Remember Jacen Lankow, the University of Arizona student who streaked the college football game between UCLA and Arizona? Lankow’s awesomely homoerotic stunt could get him slapped with a class six felony for criminal impersonation and one and a half years in jail. Also, 10 of the players who started fighting in response to his stunt got suspended too.
Best. Game. Ever. Lame punishment though.
Via Towleroad
Gigi
What’s wrong with this country? That boy can’t go to prison. Look at that ass!
kylew
18 months for streaking and fuck all for ruining the economy and leading the country into needless war? WTF is wrong with this picture!?
Conrad
Oh my goodness! A year and a half in jail for a cute little stunt? America… get a sense of humor.
Michael
He get’s a year and a half after 20 seconds……..and Lindsay gets nothing after 5 years of the same old shit…What is wrong with this country and the court system. Stop wasting our time and money over stupid shit and stupid people!
Riker
Isn’t “criminal impersonation” supposed to be for people who impersonate police or government agents or something? Not a college sports referee.
xander
The penalty seems absolutely excessive, given the crime. ‘Community service’ might be appropriate if they want to press the point, but prison? That makes zero sense. The guys who jump out on the field during pro sports don’t seem to get such heavy-handed punishment.
dellisonly
Streaking may seem like a harmless prank but it can be dangerous. A year and a half may be a slap on the wrist considering how many charges they could get him on. A good lawyer should get him time served and community service. Calm down bitches
timncguy
@dellisonly: This act wasn’t even “streaking”. Streaking, by definition, is done nude.
timncguy
This is real streaking at a college football game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_streaker_at_HarvardYale_game.jpg
Michael
As timncguy said this is absolutely correct streaking is being completely nude from the top to the bottom.This does not even count as that he was wearing those cute little undies and was shirtless that was it.I thought it was funny and cute myself the impersonation was him impersonating a referee .It seemed like a harmless stunt though it sucks that all of that fighting and everything else came out of it though.
kyle
See ya!
kylew
@dellisonly: Oh give over. Streaking is an annoyance at worst. If you think that running onto a soccer pitch in a striped shirt and tearing it off merits 18 months in prison, when the streets are awash with criminals, junkies, gang-bangers and corporate thieves, I’m just glad you have no say in the judicial system.
The players that went nuts and started fighting – well that’s another matter…
kevin
What makes his streaking a “homoerotic stunt?”
Please don’t tell me it’s because he was in a speedo.
Lefty
@kevin: Because most of the audience will have been male? It may not be strictly erotic, but we all know most sports fans are just sublimating their gay desires.
Ken S
American law: desperately in need of meds, because it’s sick in the head.
MikenStL
Not to mention how much money does it take to keep him in prison, we can’t feed the hungry, care for the sick, nor educate the young but we can lock some one up for this???
Jimmy Fury
@kylew: Not only is it another matter but it’s a damn good example of how absurd Lankow’s punishment is.
He pulls a stupid stunt and runs around topless and gets a prison sentence yet the players commit multiple counts of assault and all they get is suspended and benched for a few games? No criminal charges at all for violently attacking each other but a guy in a speedo warrants jail time?
That’s just mind boggling.
B
No. 5 · Riker wrote, “Isn’t ‘criminal impersonation’ supposed to be for people who impersonate police or government agents or something? Not a college sports referee.”
It’s defined as impersonating someone with the intent to commit a crime or while committing a crime. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_criminal_impersonation has some examples. While it varies from state to state, no doubt, a quick search found http://law.justia.com/codes/nebraska/2006/s28index/s2806008000.html (for Nebraska): “Criminal impersonation is a Class II misdemeanor if no credit, money, goods, services, or other thing of value was gained or was attempted to be gained, or if the credit, money, goods, services, or other thing of value that was gained or was attempted to be gained was less than two hundred dollars. Any second conviction under this subdivision is a Class I misdemeanor, and any third or subsequent conviction under this subdivision is a Class IV felony.”
Sounds like at most they could get him for a misdemeanor, and that is stretching it – the relevant part of the Nebraska definition for criminal impersonation is “Assumes a false identity and does an act in his or her assumed character with intent to gain a pecuniary benefit for himself, herself, or another or to deceive or harm another.”
I’m not sure if walking onto the field qualifies as “an act in his or her assumed character with intent to … deceive another.” He didn’t try to act as a referee, and wasn’t really dressed as one (the short pants were a giveaway).
Basically, he was arrested and threatened because he embarrassed the stadium’s security people by getting past them. They should have just kicked him out of the stadium and let him walk home in his underwear. Anything else is ridiculous. If they actually tried to file felony charges against him, it should be thrown out of court. More likely some security nazi was just mouthing off about 1 1/2 years in jail.
Jersey
Apparently this is because in AZ the jails are for profit so the steep sentence would be money in someone’s deep pocket at the AZ taxpayer’s expense.
Donald E. Hull
NICE butt…wish mine was that nice!