Tales from the Brown Desk (Relaunch) - Season 2, Episode 1 - Court of Appeals, Prosecuting Fauci, Dollar Tree Gooner, & Florida Man

Tales from the Brown Desk is back!

After a long break, Indianapolis criminal defense attorneys Jake and Kassi Rigney return to the brown desk with a brand-new episode.

In this relaunch we cover:

• A fresh 2026 Indiana Court of Appeals decision (Boyd v. State) involving a traffic stop based on the driver’s facial expression and hand position, a K-9 sniff, and a search the appeals court ruled unconstitutional

• The ongoing push in Indiana to charge Anthony Fauci — and whether local county prosecutors actually have the power to do it

• The nationwide “Dollar Tree Gooner” trend and the self-defense questions it raises

• A classic Florida Man story involving a machete, a hatchet, and a Publix parking lot fightListen now and subscribe so you never miss an episode. 

Website: TalesfromtheBrownDesk.com
Rigney Law: RigneyLawIndy.com  

Contact us and tell us what topic you want us to cover next.

THE CRIMINAL LAW PODCAST

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TALES FROM THE BROWN DESK — (RELAUNCH - Season 2, episode 1)
Recorded: August 18, 2026 | Duration: ~51 minutes
Speakers: Jake Rigney | Kassi Rigney | Teri Muehlhausen
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[00:10 - 00:12] JAKE: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13 - 00:15] JAKE: Kassi, wake up.

[00:16 - 00:39] KASSI: What is it?

[00:17 - 00:30] JAKE: I just had like the worst dream ever. Like business got so slow and we were about to go broke. It got so bad, I started the podcast again.

[00:30 - 00:39] KASSI: Oh my God. Can you imagine that? I liked the podcast. Oh, it was so embarrassing.

[00:41 - 00:45] KASSI: Wait a minute. Do you hear that?

[00:46 - 00:49] JAKE: I don't hear anything.

[00:50 - 00:59] KASSI: It's music. It's the podcast music.

[00:52 - 00:55] JAKE: I don't hear it. Where is it coming from?

[00:55 - 00:59] JAKE: Oh God, no. It's coming from inside the office.

[01:01 - 01:05] JAKE: It's coming from inside the office.

[01:06 - 01:07] JAKE: Run! (laughs)

[01:25 - 01:39] JAKE: It's Tuesday afternoon. We've locked the door because there's measles out there and the doctors will not let you get a booster shot every three months. And also because it's time for another edition of our weekly podcast, Tales from the Brown Desk.

[01:41 - 02:44] JAKE: I'm Jake Rigney of Rigney Law. Joining me as usual is my law partner, wife, and brunch aficionado, Kassi Rigney. Teri Muehlhausen is our host, co-producer, topic selector, Florida Man monitor, email screener, and the only reason that we're all sitting here. Friendly reminder: Tales from the Brown Desk is a free-flowing conversation involving two foul-mouthed attorneys. It may include graphic descriptions of sexual activity, violence, and the slow-grinding death of liberal democracy in the gears of American business where you are free to kill yourself rapidly with a firearm or slowly with alcohol, but marijuana is just too unhealthy to be legal. This program may not be suitable for children, alcohol users, job recruiters, the Indiana Supreme Court, or the people that could interview us to do regular jobs after our economy crashes because a batch of the measles caught the coronavirus and turned into the dominant life force on Earth in the meantime.

[02:46 - 02:49] JAKE: After six years, here's Teri.

Court of Appeals Opinion - Boyd v. State of Indiana

[02:49 - 03:07] TERI: Hello everyone. Hi Jake. Hi Kassi. Welcome back. Been a minute or a few years, and we have lots to talk about, so let's jump right in.

[03:08 - 03:19] TERI: Our topics today: we're going to talk about a recent Court of Appeals opinion, prosecuting Fauci, the Dollar Tree gooner, and Florida Man. We'll start with the Court of Appeals opinion. It is Boyd versus the State of Indiana.

