortunately I peripherally work in the criminal justice portion of our society, and I know that three weeks for lab work is not unusual nor negligent.
If you want the police to have instant lab results, expect to pay a LOT more money to taxes!
And, I’ll just point out again. If you want to avoid being arrested, don’t do things that look criminal in nature.
Isn’t it a bit odd that the field test found opium, cocaine, and meth? Did someone actually conduct a field test, or did the city find out that it was pure BS from the start, so they settled? If the field tests were legitimate probable cause, then why would the city settle?
It strikes me as highly probable that no field tests were actually done. They expected the condoms to be filled either opium, cocaine, or meth, so it’s not unlikely that they claimed it was all three to cover their bases when the full-up lab work was completed.
No one expects the police to act perfectly. If they had to pay boatloads of money every time they made a reasonable mistake, we would no longer have any police.
I believe the word is negligence. The police either didn’t do a field test, did it negligently, did it with an unclean instrument, or just lied about what they found. If it takes three weeks to do a proper lab test then the accused shouldn’t have to sit in a jail cell all that time.
You should know that she would have been either denied bail as a flight risk or the bail was set so high it was unreasonable for her to meet it. That in itself is wrong. If the person is innocent until proven guilty, then bail should be set only to compel attendance. Bail should not be a punishment or excessive.
If they discovered their error and released her within 24 hours then I agree the error was reasonable. How much would you value three weeks of your life spent in some jail a couple of thousand miles from home because some cop thought your talc was really heroin?
#5 jtoso >> Dumb bitch. Cut her vagina out.
Holy Smokes!
I think this has to be the most mysoganistic invective I can ever remember on this board!
#26, And, I’ll just point out again. If you want to avoid being arrested, don’t do things that look criminal in nature.
This has bothered me for awhile. The thinking behind it is just so wrong.
Yes one can make an argument that specific actions appear criminal, such as drinking apple juice from a beer bottle while driving past a cop. But that isn’t illegal and no one should be required to spend three weeks in jail because of it.
This same philosophy has given traction to the driving while black tactic of police harassment. It happens and is condoned simply because it is so hard to prove.
The concept that the cop is always right is wrong. Until the Rodney King incident, how many Americans believed that the police beat their prisoners. How many Americans believed that the police would even justify the beating as normal police procedure. Would you want your local police to use tactics like that?
If America is going to become a police state then incidents like Rodney King, Janet Lee, the student tasered in UCLA, the video recorder guy in Nashua New Hampshire, and the Professor from England that was arrested in Atlanta will become the norm. This is not the America that I think any of us want. The police are there to protect us, not for us to report to.
You Know i need money too, any advice?
Oh #5 baddddddd english dude even i know and it is my SL,bad bad boy! never say that to your mamma dummy,be good!