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Home invasion robber returns cash to victim after running into him at a video poker lounge

Talk about a bizarre reunion.

via Michael Coghlan/Flickr and Trap Gang/Pexels

A robber and his victim have a bizarre reunion.

An unusual story out of Australia shows that even though someone may be a hardened criminal, they may still have feelings of remorse. It also shows that even their victims can forgive and forget if they don’t take things too personally.

The Daily Mail reports that Christopher Howard Gordon, 35, knocked on the door of a home in the Victorian town of Traralgon in Australia last March, holding a fake gun. When a man opened the door, Gordon demanded that he be allowed in the home and that the owner give him cash.

The man led him into a room where his daughter and partner slept. After seeing the sleeping child, Gordon was startled and immediately fled the home after receiving a box of cash.

The next night, Gordon went out to a video poker lounge 40 minutes from where he had robbed the man. In a bizarre coincidence, Gordon and the victim were there simultaneously. Instead of fleeing the scene, Gordon apologized to the man telling him that he was given the wrong information from an acquaintance. He had no idea that children would be present, and just wanted some “cash and weed.”

The victim accepted the apology, and the two sat beside each other playing poker, with Gordon handing the victim the cash that he had stolen. At the night's end, Gordon asked the victim for a ride home, and he obliged.

When Gordon appeared in court for sentencing, the judge noted that his actions showed remorse for his crimes. "You and the victim sat near each other on the slot machines while you intermittently handed the victim $150 to $200," Judge Arushan Pillay said, according to ABC Australia.

"When the venue closed at midnight, you asked the victim for a lift home, who eventually agreed to this. I consider that your words and actions to the victim demonstrate a level of immediate remorse,” the judge added.

Gordon was granted time served and released from jail.

So, will the fact that Gordon experienced remorse for his crimes deter him from robbing someone else? The most recent research, albeit from nine years ago, shows that remorse plays a big role in determining recidivism rates, but there’s a difference between whether people feel guilt or shame for their actions.

“When people feel guilt about a specific behavior, they experience tension, remorse, and regret,” the researchers wrote in a 2014 article published by Psychological Science. “Research has shown that this sense of tension and regret typically motivates reparative action — confessing, apologizing, or somehow repairing the damage done.”

Researchers found that criminals who feel a sense of guilt are less likely to commit another crime than those who feel shame. Those who felt shame were more likely to feel defensive, blame others and return to their old ways.

The question is, did Gorgon feel guilt or shame for his actions? He blamed his acquaintance for sending him to the wrong address but accepted responsibility for his actions by paying the man back. Time will tell if Gordon learns from this episode and gets his life back on track.

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Democracy

The IRS requires criminals to report and pay taxes on their illegal income. Yes, seriously.

@litcapital/Twitter

The IRS requires criminals to report their illegal income.

You know how sometimes you see something come through your social media feed and you think, "There's no way that's real," only to then have your mind blown when you find out it actually is real?

This is one of those times.

Twitter user @litcapital shared a post that appeared to be a screenshot from the IRS website with two entries on it:

"Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year."

Yes, you read that right. Dealing illegal drugs? Gotta pay taxes on that income. Stealing property? Gotta report that as income.

Surely this is made up, right?

Nope. Go here: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17. Do a "Find" search with your browser and enter the word "illegal." Then put in "stolen." You'll find the entries listed under "Other Income," worded just like this.

We can all agree that taxes are overly complicated, and few of us have the time to read through every single IRS publication to figure them out. But requiring criminals to report illegal activity and stolen goods on their taxes? Really?

Someone had to actually come up with this policy. Someone had to say, "Hey, I think we should tell criminals that they have to report their criminal profits on their taxes," and someone else had to say, "Yeah, that's a good idea." Someone had to approve it. Someone had to type it up and publish it, too.

Did they all do this with a straight face? Was it a serious conversation? Did any brave soul say, "Um, that's stupid. No one is going to do that," because it's obviously stupid and clearly no one is going to do that?

That was my first thought upon seeing these tax requirements.

However, as it turns out, there actually is a good reason these policies exist. Illegal income does get reported sometimes, namely when someone has been caught (or thinks they're about to be caught) in some illegal activity and they don't want to get hit with a tax evasion charge in addition to whatever financial or property theft crime they've committed.

According to CNN Money, New England accountant Tom Hughes paid taxes on money he stole from his clients in 1999, 2001 and 2004. "I knew the money was taxable, there was no doubt about that," Hughes told the outlet. "I had already been caught, and I didn't want to face federal tax charges."

He now gives speeches on financial crime and professional responsibility. Go figure.

However, Hughes is the exception, as tax experts told CNN that most criminals don't report their illegal incomes. Duh. According to San Francisco tax attorney Stephen Moskowitz, most of those who do are facing embezzlement charges and are trying to avoid Al Capone-ing themselves. He has helped some of those clients document their illegal gains to avoid doubling their legal trouble due to illegal tax activity.

So basically, we have to have official tax requirements for illegal income in order for criminals to not be able to get away with tax evasion for that income. Still seems like a bizarre policy to actually write out in words, though, even if it makes sense from a legal perspective.

Humans are weird and money is weird and both things just seem to keep getting weirder. Yay us.

