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Take one look at the scratches on the upholstery and interior doors and it's very obvious that they weren't made by bear claws. They even say so in the TV news clip.
If they really were bear claws, they wouldn't be straight and clean looking. They'd be crooked and ragged and not so evenly spaced. Instead, they probably would have gone all the way through the fabric and into the padding below.
As one of the news people said, bears only have five claws and the fake scratches show six claw marks. Hmm... Maybe it was a new species of bear?
The first red flag to the insurance detectives should have been to wonder what the F anyone was doing with a Roller up in Lake Arrowhead. The only way to get there is on 30 miles of so of narrow, single lane road, full of steep gradients, hairpin bends, rock slides, and other hazards. Buying such a wide and heavy vehicle, noted more for its ability to take royals to ceremonial occasions than driving up mountains, would be like wearing a Versace gown to climb Everest.
Man dresses as bear and trashes Rolls-Royce in ‘insurance scam’
Four people arrested in California for insurance fraud after making claims worth £112,272 for bear damage to their cars
James Crisp
14 November 2024 12:23pm GMT
A suspected fraudster dressed up in a bear costume before damaging cars in an insurance scam in the US.
Four people in Southern California were arrested for insurance fraud after making claims worth £112,272 for bear damage on their cars, which included a Rolls-Royce.
After viewing videos of the so-called bear trashing several cars, California insurance department officials decided the guilty animal was a human being and not an ursine invader.
The Insurance Department said: “Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume.”
Investigators also showed the videos to a biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who “opined it was clearly a human in a bear suit”.
Video footage of the inside of the car showed grooves in the seats and interior that suggested claw marks.
Insurance companies had paid out the claim after being told the bear entered and damaged a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost on Jan 8 before the investigation began.
The car was parked at Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains about 60 miles north-east of Los Angeles.
The suspected fraudsters also submitted claims for damage to a 2015 Mercedes G63 AMG and a 2022 Mercedes E350, with videos of the so-called rampaging bear.
All three claims gave a matching location and the same “date of loss”. The accompanying footage suggests the allegedly staged bear attacks occurred outside the same property, on the same night, but at different times.
There are wild black bears, which – contrary to their name – can be brown in the San Bernardino Mountains, but grizzlies were hunted to extinction in the state of California in the 1920s.
Ruben Tamrazian, 26, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, all of Glendale, and Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, were arrested on charges of insurance fraud and conspiracy, NBC News reported.
A San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson said on Wednesday that charges were submitted against the four people and were under review.
Insurance Department detectives were assisted by the Glendale Police Department and the California Highway Patrol.
Dr Joe Gow, 63, claims the loss of his job at the University of Wisconsin-La Cross is a violation of his freedom of speech
Cameron Henderson. Tony Diver US Editor
Related Topics: Pornography
27 September 2024 7:34pm
A university professor has been sacked after making pornography with his wife.
Dr Joe Gow, 63, claims the loss of his job at the University of Wisconsin-La Cross is a violation of his freedom of speech.
The professor was forced to leave his post as university chancellor in December, after the institution discovered he had filmed vegan-themed pornographic videos with his wife, Carmen Wilson, and posted them online.
The former chancellor was placed on leave but continued collecting his salary as a tenured communications professor, despite posting the sex clips under the username Sexy Happy Couple.
A disciplinary panel has now unanimously voted to fire Dr Gow, arguing that his actions have damaged the university’s reputation. However, the professor has claimed that the decision breaches his constitutional right to free speech.
Mr Gow’s attorney Mark Leitner said: “We need the First Amendment precisely when the danger of stifling controversial, unpopular speech is at its highest. And that’s what we have here in this situation.”
Dr Gow and his wife have appeared in multiple publicly available pornographic videos, where they host adult film stars as guests and have sex afterwards.
The couple’s OnlyFans web page describes videos where “top adult video stars cook, converse and shoot sex scenes with a plant-powered couple”.
They have also published two books under the pseudonyms Geri and Jay Hart, titled Married with Benefits: Our Real-Life Adult Industry Adventures and Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship.
The university’s lawyers warned that Dr Gow’s continued employment could have a negative effect on the institution’s reputation, claiming he had used his teaching position as “marketing opportunity” to sell adult content.
“Dr Gow just doesn’t get it, or is unable to acknowledge that his conduct has been harmful to the UWL campus community and a distraction from its core mission,” said Wade Harrison, senior legal counsel for the university.
