Tourist fakes robbery, fined $100

The arrest of a suspect in the Cayo robberies will go a long way toward easing the fears of visitors to Belize who want to experience the wonders of the west. And while authorities are doing all they can to minimize crimes against tourists, occasionally a tourist is the one committing the crime. That's what happened on Sunday morning in Belize City. According to police, a tourist from California, twenty-four year old Camelia Patino, reported to police constable Rene Cu that while using a pay phone on North Front Street someone reached into her backpack and stole a camera worth five hundred dollars. We're not sure whether Cu had heard this story before or the young woman's actions made him suspicious ... but whatever the reason, the sceptical officer decided to take a look inside Patino's backpack. Lo and behold, when he opened the zipper there was the "stolen" camera. The woman was arrested on the spot and charged with "committing a mischievous act." Patino pled guilty, paid a hundred dollar fine and took off for parts unknown. Presumably she made the false report in order to file a bogus insurance claim upon her return to the U.S.A.

Dumb,da dumb,dumb........You can not fix stupid!!!!!!!!!

I don't think she's even made it to stupid. Some people....

Stoopid, with two "oo"s.

It just goes to show you what some people will do to avoid having an ordinary job. I will scratch that one off my list though.

I've long been petitioning the CA legislature to add 2 sections to our penal code:
Felony Stupid and Misdemeanor Stupid. Based on some of the stuff I've seen, this stunt only qualifies as a misdemeanor.

I don't think felony stupid is a survivable event, unless you intend to prosecute posthumously.

WHAT A NOVEL IDEA!!!!!

Some things are so stooooooopid that the statute of limitations should be boundless.

My thought has always been that there should be a "stupid jail"...you know for the losers who go into a convenience store, fill out a job application, and then rob the place, leaving the application (with all the right personal information) on the counter. Straight to stupid jail, no trial, nothing. There are only left shoes there, and pencils with erasers on both ends. Don't know when you will get out or IF you will get out. Save the taxpayers bundles!

I think they should have taken her to Hattiesville...wonder who would feed her?

Had to be from California, probably worked a hundred times there.

We are trendsetters!

Law, what would you give her? Probation, 3months county?

If it was a first offense, 18 months bench probation, conditioned on no additional offenses of any kind and payment of full restitution of the costs of the investigation/arrest; some type of community service and a fine. At least the community gets something back rather than paying for a cot and 3 squares and her watching color tv for 3 months. If she had priors, then it depends on her record. But what do I know, I'm a liberal who happens to believe all the statistics that demonstrate incarceration is not a deterrent.

Law, your cooler than i thought.

If I were charged with a petty crime, I'd like to work it out where you would be both my defensive and prosecuting attorneys, that way I could be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Thanks, Deacon, I think.
Dog, it would be my pleasure to defend, prosecute and persecute you - and not necessarily in that order. :p

Law, serious. I thought you to be harder. My bad.

depends on the crime and the criminal - no one thing is right in every situation. I don't think that's a unique approach, I think most prosecutors would agree.

She must have been shocked, in California you just phone those types of complaints in. Then they mail the report to you for insurance purposes. Maybe that's why she was on the pay phone. Perhaps Hattiesville for 10-12 hours would have been an eye-opener for her.

Law: your idea for punishment is right on. Hit em in the pocket, coupled with some really brutal community service grunt work. Digging ditches in a very muddy area, with the hot summer heat here in Sacramento comes to mind. After a full day of that, our Governator, Arnold, should make the perp carry his bar bell collection to his attic.

I have never practiced criminal law here in California, always civil ligitation, defense, specializing in insurance fraud claims for several years, I think this person was attempting to commit insurance fraud. In California, attempt to commit a felony is a felony.

Danza: you are right that you phone in a claim, but lots more to it than that. A Proof of Loss, documents, photos, receipts, must also be presented, along with a police report, which would sink the ship here. Also the insured may be subject to an EUO - Examination Under Oath. I spend hours to take an EUO and require every financial document under the sun to be produced, passport, banking docs, cell phone records.

Maybe, U.S. authorities never find out. This is a small potatoes act, but there are thousands more just like it. That is why insurance rates for honest folks are what they are.

I remember my friends spilled paint on part of their carpet in their bedroom. Somehow or other that parlayed into their insurance company completely recarpeting the whole house. I was a bit more than annoyed.

A few years later, I had someone break into my house and I caught him in there. Before the police got to him, he'd tried to launch himself through a window to escape. Of course, he cut himself in the process and managed to bleed on my brand new wall to wall carpet. I got most of it out with gentle applications of hydrogen peroxide but there was a remaining stain in the hall. The insurance company wouldn't even replace the carpet in the hall. I dunno, maybe my friends had better insurance.

Along with a fine, I always thought the reintroduction of chain gangs was an effective method for law breakers to serve a community service sentence.

Laurimar I was just upset in CA southern, Temecula to be exact. When my vehicle was broken into and ignition destroyed I couldn't even get the police to come out and take a report. They eventually did. Of course no question of fraud at all so none of the other stuff was demanded. Chain gangs do work I used to work with these types running fire crews. We can't call them chain gangs,only AZ,can do that.

Here is a little cut & paste of a email that I received that seems appropriate for this thread....Don't even know if it's true, but certaily something to think about....

Subject: Sheriff Joe RELECTED!

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO - HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.

THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona) who created the "tent city jail":

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights. Cut off all but "G" movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.

Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.

He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again
only let in the Disney channel and the weather channel.

When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.

He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value. When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back."

He bought Newt Gingrich' lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails.

When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

More on the Arizona Sheriff:

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000
inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their
government-issued pink boxer shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees
inside the week before.

Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.

"It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 ½ years. "It's inhumane."

Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so
shut your damned mouths!"

Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be
punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

That info is correct alright. Arpaio is a piece of work. He's cost Arizona taxpayers well over $20 million in lawsuits they have lost for conditions deemed inhumane and at times resulting in death: one suit for $8.25 million and one for $9 million, each in cases where inmates died at the hands of Arpaio's correctional officers, plus numerous other smaller verdicts. His jail is known as one where employees make "unprovoked, unnecessary and, consequently, unjustified and excessive" use of force.
His prison has twice been the subject of Federal Prison probes and found to be in violation of basic human rights, in some instances not even up to the standards set forth in the Geneva Convention.
The other thing a lot of people don't realize is that over 70 percent of those in the county jail are awaiting trial -- under the constitutionally guaranteed presumption of innocence. Jail is not prison, they are two different things. The only people serving time in a jail are those convicted of misdemeanors, which warrant a sentence of less than one year. Last time I checked, we don't impose the death penalty for being accused of a criminal act, or for committing a minor crime.

No wonder they all come to California now to committ their crimes. Talk about felony stupid, you would have to be to re-commit back in his jurisdiction. I would certainly want to check out the accomodations before I did a crime anywhere. Of course all the state prisons in california are in serious trouble with the Feds now as well. Housing, Medical Care, etc.

Lawcucui I must admit you're right on the difference between County Jail, and State Prison. You have to earn the graduation to the state prison system. And most would much rather be in state prison than county jail.

Thanks Law...when I got the email, I didn't know whether to believe it or not...nice to hear the whole story. Not such a simple answer when you look a little deeper. True of so many things.