Beer Run Gone Bad

[Aaviationist]

1 minute ago, Andy95W said:

I nominate you for the King of Irony.

That’s not what irony is….

[M20F]

17 minutes ago, Aaviationist said:

Your problem is in your response. 

ChatGPT is a powerful tool, you should learn how to leverage it. 

[midlifeflyer]

3 minutes ago, M20F said:

ChatGPT is a powerful tool, you should learn how to leverage it. 

Agreed. All the AI searches are very good so long as we understand they are mostly Cliff Notes whose author may not have read the whole book, and may have been looking at someone else's Cliff Notes as a source.  

[M20F]

Just now, midlifeflyer said:

Agreed. All the AI searches are very good so long as we understand they are mostly Cliff Notes whose author may not have read the whole book, and may have been looking at someone else's Cliff Notes as a source.  

This is true in a lot of reference books as well.  It’s a good tool.  In the example we are discussing here it read court transcripts, newspapers, etc.  It couldn’t determine the facts and was clear about it, I couldn’t draw conclusions from the feedback it presented either. 
 
Caveat emptor applies just as much now as it did two thousand years ago.  AI though is a wildly powerful tool and we use it for analytics heavily in my field these days, its ability to sift data and give guidance is nothing short of magical.  

[M20F]

28 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

Does this help clear up the overall situation?

As the troopers watched, two women—Helen Nicholia and Irene Todd—drove up to Jouppi's airplane. Jouppi was scheduled to fly Nicholia to Beaver, a local option village.

Nicholia and Todd's vehicle contained several boxes and semi-transparent grocery bags.

Seems to me Helene and Irene are the perpetrators here and yet received no charges.  
 
So no it doesn’t really clear it up. 

[midlifeflyer]

d.

 

1 minute ago, M20F said:

Seems to me Helene and Irene are the perpetrators here and yet received no charges.  
 
So no it doesn’t really clear it up. 

I guess I don't understand your question. 

[Andy95W]

38 minutes ago, Aaviationist said:

That’s not what irony is….

“a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.”

Your not understanding proves the point.

[M20F]

32 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

d.

 

I guess I don't understand your question. 

The pilot didn’t but the beer, never flew to the dry city, etc.  I wasn’t asking a question I was making the point it seems fishy.  The two individuals who apparently purchased the beer, had apparently intent to bring it to the dry town, etc. received no charges. 
 
 

[midlifeflyer]

5 minutes ago, M20F said:

The pilot didn’t but the beer, never flew to the dry city, etc.  I wasn’t asking a question I was making the point it seems fishy.  The two individuals who apparently purchased the beer, had apparently intent to bring it to the dry town, etc. received no charges. 
 
 

Oh, that.  Helen was charged and pleaded guilty. As indicated the the quote I pasted, Helen was the only one going to Beaver. She was the only passenger. After loading and before the search, Irene drove away. 

Speculation: Could they have charged Irene with something? Probably, but  police and prosecutor decided not to. Maybe they felt the evidence against her would be too weak or just too much bother. Sign of something fishy? Maybe. But it sounds normal to my ear.

[M20F]

9 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

Speculation: Could they have charged Irene with something? Probably, but  police and prosecutor decided not to. Maybe they felt the evidence against her would be too weak or just too much bother. Sign of something fishy? Maybe. But it sounds normal to my ear.

Seems to me there is a much stronger case to take Irene’s car than the airplane.  At minimum why not take both.  I will stand by there is something more to the story than the internet provides, my tinfoil hat never fails me. 

[midlifeflyer]

15 minutes ago, M20F said:

Seems to me there is a much stronger case to take Irene’s car than the airplane.  At minimum why not take both.  I will stand by there is something more to the story than the internet provides, my tinfoil hat never fails me. 

Definitely more than the Internet provides. After all, you said you found nothing with ChatGPT.  Irene as informant? Sure, a possibility. But it doesn't make my spidey sense tingle Maybe I've been out of the criminal law biz too many years?

Edited Sunday at 06:03 PM by midlifeflyer

[MikeOH]

14 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

Definitely more than the Internet provides. After all, you said you found nothing with ChatGPT.  Irene as informant? Sure, a possibility. But it doesn't make my spidey sense tingle Maybe I've been out of the criminal law biz too many years?

I think what bothers me about this case, beyond the egregious forfeiture, is the conviction based the pilot's 'knowledge' of the six-pack, which was based on him seeing through a plastic bag. Yes, I understand the jury 'fact found' that he did, but it seems 'fishy' as @M20F said.

