Live data from Hacker News

Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

unionleader.com

181–190 of 336 posts

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#181
post #177
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta try that in my next interview.... For those of you who missed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Salesman

The Kobayashi Maru is actually from Star Trek. Original context: The Kobayashi Maru refers to a no-win scenario given to the command-track students of Starfleet Academy. They aren't told it's a no-win situation, the goal is to make sure they can keep calm and see how they cope with the situation. In the scenario, they're in command of a starship and have to rescue another ship, named the Kobayashi Maru, but in doing…

In that episode of The Office, Clark uses that Star Trek reference and his superior knowledge of the position he's applying to to get the job instead of Dwight's friends. I'm aware that it's from Star Trek (that's also mentioned in the episode), but I appreciate your detailed explanation!

Kobayashi Maru + the word "interview" makes it a double reference :)

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#182
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped. Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect or assume a switch had happened.

Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.

Per a friend still happening in India and affordable to a surprising percentage of the population

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#183
post #159
post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Here in Germany we had a few cases where persons worked as hospital doctors for a few years without a license or diploma or even any medical training. They usually submitted a fake license to the hospital. There was a spectacular case in the 1990s where a former postal employee named himself "Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy" and later worked as a senior physician in a psychiatric hospital, also giving lectures […

Failure to verify such documents is totally on hospitals.

We've recently had a similar case here in Lithuania, where doctor claimed to studied something in US. When they've called the university, they've said they don't even have such programme.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#184
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.

I've seen reports that it's somewhat common for the rich in China[1], so there might be some info on what it costs there, and maybe some extrapolation could be made. Either the "serve prison in lieu of me" or "say you were the one that committed the crime" version. There are weird perverse incentives at play in some of the laws of criminal justice system in China.[2] 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339051 2:…

This reminds me of the classic phrase, “the butler did it”. It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#185
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surprising when people casually admit to dishonest behaviour as if it's no big deal.

Maybe it’s not a big deal, unless you value honesty above all else. I am not always honest, especially when it’s obvious to me that the other party will only use my goodwill to their advantage. In the case of the parent, I can imagine many scenarios where it is difficult or untimely to get supervisor approval, but failure or delay in doing so results in the employee catching all the heat for it.

There’s a long history of accident, negligence, and criminal reports from various industries that have, somewhere in their narrative, some version of ‘X and Y worked the night shift and while the documented procedure mandated that whenever they did A they must also do B, they had gotten into the habit of doing C instead’.

Not actually counting all the bolts after replacing the window on the plane; not checking in with the supervisor before administering that drug; not double checking that the name on the ID matches the name on the passenger list...

And signing something off with someone else’s supervisor code goes well beyond cutting corners on a process, though - that’s falsifying records. At that point you’re subverting the process.

Sure, some approval processes are BS, but... generally, any time you’re in a role where you need a supervisor to sign off on stuff, you do not know enough about what matters to your business to tell the difference between BS and critical safety or security guarantees.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#186
post #159
post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Here in Germany we had a few cases where persons worked as hospital doctors for a few years without a license or diploma or even any medical training. They usually submitted a fake license to the hospital. There was a spectacular case in the 1990s where a former postal employee named himself "Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy" and later worked as a senior physician in a psychiatric hospital, also giving lectures […

There's also the saga of Malachi Love-Robinson: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Dr._Malachi_Lo...

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#187
post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Part of my practice is financial fraud investigation.

>One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered.

A lot. More than you'd expect. And by people and organizations you wouldn't expect.

However, most people are objectively terrible at performing fraud. The things that ultimately lead to people being caught are so simple.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#188
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen reports that it's somewhat common for the rich in China[1], so there might be some info on what it costs there, and maybe some extrapolation could be made. Either the "serve prison in lieu of me" or "say you were the one that committed the crime" version. There are weird perverse incentives at play in some of the laws of criminal justice system in China.[2] 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339051 2:…

This reminds me of the classic phrase, “the butler did it”. It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family.

> It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family.

I just realized that in Oct 28th, 2020. Thanks for that.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#189
post #159
post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Here in Germany we had a few cases where persons worked as hospital doctors for a few years without a license or diploma or even any medical training. They usually submitted a fake license to the hospital. There was a spectacular case in the 1990s where a former postal employee named himself "Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy" and later worked as a senior physician in a psychiatric hospital, also giving lectures […

*People

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#190
post #174

I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. There was a story in WSJ like last week about how the Japanese red stamp / seal still survives and is a barrier to them adopting new technology for practical every day speeding up of tasks. And keeps things like faxes around unnece…

> I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. I used to work as a criminal defense attorney, and the job regularly required that I obtain subpoenas from the court in order to mandate a witness's appearance at court. My state courts have a template that subpoenas must follow,…

> I don't think there's a ton of value someone could get out of obtaining a fake subpoena (other than perhaps issuing your own self a subpoena as an excuse to get out of work, or maybe just to screw with someone)

That would make a great plot for George on Seinfeld.

Post reply on HN