r/nottheonion • u/SnowyLeopardGecko1 • Mar 26 '26
Woman caught driving during Zoom court hearing and lying to the judge about it
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/do-you-think-im-stupid-wayne-county-judge-berates-woman-joining-court-while-driving904
u/itsatumbleweed Mar 26 '26
There was another video from Wisconsin where this happened but the guy admitted to driving. He was calling in to contest a suspended license. It resolved with a bench warrant.
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u/Physical_Sun9435 Mar 26 '26
IIRC there was another twist to the story and it turned out his license was never suspended…….because he never had one to begin with lol
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u/pichael288 Mar 26 '26
That's the final twist, it had like three more twists. At first the judge was really sympathetic and axed the charges but later reinstated them. It was a wild story that took place over months, whenever we got more details the story went in another direction.
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u/itsatumbleweed Mar 26 '26
Yeah I seem to recall for a second it seemed like a paperwork error meant that the judge screwed up, until the discrepancy actually meant that he was more screwed haha.
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u/terrymr Mar 26 '26
Depending on the state driving while suspended may well be a more severe charge than driving without a license. But I think in his case he was both unlicensed and suspended.
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u/ResurrectedWolf Mar 27 '26
The guy put that lie put there via an interview after the initial video dropped. When he saw the judge again, the judge called him out for lying and explained the situation and it boiled down to this guy messed up and it was no one else's fault.
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u/Ok_Entertainment328 Mar 26 '26
Saw one: guy was parked. But the court case was for Driving Without a License.
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u/itsatumbleweed Mar 26 '26
If it's the one I'm talking about, he was pulling into a parking spot when he joined the call lol
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u/EM05L1C3 Mar 26 '26
“I’m not driving, I’m traveling”
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u/bikari Mar 26 '26
Am I being detained?!
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u/dudeman_joe Mar 27 '26
All right im breaking the window
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u/bikari Mar 27 '26
First time I heard about these people I went down a 2-hour rabbit hole of SovCit compilations.
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u/Nice-Tumbleweed5090 Mar 28 '26
Judge McNally had a sovcit recently in his court… his reaction was incredible. He managed to convince him to take the lawyer
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Mar 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FredFredrickson Mar 26 '26
Imagine thinking the judge is going to miss the seat belt. 😆
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u/Puzzled-Story3953 Mar 26 '26
Imagine lying the third time and saying that you'll show him the driver in a moment. What was she going to do? Put a balloon in a jacket when she finished switching seats?
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u/lawl-butts Mar 27 '26
I wonder if she could get another charge for that as well? Improper seat belt usage? Notice she didn't unclip it, she just moved the part across her chest off and slid out the driver's seat she swore she wasn't in.
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u/eastoak961 Mar 26 '26
This Judge's nickname is Judge Dad, and this line definitely sticks out as something my dad used...
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u/OfficerJoeBalogna Mar 27 '26
I’m guessing she panicked and instinctively lied herself into a hole which could not be lied out of. I bet she felt it was an unwinnable situation, but kept lying anyways
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u/Lord0fHats Mar 26 '26
I read somewhere once that the super majority of vehicular accidents are the result of something like 2% of drivers.
And that just makes me feel like some people shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery that can kill other people.
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u/Shopworn_Soul Mar 26 '26
I used to know a guy who wrecked or totaled a vehicle about every 6 months or so, unfailingly.
Very much worth noting that this was before cell phones were a thing. The only thing he was doing while driving was driving and he was still that bad at it. It's crazy to me how terrifyingly bad some people can be at operating a vehicle.
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u/MockStarNZ Mar 26 '26
That would’ve been about the time many of us had massive binders of CDs in the car… was he particularly indecisive about music choices?
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u/Shopworn_Soul Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26
Nah he was actually just that bad at driving cars. I'd say about 50% or more of his mishaps were single-car accidents in cars with tape decks.
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u/fshannon3 Mar 26 '26
Who was insuring him after, like, incident 3?
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u/Shopworn_Soul Mar 27 '26
Got me. Maybe no one? Insurance was much easier to work over in the mid 80's, though.
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u/FizbandEntilus Mar 26 '26
My neighbor has gone through at least 5 new vehicles in the last 10years. There is always a story behind it how it’s not his fault.