To me the key bit of information that you provided is, "The troopers were there to execute a search warrant for the airplane (a warrant that had been issued in connection with another investigation)."

My 'spidey sense' is they were after him for something bigger and settled for 'getting' him on a lousy six-pack!  They searched based on their warrant and that was all they could find!

[midlifeflyer]

6 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

I think what bothers me about this case, beyond the egregious forfeiture, is the conviction based the pilot's 'knowledge' of the six-pack, which was based on him seeing through a plastic bag. Yes, I understand the jury 'fact found' that he did, but it seems 'fishy' as @M20F said.

To me the key bit of information that you provided is, "The troopers were there to execute a search warrant for the airplane (a warrant that had been issued in connection with another investigation)."

My 'spidey sense' is they were after him for something bigger and settled for 'getting' him on a lousy six-pack!  They searched based on their warrant and that was all they could find!

I kind of suspect that too. They were obviously looking for something since there was an existing search warrant. Reading further into the case sort of leads me in a different direction altogether. I hope they take it - it's an important issue - but can just about see SCOTUS refusing the case for 'fishy.' We have a pilot who apparently has been the subject of surveillance at the airport for something unspecified. Even without more it makes the case less sympathetic. 

But, having been in that world, I don't have a problem with a jury finding that the pilot saw the same six pack the trooper says he saw through the window. Either way, that's what trials are about and unless you are there and hear the testimony live (even transcripts are a poor substitute) , you don't have the ability to judge the believability of the witnesses.  There was a case a long time ago that led me to avoid second-guessing the factual strength of cases I am not directly involved with. 

 

[cliffy]

Maybe he was being watched for previous beer runs?  That wouldn't surprise me.  I used to live next to the Navajo Nation and the road going in was paved with broken beer and whiskey bottles thrown out of the cars just before turning in. 

Where's Smokey and Bandit when you need them? :-)

[midlifeflyer]

6 hours ago, cliffy said:

Maybe he was being watched for previous beer runs?  That wouldn't surprise me.  I used to live next to the Navajo Nation and the road going in was paved with broken beer and whiskey bottles thrown out of the cars just before turning in. 

Where's Smokey and Bandit when you need them? :-)

I definitely thought that until I saw that the court said the search warrant was unrelated. 

[Paul Thomas]

1 hour ago, midlifeflyer said:

I definitely thought that until I saw that the court said the search warrant was unrelated. 

Unrelated for jury/appeal purposes is not always unrelated in the real world. Why watch the defendant load up the airplane instead of serving the warrant immediately... I suspect that law enforcement intentionally waited for the airplane to be loaded up.

My take is that there is a LOT more to that story; it seems like a lot of effort for a misdemeanor.

[midlifeflyer]

10 minutes ago, Paul Thomas said:

Unrelated for jury/appeal purposes is not always unrelated in the real world. Why watch the defendant load up the airplane instead of serving the warrant immediately... I suspect that law enforcement intentionally waited for the airplane to be loaded up.

I have no doubt that they intentionally waited until loaded up.  "Unrelated" was my word and I used it in the same real-world sense as the court: "a warrant that had been issued in connection with another investigation."

[cliffy]

Short story-

I once knew a guy, when I was a teenager and pumping gas at the airport, who bought a Stinson Reliant and went to fly tropical fish out of the jungle in Columbia (60 years ago). I ran into him about 7-8 years later at the FSS station in Tucson AZ (when we had one there) and asked how things were going. He said he just did 5 years in a Columbian  prison because he flew fish out of the jungle but guns into the jungle. I asked what he was doing in TUS and he said he was buying a DC-6 out of Davis-Monthan. What are you using it for I asked and he replied?  To fly tropical fish out of South America!   Some crooks can't change their ways. Never saw him again. 

An "unrelated" matter might just be a separate occurrence of booze running. My bet?   90% probability. 

[Jackk]

On 9/7/2025 at 12:15 AM, cliffy said:

One didn't need to have MORE than $10,000 to have it confiscated.  One case in Florida was for IIRC $8500 taken from a guy IN THE JETWAY  boarding the airplane by a FL task force. He eventually won an got it all back AND Florida stopped that entire program of stopping passengers in the jetway.  Also IIRC there is a lawsuit somewhere against the TSA to stop their notifications to the police about seeing bundles of money in carryon bags. 

If you all remember (many won't) the only way TSA got approved by Congress was to agree that they would never have badges and thy would never organize in a union. Both of which have gone by the wayside.  

 Sounds like theft to me, and conspiracy to commit theft