Brickbats: December 2025

A federal grand jury in Boston indicted former postal fraud inspector Scott Kelley on wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering for allegedly using his position to steal over $330,000 from elderly victims of telemarketing scams. Prosecutors say from 2019 to 2023, Kelley had postal employees send him a total of 1,950 packages that had been flagged as containing cash from scam victims. He then opened the packages and stole the money, which he spent on a heated pool, Caribbean cruises, and sex with escorts during the workday.

Michael Hayes, a police detective in Lakeland, Florida, was arrested for falsely reporting a crime. Hayes said three juveniles threw an object and shattered the rear window of his unmarked agency-issued SUV while he was driving. But deputies later found a picture of his car, with the window damaged, taken 24 hours before the reported incident. Hayes, a 12-year veteran assigned to the property crimes unit, then admitted his child likely broke the window with a baseball.

After five shoplifting incidents at his vintage clothing store in Wales, Rob Davies put up a sign calling the thieves “scumbags.” When a member of the public complained, police visited the store and told Davies to take the sign down because it could cause offense.

Parents in Vancouver, Canada, are not allowed to teach their children how to swim during public swim times. They say lifeguards prevented them from giving “unsanctioned swimming lessons” and must leave instruction to city programs, but spots in those lessons are limited and fill up quickly. Nearby communities, such as North Vancouver, allow parents to work with their kids during public swims.

The city of Orlando painted over a rainbow crosswalk that memorialized the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. Demonstrators protested its removal by drawing on the crosswalk with colored chalk. Police then arrested several protesters on felony charges of “defacing a traffic device,” which typically applies to traffic lights or crosswalk signals. The charges were later dropped; a lawyer for the protesters noted the chalk was water-soluble and did not cause enough damage to warrant a felony.

The New York City Police Department arrested Trevis Williams after facial recognition technology misidentified him as a suspect in an indecent exposure incident in Manhattan. Even though Williams was 8 inches taller than the suspect the victim described, he was detained for two days. The case was dismissed when attorneys presented the police with cellphone data showing Williams was driving from Connecticut to Brooklyn at the time of the incident.

Authorities in Georgia indicted Cobb County Superior Court Clerk Connie Taylor on counts of destroying government records and violating her oath of office. An investigation revealed she illegally kept passport application fees for herself, totaling more than $220,000 in 2021 alone. Taylor allegedly directed an employee to delete or destroy emails and financial records that would implicate her, saying to “Donald Trump this thing.”

Authorities in Nova Scotia fined Jeff Evely $28,872.50 (about $20,600 U.S.) for violating a province-wide ban on entering the woods. The Nova Scotia government enacted the ban to help prevent wildfires.