Suspicious Driving

[03:20 - 03:35] TERI: Now, this case began on October 1st of 2022 in Clarksville when a police officer was parked and Boyd drove his car by. The officer said he noticed the look on Boyd's face and that Boyd's hands were tightly locked at the ten and two position.

[03:35 - 03:44] TERI: Now the officer found the facial expression, the grip on the wheel, and the hand positioning suspicious, so he began to follow.

[03:44 - 03:53] JAKE: Very, very suspicious legal driving that he's doing. 

[3:53 - 3:57 ] KASSI: Hands at ten and two and you're still getting called suspicious. 

[3:57 - 04:12] JAKE: This reminds me, and I believe we're going to talk about all of it, but this reminds me of a probable cause affidavit I read once from a person I did not represent where the police said that because the person was driving under the speed limit, that was also suspicious.

[04:13 - 04:21] JAKE: So you drive over the speed limit, they can stop you for speeding. You drive under the speed limit, suspicious. They should be able to investigate.

[04:21 - 04:26] JAKE: It's unclear to me how exactly you ever avoid getting pulled over. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. 

Does the look on someone's face plus their hands at ten and two really add up to reasonable suspicion?

[4:27 - 4:21] TERI: I was wondering: does the look on someone's face plus their hands at ten and two really add up to reasonable suspicion, or is this the classic case of 'I'm going to follow you until you do something wrong'?

[04:41 - 04:51] Kassi: When I read it, I don't think the cop put that in there. That's why I started following; the justification for the stop was crossing the fog line, in my opinion when I read it.

[04:52 - 05:05] KASSI: And the reality is the police can pick anyone at random and follow. They could say 'I'm going to follow the third blue car that I see today for the rest of the day' and they can do that and pull you over.

[05:05 - 05:29] KASSI: My guess is that was just why he chose that car, and I don't think that was the legal basis.

[05:12 - 05:24] JAKE: Yeah, so the answer to your question is it was the second one, right? It was 'I'm just going to follow this car until I see him do something.' And also, that is legal in this country.

Do you have the right not to be followed?

[05:24 - 05:29] TERI: I was wondering: do people have the right not to be followed?

[05:31 - 05:54] KASSI: No. Not if you're traveling on a public street. If you're sitting even with a cop behind you, oftentimes if they're not doing anything else, they're running plates while they're sitting there. And you're responsible for following every traffic law despite the fact that no one knows all of the traffic laws, including the police.

[05:55 - 06:16] TERI: Now continuing on with this case, as Boyd was being followed, as Kassi said, he ended up drifting across the fog line into the emergency lane. And the cop said he saw him reach over the passenger side center console. What traffic law did he break there?

[06:17 - 06:29] JAKE: It is illegal to drive to the right of the fog line. So when he crosses over the white line that's on the far right-hand side of the road, that is a traffic infraction for which he can be cited. 

[6:30 - 06:57] KASSI: To bring us back to a previous podcast, I think Jake had explained before: what people don't realize is the police officer is building their case the second they hone in on you. Adding that, those furtive movements to the center console, that's police speak for they were trying to hide something in the car. At this point that's not illegal, but it's just another thing that they've added into their suspicion.

How long is too long before the stop becomes an illegal detention?

[06:58 - 07:15] TERI: All right. Now so the officer pulled Boyd over and he requested a canine unit. About ten minutes later, roughly, the canine unit arrived. And I think we talked about this in a past podcast, but how long is too long before the stop becomes an illegal detention?

[07:17 - 07:36] KASSI: There's not a bright line, but as far as waiting for a canine, they cannot extend the traffic stop to bring a canine there if they don't have any other reason to hold the driver. They have to complete writing the ticket or issue the warning and let them go.

[07:36 - 07:50] JAKE: Yeah, and I think reading between the lines of this opinion, that is where the Court of Appeals started to get a little bit, well, it wasn't where they started actually.