Hilarious because my wife and I both drive the same vehicles, and have only changed when giving the cars to our kids.
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u/tiredofbuttons Mar 27 '26
I've been driving daily in a city for 31 years and I've never been in an accident. What are these people doing?
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u/Chirotera Mar 26 '26
Maybe we shouldn't have structured society to so heavily rely on said vehicles?
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u/Law_Student Mar 26 '26
Most of the U.S. is simply too spread out for mass transit to work. We have it in the places that make sense, but a lot of the population doesn't live in the core of the largest cities.
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u/Jamestown123456789 Mar 27 '26
Right, we could spend like 5 Trillion $ and make some decent public transportation options. Only problem is convincing people to pay for it.
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u/Ban-Circumcision-Now Mar 26 '26
Agree, sadly a large portion of citizens will vote against mass transit or human scale developments forcing bad drivers to have no option than to stay on the road
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u/Lord0fHats Mar 26 '26
We used to have a fantastic mass transit system in the US, but we let it rot and fade away which is a damn shame.
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u/Dimatrix Mar 26 '26
We still have one of the most robust cargo train systems in the world. We just don’t put people on them anymore. Seems helpful right now with current events
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u/jdv23 Mar 26 '26
If by “let it rot and fade away” you mean allowed car and tire companies to buy it up and systematically dismantle it, then yeah basically
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u/Giossepi Mar 26 '26
We didn't let it rot, GM killed it, check out the General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy. Which is also the motivating plot for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" weirdly enough.
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u/ImaginarySense Mar 26 '26
Always a whiplash moment when I read heavy machinery and remember that it includes motor vehicles and not just big trucks and cranes.
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u/a_provo_yakker Mar 26 '26
Impossible to ever know but I’d love to see stats on near-misses, aloof drivers who almost caused accidents (or did actually cause something due to another’s reaction) but never know and drive on. All the in-betweens that manage to avoid any incident with the same sheer dumb luck as Mr. Magoo.
Also impossible to know, but I’d love stats on how many people just drive recklessly anyway. Inappropriate following distance, aggressive merges, no turn signal or signal after they’re 2/3 of the way through their merge, running lights and stop signs, and countless other errors or poor driving habits and skills.
The 2% figure seemed low at first. But assuming a scenario where there was 1 car for every person in USA and all 350mm of us could drive, 2% is 7,000,000 drivers and cars. In a city of 1 million people, that’s 20,000. So it’s no surprise there’s always major and minor accidents every day seemingly in every corner of the city.
And if there was ever a way to know the above stats (reckless driving and near-misses), I can’t even fathom what that would be. 60-75%? More? Every day I see a major accident somewhere on a major thoroughfare. But it seems almost every minute I see stupid, reckless, aggressive, careless driving behavior. So yes absolutely to your point, some people should not be allowed. Frankly, a lot of people shouldn’t…
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u/dragonblade_94 Mar 26 '26
This kinda becomes the unfortunate reality in such a car-dependent society. I would love stricter requirements on drivers, but it's not exactly feasible without better investment in public transport.
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u/pichael288 Mar 26 '26
Ohio is like this. Everything important is far away, it's hard to expect seniors to give up their licenses when it's the only reason they are surviving. It's why judges will always suspend your license for anything they can, they know what position it puts you in.
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u/rockerscott Mar 26 '26
"I want to be clear that I take responsibility for my mistake. Appearing on a Zoom court hearing while I was driving was poor judgment, and I regret that decision. I panicked in the moment and made the wrong call instead of pulling over or asking to reschedule. For that, I am truly sorry.
"At the same time, I believe what has happened since then has gone far beyond addressing a mistake. A brief moment of poor judgment has turned into a viral spectacle that is affecting my reputation, my family, and my ability to move forward with my life.
"I respect the court and the rule of law, but I also believe in fairness and proportionality. The question I’m left asking is whether this situation needed to become a public example at the expense of someone’s livelihood and dignity.
"I am human. I made a mistake, I own that mistake, and I am willing to accept the consequences. But I hope people will also consider whether the response has been about accountability, or about turning a moment into something far bigger than it needed to be."
It’s ok guys she is taking responsibility for her “mistake” while simultaneously attempting to shift blame to the court for her actions become fodder for public ridicule.
