In March, a jury in Los Angeles listened to nine psychiatrists testify, along with other witnesses who openly described their sex lives, before finally deciding that neither party in the shrink-vs.-shrink contest was all that emotionally healthy. Dr. David Martorano had sued the UCLA psychiatry department, blaming a loss of promotion on a failed affair with his supervisor, Dr. Heather Krell, who denied the affair, especially Martorano’s claim of oral sex in a parked car. Krell’s witnesses “diagnosed” Martorano with narcissistic personality disorder and being “addicted” to having women fall in love with him. The jury concluded that Krell did have the affair, but did not sexually harass Martorano or sabotage his promotion.
GOVERNMENT IN ACTION
In February, when housing officials in Loebau, Germany, ran out of small apartments for low-income residents, they decided to put them in quarters that were larger than regulations allowed. However, the officials made the residents close off some rooms to stay within the allotted space and said inspectors would make regular visits to see that no one cheated.
WHAT A SHAME
Fire officials in Crystal River, Fla., stopped the planned performance in January of Jesse Aviles, “The Human Bomb,” who was set to lie face down across two bar stools at the Oar House Restaurant and Lounge and have himself blown across the room by explosives. According to Oar House, the performance was canceled for the lack of permits. City Manager Andrew Houston, asked by the St. Petersburg Times what kind of permits might be necessary for a person to be exploded from a barstool, said, “I have no earthly idea.”
BIG-TIME CRIME
Marshall Wolbers, 56, was arrested in Lake Bluff, Ill., in February after he had allegedly ripped off almost two dozen spas in the Chicago area over the last year by luxuriating in massage and pedicure services, etc., but skipping out on the bill. Said one specialist on nails, to an Associated Press reporter, “I just want to look at him [and say,] ‘You jerk, you didn’t even tip me. You made me rub your gross feet and listen to you for an hour and a half.’”
THINGS PEOPLE BELIEVE
Super-charismatic Stacy Finley, 34, pleaded guilty in January in Shreveport, La., to defrauding 22 middle-class victims by somehow convincing them to pay a total of $989,000 to have medical scans done of their bodies by overhead satellite and to be administered secret therapeutic drugs while they slept, by CIA agents who would sneak into their homes. And Sacramento, California veterinarian Bert Brooks told a KOVR-TV reporter in February that he had a record of curing pets by having them stare at a computer monitor showing psychedelic images. “I didn’t learn this in vet school,” he told the reporter, but “[t]here’s a lot going on in the universe that we don’t understand today.”
LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS
A 17-year-old was arrested in January in Sheboygan, Wis., and charged with stealing a snowmobile from the Sheboygan Yamaha lot. However, the next morning, even before the dealer realized the vehicle was missing, the boy had brought it in for service. MTW
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