[07:51 - 09:24] JAKE: They started with the ten and two, and he looked his facial expression looked nervous, but you can tell reading between the lines of the Court of Appeals opinion that I don't think they accepted the officer's explanation that the traffic stop didn't get extended by the dog search, because it took him twelve or fourteen minutes to write a warning. 

[08:15 - 08:32] KASSI: They commented that was one of the numerous comments that the Court made in the opinion, that the testimony was that the infraction was still not written after thirteen minutes. Like, you can't fill out a ticket that fast.

[08:33 - 08:35] Teri: So he's purposely taking his time.

[08:35 - 08:36] KASSI: Right.

[08:36 - 08:37] JAKE: And they always do. 

[08:37 - 08:38] TERI: Right. Naturally. 

[08:39 - 08:43 ] JAKE: Because what they really want to do is find drugs inside the car.

[08:43 - 08:44] TERI: Yeah.

[08:44 - 08:45] KASSI: Right. 

[08:45 - 08:47] JAKE: They don't care about crossing the fog line. 

[08:47 - 08:48] TERI: No, of course not.

Is removing everyone from a vehicle before deploying a K9 dog standard operating procedure?

[08:49 - 09:24] TERI: So here's a detail about the case that we cannot leave out. Now, one of the officers actually told another one to not shut the door, to leave it open, because when the officers arrived on the scene, they decided to remove Boyd from the vehicle before they deployed the dog.

[09:10 - 09:13] TERI: So is that standard operating procedure?

[09:14 - 09:20] KASSI: It was always my understanding of the K9 training is that when they're going to run a dog, no one was supposed to be in there.

Body-worn camera and the evidence they reveal

[09:21 - 10:11] JAKE: Now the question of whether it's standard for the police to beforehand strategize about how they're going to search in the most intrusive way possible? Yes, that is also standard operating procedure. And the reason that we're only hearing about it now and that the Court of Appeals is only starting to get this information now is because of body-worn cameras. Before that, these are the types of details that the court would never hear about. The officers would either, and I'm using air quotes here, not really remember what they talked about beforehand, or the officers just wouldn't mention that. But now body camera comes in and they can hear and see everything that the police do when they forget to turn their cameras off.

[10:12 - 10:29] TERI: And I'm assuming that is something defense attorneys grab onto with both hands and really go through those body camera footages... When you're defending a case, just looking for any of these gold keys? 

[10:30 - 10:33] JAKE: We do, and it is also exhausting.

[10:34 - 11:37] JAKE: They take forever to review. Most of it is nothing, and it is... it is literally kind of like sitting in your yard and watching for a raindrop. You're just sitting there and you're like 'oh,' it's all the same. I'm just sometimes literally he gets out of the car and it's dash cam footage and I'm just listening to the song on the radio. So it is exhausting and difficult work reviewing all those, and occasionally you find something, and if you're lucky a judge cares. And as you can see from the trial court ruling where the judge upheld this search, often they don't. He didn't care one little bit about the fact that the police were plotting about how to make this search. I'd say intrusive. The police would say effective... as possible.

What do proceedings look like when the Court of Appeals sends the case back to the lower court?

[11:38 - 12:27] TERI: Yeah, so that dog goes around and he alerts to the smell of drugs, and then they search the vehicle. They find cocaine and marijuana and charge him with a level six felony and a misdemeanor. Then his lawyers file a motion to suppress the evidence and they argue that the police did not have a good enough reason to stop or to search and that it violated his rights. And like you said, Jake, the trial court was convinced, and Boyd appealed, and earlier this month the Court of Appeals agreed with Boyd and they said that the stop and the search were unconstitutional, and they sent the case back down for further proceedings... with that ruling in place. What do those further proceedings actually look like when they can't use the drugs against him?

[12:27 - 14:15] JAKE: You know, that is a really interesting question, because the truth is that as we sit here right now we don't know what will happen next, because this is just the Indiana Court of Appeals. 