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11-yr-old wiped blue slime on her attempted kidnapper's arm, helping police identify him

Escambia County Sherriff's Office/Facebook

While kidnappings by complete strangers in broad daylight are extremely rare, they can and do happen. If a child ever finds themselves in that situation, it's important for them to know what to do.

A security camera captured a scary kidnapping attempt in Florida that has people praising the 11-year-old girl who fought off her attacker and even left a clue that helped police identify him.

Video footage shared by the Escambia County Sherriff's office shows the girl sitting alone at her bus stop at around 7:00 am when a white car turned at the median, then returned a minute later. A man exits the vehicle, runs up to the girl, and grabs her, attempting to carry her back to the car. Sherriff Chip Simmons told reporters that the man was carrying a knife. The girl put up a fight and the man stumbled, then ran back to his car and drove away as the girl ran in the opposite direction.

The girl was playing with blue slime when the man approached her, and she wiped some of it on his arm in the struggle. When police arrested the suspect, who has been identified as 30-year-old Jared Paul Stanga, they saw the slime still smeared on his arm.

Simmons told reporters at a news conference that Stanga has an "extensive" criminal history that includes sexual offenses against children. Stanga has now been charged with the attempted kidnapping of a child under 13 and aggravated assault and battery.

"I cannot help to think that this could have ended very differently," Simmons said. "Had this 11-year-old victim not thought to fight and to fight and to just never give up, then this could have ended terribly. Why else do you think that this man stopped, stopped his van and tried to pick her up and take her into that van? It doesn't take a genius to figure out what his intentions were, but they were not good."

Simmons also told reporters that Stanga had approached the girl about two weeks ago at the bus stop and "made her feel uncomfortable." She told school officials and her parents about the incident, and her mother started accompanying her to the bus stop. Tuesday was the first day her mother had not been with her at the bus stop since that incident.

Simmons called the girl his hero for fighting to get away. She ended up with some scratches—and obviously experienced some trauma—but otherwise walked away uninjured.

"My message is that she did not give up," he said. "She did the right thing, and she fought and she fought."

Parents don't want to imagine anything like this happening to their child and may not want to scare them by telling them it could happen, but it's also important to prepare kids for all possibilities. Some children might freeze in fear or confusion in a potential abduction situation, but experts recommend kids fight back if someone actually physically grabs a child and tries to take them someplace.

"Kicking and screaming, opening the door, shouting, 'Who are you? I don't know who you are. You're hurting me. Stop it.' To try to call attention to the situation they're in," Marylene Cloitre of the New York University Child Study Center told ABC News. There are even formal programs in some places that teach kids what to do in various situations and have them practice using their voice and putting up a struggle, such as this one in the Chicago suburbs.

Training teaches kids to yell, run and fight back to escape kidnapperswww.youtube.com

There is no audio on the security footage in Tuesday's attempt, but it's clear the 11-year-old was not going to go quietly. Her instinct to fight back paid off, and thankfully she is home safe now. Hopefully, the justice system will now do what is necessary to protect her and other kids from the would-be kidnapper.

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Heroes

This is the woman who saved the little girl from being abducted yesterday. Show her some love.

via Shansdeya / Instagram

A London woman's incredible instincts and bravery helped save a young girl from being abducted on Tuesday morning. Now, we have a face to connect with the heroic act.

Ashanti, who goes by the name @shansdeya on Twitter, says her little sister, Zian, alerted her to the abduction saying "something was not right."

So Ashanti walked outside in the residential area of Mitcham in south-west London. Where she saw a man walking suspiciously with a young girl.


She followed the man and filmed him until he finally let the young girl go and ran away. Later Tuesday, police arrested a man named Kadian Nelson in nearby Tooting who appears to be the attempted kidnapper.

via Twitter

Police found the man after the video taken by Ashanti went viral online. The chilling footage shows the kidnapper walking with the little girl held close to his body with his hand over her mouth.

In the video, Ashanti paces the man, demands that he "Let her go" and asks "What are you doing with her?" The man replies, "This is my sister, this is man's family."

"So what are you doing in the corner with her?" she asked and he responded by asking: "Why are you stalking, man?"

But Ashanti didn't believe the abductor and kept on his trail. Doing so put her life at risk but she wouldn't let him run off with the girl. When Ashanti finally reached him, the man let go of the girl and ran away. The young girl was terrified, telling Ashanti, "Thank you. Thank you."

Security footage taken in the area shows the man grabbing the little girl.

After the video went viral, a group of vigilantes searched the neighborhood for the man, eventually making their way to his residence. Police had to tell them to leave the area as to not interfere with the investigation.

People are calling Ashanti a hero, but she says her sister is the one who should be getting all the credit.


"I wish I could thank you all individually, I'm not a hero Im just glad I had the courage to follow through," she wrote on Twitter.

"My little sister is the real hero here, she's 11 years old and was able to notice that something was not right and called me straight away," she added. "Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to save that little girl."

Emma Stevenson has started a Just Giving campaign to reward Ashanti and Zian for their incredible bravery.

"Let's get these girls a reward from our community as a massive thank you," Stevenson wrote on the campaign site. "Who knows what else that poor girl would of gone through it wasn't for the quick thinking and actions of Zian?"

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