Latest Stories

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  How Watching East High Cheerleader Be Tortured Became a National Pastime

  Friday, August 25, 2017 at 9:04 a.m.

  A video of thirteen-year-old Denver East High School cheerleader Ally Wakefield being forced into the splits position while crying out in agony has gone viral on a cat-playing-piano, double-rainbow, Numa-Numa-guy level. The story is still developing at this writing, and it presents something of a dilemma for our Schmuck of the Week department, since choosing only one schmuck in this situation is virtually impossible. But right now, the likeliest nominees are cheer coaches Ozell Williams and Mariah Cladis, two East High administrators and a Denver Public Schools official who've been put on leave amid the ongoing investigation, and all of us, for our fascination with images that could well violate the Geneva Conventions rules against torture.

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  Will Somebody Finally Help Benjamin Levy Now That His Face Looks Like This?

  Friday, August 18, 2017 at 8:17 a.m.

  Even if Roaring Fork Valley resident Benjamin Levy, thirty, wasn't one of Colorado's most frequently arrested men, his latest bust, for a drunken scooter crash, would still stand out, since the incident injured his passenger and left his face looking like an order of steak tartare. But while his actions certainly qualify him for nomination as our latest Schmuck of the Week, we reserve that honor for a criminal justice system that has allowed him to break law after law over a period of years without finding a way to prevent him from harming himself and others.

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  Bill Comes Due for Cancer-Faking Fraud Nahid "Dr. Venus" Moshrefi

  Monday, August 7, 2017 at 8:22 a.m.

  Nahid Moshrefi, also known as Dr. Venus K. Moshrefi, describes herself as a specialist in natural healing therapies. But she's characterized by prosecutors with the First Judicial District DA's office as a fraud who faked cancer in order to bilk an elderly man out of $69,000, and a jury agreed.

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  Choking Your Kid for Wearing Short Shorts Is an Awful Idea, Derek Kinch

  Friday, August 4, 2017 at 8:24 a.m.

  If the allegations against Weld County Sheriff's Deputy Derek Kinch are true, and his family says they are, he's more than earned Schmuck of the Week honors. After all, Kinch has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse and assault after he's said to have reacted to the length of his daughter's shorts by pinning her to a wall and choking her.

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  Jordan Dry's Lawyer Told Him "Not to Say Sh*t Like This on the Phone." Here's Why.

  Friday, July 28, 2017 at 6:03 a.m.

  Jordan Dry, who was already in jail on drugs and weapons allegations, has now been accused of witness tampering for saying exactly what his lawyer told him not to over a monitored jail phone before claiming, "I don’t want to get any kind of tampering charges or anything."

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  Sorry, Mervin Cabe: Even White People Can Tell You're Not Chad Johnson

  Friday, July 21, 2017 at 7:59 a.m.

  One of the many stinging jokes in season one of the excellent Netflix series Dear White People involves college journalist Lionel Higgins, played by DeRon Horton, discovering that he can use a fake ID with a photo that looks nothing like him because Caucasians can't tell black men apart. But Mervin Cabe wasn't so lucky. He was recently busted in Aspen, one of the whitest places on the planet even when there's no snow on the ground, after unsuccessfully impersonating former NFL player Chad Johnson, whom he doesn't resemble in the slightest.