“Dr Gow has largely gotten what he wants through this process, a large media presence that continues and a great marketing opportunity for his cooking and adult content,” he added. “Enough is enough. Dr. Joe needs to go.”
In documents submitted prior to Friday’s hearing, lawyer’s argued that retaining Dr Gow on the faculty risked jeopardising the university’s finances.
“At least one donor has stated publicly that he would ‘kill’ a planned scholarship gift if Gow were not terminated,” the lawyers wrote, referring to a statement from Republican Senator Rob Hutton who put pressure on the university to fire him.
“Senator Hutton has made clear that he, a member of the legislature that provides some of the University’s funding, is opposed to Gow’s returning to teach.”
Dr Gow argued that his right to share his and his wife’s pornographic content with his wife is protected by the First Amendment.
Gow has previously maintained that he and his wife produced the pornographic content in their own time, and that neither the books nor the videos ever mentioned the university or his role as part of the faculty.
Speaking on Friday, he said he was initially drawn to Wisconsin-La Cross for its commitment to academic freedom, adding that he’s eager to return to the classroom.
“I genuinely love teaching, and I’m not ready to just retire and sit at home,” he told Wisconsin Public Radio.
He added that he’s not currently creating explicit content, but wouldn’t want to give up the right to in future.
“We certainly wouldn’t want to give up the right to be able to do that if we choose to,” he said. “We live in 2024. We have access to all kinds of material. It’s up to us to choose what we, as adults, what we want to access.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Faculty Defense Fund (FIRE), who have supported Dr Gow’s legal defence, said the decision to sack the professor over making adult videos is a “major blow to academic freedom and faculty free speech rights”.
“FIRE has said time and time again: public universities cannot sacrifice the First Amendment to protect their reputations,” the foundation’s legal defence counsel Zach Greenberg said. “We’re disappointed UW caved to donors and politicians by throwing a tenured professor under the bus.”
“You may not like Joe Gow or his videos, but the principles that protect him also protect countless dissidents, freethinkers, artists, and others who speak truth to power.”
A long time ago (in a galaxy far away) I was in charge of designing and building a municipal dog pound. There was a special paint to go on the floor and boy was that powerful stuff. I left a couple of guys painting the floor and went to do something else. Came back in an hour or so to see how the job was progressing and both of those guys were giggling. I told them to come outside and get some air. On his way out one of them said, "Gosh, Frank, I never knew working for the town could be so much fun."
Definitely a good thing that I came back when I did.
A friend of mine ran the swimming pool. He told me that he had a guy in spray painting the pool where he could see him from his office. Working in the deep end he got slower and slower with the sprayer until he was just standing there with the paint building up around his feet and the pool manager had to go in and drag him out. Again, a good thing that he was watching.
Stuff like that can be far more hazardous that you might think and everyone got away very lucky in both of those instances.
Two men arrested after $1.5 million of marijuana found in Pinon Hills during wildfire patrol
Two men were arrested after deputies found they were in possession of more than $1.5 million of marijuana while the deputies patrolled an evacuated area of Pinon Hills on Friday, Sept. 13, amid the Bridge fire, authorities said Sunday.
The men, from Pinon Hills and Bullhead City, Ariz., were arrested on charges of conspiracy, cultivation of marijuana and transportation and sales of marijuana.
Deputies conducting security patrols around 9:21 p.m. in the 1500 block of Hollister Road — a section of Pinon Hills evacuated due to the Bridge fire — conducted a traffic stop on a Chevrolet Suburban towing a trailer with flat tires and no tail lights, according to a news release from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
During the traffic stop, deputies asked about a “strong odor of cannabis” and found about 500 processed marijuana plants in the trailer of the vehicle, the sheriff’s department said.
One of the suspects drove a second vehicle behind the SUV to act as a lookout, the sheriff’s department said.
Investigators learned of another potential marijuana grow at a home in the 1700 block of Trinity Road and executed a search warrant.
During the search, investigators said they found 700 marijuana plants and 1,300 pounds of processed marijuana. In all, officials estimate they found about $1.5 million of marijuana.
Investigators ask anyone with information to contact detectives at 760-552-6800 or the anonymous We Tip hotline at 1-800-78-CRIME or wetip.com
If that house had gone up in the fire, the effects on the emergency responders fighting it would have been, shall we say, challenging...
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