Courtroom ‘Idiots’ found on both sides of bench

It had to be the strangest moment in 30 years of covering court.

Poor Randy Lind (he would soon be murdered) was about to be sent away for driving after suspension, because he drove (without benefit of a license) to his mother’s house to get some kerosene to keep his Washington trailer warm enough for his child and deaf mute wife.

He tried to alert his wife, sitting in the Rockland courtroom, that he would not be home for Christmas, using sign language. The tough judge, who shall remain nameless, warned that another “outburst” from Lind would not be tolerated. Most people in the courtroom never noticed the “outburst.”

That silver-tongued devil, Camden attorney Paul Gibbons, stepped in, apologized to the bench for Lind’s actions, then begged the tough judge to stay the sentence until after the holidays. That gave Lind’s friends the opportunity to shoot him a few days later on a back road in Washington, out of the misplaced fear that he had “ratted them out” to state police.

All of this came to mind reading “Idiots at Work,” (McMeel Publishing, $9.95) by Leland Gregory, a “Saturday Night Live” graduate who previously penned “The Stupid Crook Book” and “America’s Dumbest Criminals.”

One of the idiots at work was the principal of Stony Brook School in Branchburg, N.J., who suspended a student for “disrupting” the school bus with her use of sign language. The (thankfully unnamed) girl was using sign language because another student had previously set off fireworks in the school, causing her serious hearing damage. No word if the fireworks monger was also suspended.

Some of my favorite examples in the book are from executives who, like certain baseball players, have lost their sense of reality. Consider the Drexel Burnham Lambert spokesman who tried to explain away $195 million in bonuses to executives after the firm’s bankruptcy by saying “If we didn’t have bonuses, we wouldn’t have anybody to work for us.”

Then there was the Reebok Co. and the genius staff members who named their new sneaker “Incubus.” Only after the publicity campaign started did someone consult a dictionary to learn that “Incubus” means “a demon who rapes women in their sleep.”

I have always had this thing about Consumer Reports and all their product testing. It did my aging heart good to learn from author Gregory that the magazine sent to new subscribers a flashlight that overheated and caused burns along with a tire pressure gauge that was wildly inaccurate.

Then there was a (gratefully unnamed) company that donated pencils to Plainview, Long Island, schools bearing the anti-drug legend “Too cool to do drugs!” They put the legend the wrong way on the pencil. When the pencils were used, then sharpened, the legend was shortened to “cool to do drugs!” then “do drugs! and finally just “drugs!” Another (gratefully unnamed) spokesman, this one for the donor, The Bureau for At-Risk Youth” admitted, “We are actually a little embarrassed that we didn’t notice that earlier.”

In another court incident, an executive of the First National Bank of Keystone, W.V., filed a plea of guilty to embezzling $515 million. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, plus restitution of the $515 mil. The bench agreed that the man was ruined financially and would take $300 a month for the decree. It was probably a day or two before someone, probably an alert court clerk, deduced that the payback would take more than 143,000 years.

My favorite “Idiot at Work” was the Muncie, Ind., burglar who fled the scene, naturally, when he was spotted by the cops inside a business that had closed several hours earlier. A foot chase ensued until our boy ran into a nearby building. You probably guessed. It was the county jail, where he was apprehended and charged with burglary, theft, criminal mischief, resisting arrest and public intoxication. “We love it when they run to jail for us,” said sheriff spokesman Ken Hendrickson.

Keep your ears and eyes open. I bet you can find a new “idiot” this week. Probably playing for the Indianapolis Colts.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.