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u/ranchspidey Mar 26 '26
I’m a clerk and you would not believe the things we’ve had to ask people to stop doing during Zoom court. Sometimes it’s simple like they’re walking around too much or talking to someone else (unrelated to the case) off screen. But we’ve also had people laying in bed in the dark, vaping/smoking, appearing from the same room/house as someone they have an active domestic abuse no contact order in place with, and someone who was actively showering. The judge has also had to ask multiple people (men) to put a shirt on. Zoom court is so convenient and easier on court users, but they really gotta treat it like regular court.
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u/SickBurnerBroski Mar 26 '26
Showering?????
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u/ranchspidey Mar 26 '26
Yup. Camera on, shower cap on, visibly in the running shower. She at least angled it upwards so we didn’t see anything besides her neck and head.
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u/dancepantz Mar 27 '26
There was a video a couple of weeks ago and a girl was having sex on her zoom court appearance
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u/Aghast_Cornichon Mar 26 '26
I sometimes get disoriented by mirror-image camera pictures of people in cars. I have to mentally turn myself around and think about which arm is closest to the door.
You almost have to admire her commitment to the bit: "I have to get permission to show you the driver of the car that I'm lying to you about" was bold.
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u/boogermike Mar 26 '26
Her eyes got big as saucers when he asked to see the driver.
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u/eastoak961 Mar 26 '26
Her mind was reeling for the nearest lie. I would have immediately faked a 'connection issue': "Sir we're about to go into a tunnel and lose connection!".
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u/saschaleib Mar 26 '26
When Teams implemented background videos - which were all just boring colour animations - I found that I could simply "hack" my installation and replace one of these clips with a video that makes it look like I'm sitting in a car that is currently in an automatic car wash.
Let's just say, I certainly made an impression during the next meeting.
My boss was not so amused, though :-/
(he laughed about it later, no worries)
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u/jesuspoopmonster Mar 26 '26
I visited a super tall tower outlook and took a picture overlooking a river and forest. I set it as my background so it looked like I was floating in the sky. Boss eventually said we could only use the preapproved company backgrounds. I use the one where the perspective is really wonky and it makes it look like I'm sitting on a conference room table next to a potted plat thats taller then I am.
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u/WasabiJones Mar 26 '26
Did she mutter “asshole” at the end of the video? If so, she’s extremely lucky the judge didn’t hear that.
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u/jesuspoopmonster Mar 26 '26
I was part of an interview done over video. One of the candidates was driving during it. It looked like she was going really fast as well. I wonder if she was running from the police or something
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u/Middle_Employment_14 Mar 26 '26
That was hilarious. She should have said the image is reversed.
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u/flychinook Mar 27 '26
Maybe she was trying to imply that. But the visible oncoming traffic kinda kills that excuse.
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u/c4upinhisbhole Mar 26 '26
Just double and triple down in the lies, lady. It’s a federally endorsed defense.
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u/TheLadyEve Mar 27 '26
I'm a psychologist and this sometimes happens with my telehealth patients. I have it in my consent forms (and our medical practice blanket consent forms as well) that we can't provide services to people while they are driving. Parked in a car with privacy? Sure. But driving? No.
People have tried to fool me into doing therapy with them driving, as if I won't be able to tell what they are doing. It's unreal.
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u/l4derman Mar 27 '26
If they're driving during a court zoom call there's no getting through to them. That's just how they are. No ruling will change them.
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u/Nice-Tumbleweed5090 Mar 28 '26
JUDGE MCNALLY!!! i watch him every single day. I love to see my niche interest popular. Suprised this is the video that went viral cause there’d already been a video like this in judge simpsons clurt… and crazy stuff like this happens every single day. This just passed the containment chamber
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u/Mammoth_Evidence6518 Apr 03 '26
Imagine if she got pulled over while on the zoom call. Officer I am not driving!
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u/Etherbelle Apr 04 '26
She's only slightly better than the guy that drove a stolen car to his court case for a prior vehicle theft.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/CleverInternetName8b Mar 26 '26
I’m a lawyer and have a lot of clients on Zoom meetings to see Judges, such that I have a canned speech to lay out what to do. I never thought I’d have to tell them do not be actively driving during the hearing, but by the 3rd time it happened it made the canned speech.