You'll Think Twice About Breaking The Law After Reading These 10 Creative Punishments
Everyone, justice has officially been served.
Diamond Gaston assaulted a fast food worker with pepper spray and was given a choice between 30 days in jail or being pepper sprayed by her victim right in the court room. After initially agreeing to jail time, she eventually opted for the pepper spray, but sadly, the spray was only water. However, the victim's face almost makes up for it.
Judge Paul Sacco, like most people, hates loud, obnoxious music. So, for any cases involving noise disturbances, he gathers offenders and has them listen to loud music of his choice for a very, very long time. His go-to's are either Barry Manilow or the Barney theme song.
Nathen Smith, a Salvation Army worker at the time, stole one of the signature red donation kettles, which contained around $250. The donations are used to help feed and provide shelter for the homeless, so the judge fittingly ordered Smith to spend a night homeless.
Bruce Crawford and his girlfriend, Grace Nash, took a rafting trip and hadn't yet registered their raft, nor did they wear life vests. When a park ranger saw the empty raft, he asked if it belonged to the couple. After denying it was theirs, the officer assumed the raft's owners were missing and proceeded to call in a sweeping search (including a helicopter) to look for them. In place of 60 days in jail, the couple ended up having to do 100 hours of community service and stand in a kiddie poo
Melissa Dawn Sweeney was convicted on two counts of animal cruelty when her horses were found neglected and malnourished behind her trailer home. For the first 3 days of her 30-day sentence, she was only allowed to eat bread and water. There were also poster-sized pictures of her horses plastered in the jail cell.
Shena Hardin was guilty of driving around a stopped school bus on a sidewalk numerous times, until the bus driver finally tipped off police. After they eventually caught her in the act, she was sentenced to hold this sign at the scene of the crime for 2 full work days.
Nicholas Dionisopoulos owns 41 properties in Cleveland, and all of them suck. He was accused of multiple code violations in dozens of the locations, and in some cases, residencies were certifiably unlivable. In addition to a $100,000 fine, he was obligated to turn over all rent to pay for repairs and was sentenced to live in one of the hell-holes for 6 six months.
After substantially slandering two politicians on Twitter, Frenchman Fluzin Baptiste was commanded to keep tweeting. Once deeming him guilty of defamation, the judge instructed Fluzin to tweet an apology 466 times over the course of 30 days. A fine equivalent to about $100 USD was also exacted for each tweet he failed to send.
After Jessica Lange and Brian Patrick admitted to defacing a baby Jesus statue at a church nativity scene, the judge got enlisted the help of a local petting zoo and had the two walk a donkey with a sign reading, "Sorry for the jackass offense" through town...for many hours. Absolutely genius.
Jason Householder and John Stockum were brought in for throwing beer bottles at a woman's car for reasons undisclosed. The judge graciously allowed them to get out of a 60-day jail sentence on one condition: the pair walk through town for an hour dressed in full-fledged drag garb. Wisely, they chose the latter.