Remember the guy who left his toddler in the car one night while he went into the Century 16 theater in South Salt Lake to watch "The Dark Knight"?

Remember how the cops stopped the movie and turned up the house lights, right near the end of the movie, and arrested him - as angry moviegoers threw popcorn tubs at him?

Remember how the guy became vilified from coast to coast?

Now we know that guy's fate.

David James Farnham, 23, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail, three years of probation and a $1,500 fine for a class A misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge - for leaving his 2-year-old son, Justin, in the car during the movie last July 20. Farnham also must continue mental health treatment, have no unsupervised contact with his son, and stay current on his child-support payments.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

A Utah County musician is facing four felony counts, after being arrested for allegedly stealing guitars from an Orem store.

As KSL reported on Christmas Eve, Drew Douglas Richmond was arrested Monday night after being caught by employees of the Best in Music store - and tossed to the ground and sat on by a store clerk, who then called 911.

Employees tell KSL they saw Richmond's M.O. on the store surveillance video. He would walk into the store carrying an empty guitar case, slip a guitar into the case, pretend to browse for a while, and then casually walk away. Store owners say he got away with five high-end guitars worth $16,000 - and would have had No. 6 if he hadn't been caught on Monday.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

The danger of becoming a world-famous treatment center for addiction is that your name pops up in all kinds of weird places.

This happened to Utah's Cirque Lodge - the rehab center that reportedly treated Lindsay Lohan, Eva Mendes and Kirsten Dunst - in a fraud case in Massachusetts.

According to this item from the Salem (Mass.) News, a Salem Superior Court judge has issued a warrant for Tyler Parrish, of Peabody, Mass., after he failed to show up Wednesday for his arraignment on charges of insurance fraud and forgery.

Somebody sent a letter to the attorney general saying Parrish was being treated at the Cirque Lodge. But the prosecutor smelled something was up - because the letterhead Parrish sent didn't match the Cirque Lodge's real letterhead, and it bore a postmark from St. Petersburg, Fla.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

Here's a tip for would-be celebrity criminals: Drug-sniffing dogs are not impressed by name-dropping.

That was the harsh lesson apparently learned by Christian Peppard, son of the late actor George Peppard ("The A-Team," "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), who was arrested Tuesday by the Utah Highway Patrol on suspicion of drug possession.

According to this account in The Salt Lake Tribune, Peppard was pulled over in his rental car along Interstate 80 in Salt Lake County. While Peppard told the officer who his famous father was - and that he was driving to Dearborn, Mich., to visit his father's grave - a police dog sniffed what turned out to be 38 pounds of marijuana in the trunk.

Peppard's female passenger also was booked into jail.

Christian Peppard's mother, by the way, is the actress Elizabeth Ashley.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

Dutch Elijah Whitlock has had a walk-on role in "High School Musical" and played one of two dorky knights in a Utah anti-smoking ad campaign.

His new role: Jail inmate.

Whitlock, 19, was sentenced to a year in jail - and more than $1,000 in fines and fees - for robbing a Holladay pizza parlor at gunpoint last May, the Salt Lake Tribune reported today. He's already served 117 days in jail, and the judge also gave him 3 years' probation and ordered him to get substance-abuse treatment.

According to charging documents, Whitlock brandished a revolver at the Five Buck Pizza and escaped with some cash. A Five Buck employee recognized Whitlock, who used to work there.

Whitlock had a lead role as Svarnik, one of the "Warriors Against Tobacco" in a now-defunct and really lame ad campaign. Here's a video of Svarnik (he's the blond one) and Byll, ironically, getting arrested.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

A lesson for anyone who might engage in illegal behavior: Anything you say on YouTube will be taken against you in the court of public opinion.

Take the case of David Farnham, Utah's "Dark Knight Dad," now facing a class A misdemeanor charge of child abuse for allegedly leaving his 2-year-old son in a hot car while he watched a Saturday late-night screening of "The Dark Knight" at South Salt Lake's Century 16 theaters.

Several blogs, as well as KSL, uncovered Farnham's handiwork on the video-sharing site - a rambling monologue in which he promises, among other things, "if there's anything I know, it's how to get attention." (There's also a brief glimpse of his 2-year-old son.)

