<story><title>Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself</title><url>https://www.unionleader.com/news/courts/woman-accused-of-impersonating-prosecutor-dropping-criminal-charges-against-herself/article_1fdb1551-147d-53dd-ad45-6680bfc556fa.html?block_id=897573</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>taneq</author><text>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.</text></item><item><author>kbenson</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen reports that it&amp;#x27;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 &amp;quot;serve prison in lieu of me&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;say you were the one that committed the crime&amp;quot; version.  There are weird perverse incentives at play in some of the laws of criminal justice system in China.[2]&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=4339051&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=4339051&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=10173395&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=10173395&lt;/a&gt; (warning, the linked article describes very disturbing behavior and specific instances)</text></item><item><author>drpgq</author><text>Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.</text></item><item><author>doublekill</author><text>Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item><item><author>mshumi</author><text>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 (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alves_dos_Reis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alves_dos_Reis&lt;/a&gt;) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal&amp;#x27;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 Portugal and eliminated the paper trail.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dyingkneepad</author><text>&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;I just realized that in Oct 28th, 2020. Thanks for that.</text></comment>
<story><title>Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself</title><url>https://www.unionleader.com/news/courts/woman-accused-of-impersonating-prosecutor-dropping-criminal-charges-against-herself/article_1fdb1551-147d-53dd-ad45-6680bfc556fa.html?block_id=897573</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>taneq</author><text>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.</text></item><item><author>kbenson</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen reports that it&amp;#x27;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 &amp;quot;serve prison in lieu of me&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;say you were the one that committed the crime&amp;quot; version.  There are weird perverse incentives at play in some of the laws of criminal justice system in China.[2]&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=4339051&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=4339051&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=10173395&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=10173395&lt;/a&gt; (warning, the linked article describes very disturbing behavior and specific instances)</text></item><item><author>drpgq</author><text>Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.</text></item><item><author>doublekill</author><text>Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item><item><author>mshumi</author><text>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 (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alves_dos_Reis&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Alves_dos_Reis&lt;/a&gt;) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal&amp;#x27;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 Portugal and eliminated the paper trail.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>effingwewt</author><text>edit- after reading up on this, I&amp;#x27;m not sure where you got your information from but everything I could find shows it to just be the common detective&amp;#x2F;mystery trope.</text></comment>