Here's the clip:



Comments left by YouTube viewers are divided: Some want to see Farnham brutally assaulted in prison, while others just hate his guts.

Meanwhile, on Farnham's MySpace page, he wrote in February about leeching off of a neighbor's unsecured wireless network.

Tell me there's not a Kevin Smith movie in here somewhere.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

It didn't take long for the story of a Utah father, accused of leaving his two-year-old son in a locked car during a late-night screening of "The Dark Knight," to do laps around the blogosphere.

"Candidate for father of the year" is how AOL's ParentDish blog labeled 23-year-old David Farnham. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton ran Farnham's mug shot with the word "dumbass" scrawled above his face. KevINda, a Chicago sketch-comedy duo, satirically sympathized with Farnham: "I feel you, dude. You gotta do what you gotta do. Stupid toddler."

A media flogging may be a mild punishment compared to what might have happened. Farnham is lucky the audience at the Century 16 didn't pummel him when South Salt Lake cops took him out of the theater. Here's an account of the arrest, from KSL:

Farnham, who has no prior criminal history, missed the last 10 minutes of the movie, and there was a slight interruption for everyone else when officers turned up the lights and arrested him inside the theater.

Movie goer Katty Zlochevsky said, "About the last 10 minutes, all of a sudden the screen turned off and everyone freaked out."

"Two cops came up with what looked like two managers," she explained.

With the movie off and the lights on, the officers told the packed crowd they were looking for Farnham. Then they told the crowd why.

"In regards to the baby left in the car," Zlochevsky said. "Then everyone kind of gasped."

"We all looked to see where he was, and he stood up and went down the stairs. And then people kind of threw stuff and started booing, and no one knew what to do," she said.

Farnham was taken away, and the last 10 minutes of the movie continued.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

Furthering the argument that parenting, like driving a car, should require a licence (from a news item by the Tribune's Ana Breton):

A 23-year-old father was booked into jail under suspicion of second-degree child abuse after leaving his son in his car while he watched the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight."

David Farnham of Salt Lake City left his 2-year-old son inside his car in the parking lot of the Century 16 Theaters at 125 E. 3300 South on Saturday night. An onlooker walking by the car at 1:22 a.m. on Sunday saw the baby inside the vehicle crying and sweating profusely, said detective Gary Keller with the South Salt Lake City Police Department.

Farnham rolled the windows up in the car "so the child could not be taken out," according to a jail booking statement. The temperature inside the vehicle was 87 degrees, the statement added.

Farnham was located inside of the theater and the boy was taken out of the car. The boy was thirsty, but otherwise in good condition, Keller said.

The boy has since been released to his mother. Farnham was booked into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail where he is being held without bail.

The case has been turned over for screening at the District Attorney's Office.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division

Culture Vulture doesn't have a Stupid Criminals Division, but maybe I should start one.

Take as an example the case of Michael Birkeland, an actor and comedian who's appeared in several LDS-themed comedies ("The Singles Ward," "The Home Teachers," "Church Ball") and spent the weekend in jail - charged with felony theft.

According to this KSL report, police arrested Birkeland on Friday. He's accused of stealing a computer from a Utah Valley University art instructor, whose class Birkeland had visited shortly before the computer went missing April 3.

Here's the funny part of the KSL report:

Two days later, the victim logged onto Skype and, thanks to the built-in camera in his MacBook Pro computer, he could see exactly who was using his stolen computer over the Internet. The instructor contacted Birkeland online and also by phone, asking for the computer back, which is valued at $2,128. Court documents state that Birkeland then covered up the camera on the computer to conceal his identity. Instead of directly returning the computer, police say he dropped it off at the gift shop at Thanksgiving Point.

Birkeland posted bond Monday, and is scheduled to appear in court next Monday.

When I reviewed "The Home Teachers" in 2004, I was down on the movie but I complimented Birkeland's performance as "engaging" with "a goofy, Chris Farley-esque appeal." I wonder if that will work for him in a courtroom scene.

Labels: Stupid Criminals Division