The Indiana Supreme Court could weigh in, so it is in what we call right now the waiting room. That's what it looks like on my case if you look it up, which means that the state is in this window where they can seek transfer to the Indiana Supreme Court, and if the Indiana Supreme Court reads this opinion and decides they don't like it, or they look at the state's brief and agree with them that the Court of Appeals got it wrong, they can take the case further up rather than sending it back down and change the ruling from the appeals ruling essentially. 

Now the state may choose not to do that, and it is also so if they don't, or if they try to do it and the Supreme Court says no, because the Supreme Court does that too, then it would go back to the trial court with a ruling ordering the trial court to suppress the evidence. 

In a case like that, it is highly unlikely that they have evidence that could go to trial on, because if everything after the search is inadmissible, then all the officer can say is 'I was following him' and then the state rests and the jury is like 'where's the cocaine? ... Not guilty. So those are the two directions that can go in.

[14:15 - 14:29] KASSI: Well, I was trying to look because I think that they only found that the search, the dog's entry into the cab of the car, was an intrusion. I don't believe that the stop, and that's what I was thumbing through the case to see.

[14:29 - 15:16] JAKE: Yeah, I would have been surprised as well if the court said that crossing over the fog line wasn't a valid reason to stop someone, because I think it is.

[14:40 - 15:07] KASSI: Yeah. I believe that, and maybe you misstated when you said that, but I mean definitely the dog's entry was an illegal search, but I believe that the ruling was that the stop itself was okay. Part of the reason the minimal nature of the stop went into the assessment of the totality of circumstances for the justification of the search. But it was, I believe that's how it went.

[15:07 - 15:16] JAKE: Yeah. And the Court of Appeals also, you can just sort of feel it in the opinion. They are not impressed by the police's... I guess they would say effectiveness, and I would say intrusiveness, right? We're just going to let a dog off a leash and let him run around through your car. 

What's interesting to me, and I always wonder how this happens, is like in the Court of Appeals someone from the office of the Indiana Attorney General has to defend the police's actions, right? So they're using, in one part at least in their brief, it's like the Indiana Litchfield factors, right? Which is the degree of suspicion, the need for the search, and how bad it is on the person that's getting searched. And can you imagine so they have to say, 'oh yeah, the police took a dog off a leash and let him run loose inside someone's car but that's not really very intrusive.' I know no one would be like 'just let a dog loose in my car, that's fine, no big deal.

When an appellate court corrects a lower court

[16:25 - 16:46] TERI: Now here's a question: When an appellate court corrects a lower court because they interpreted the law wrong, does anything negative happen to the judge that made the wrong decision, or do they get to keep sitting on the bench till the next election making rulings that don't align with the law?

[16:47 - 17:20] KASSI: It's called practicing law, and reasonable means reasonable minds will disagree. I mean part of the whole process is sorting those things out. I do think rulings can be so far out of bounds they can rise to an ethical violation, but I don't think that this trial court in this circumstance went anywhere close to that. But yes, bad rulings alone will not get a judge off a bench unless like the voters find out about it.

[17:21 - 18:39] JAKE: So there's one part of that that I want to make sure I clarify. That part of what you said, Teri. So just because this judge got this one wrong doesn't mean he's going to keep going and getting it wrong. Right. 

This was the kind of thing that I'm not sure that this specific issue on this specific set of facts had ever been decided before in the Court of Appeals. So now the judge certainly knows, right? And no one likes being told they're wrong. Judges who generally have a high enough opinion of themselves that they ran for judge definitely don't like being told they're wrong. He will not want to be told he was wrong again by continuing to mess it up, so it is unlikely that he will keep messing things up. He may run for election again, he also may not. .... 

Let me see that opinion. Kassi, I know you printed it. Because Teri probably doesn't know this but I noticed something sort of extra interesting about this.

Yeah, that's what I thought. The Honorable Bradley Jacobs. Well, everyone that was reading the news a few years ago might remember him because he got shot at a White Castle after leaving a strip club.

[18:39 - 18:40] TERI: That was him!

[18:40 - 18:43] KASSI:  Oh. Is that who that is? That was a trial court judge.

[18:43 - 18:47] JAKE: He was one of the judges in the White Castle parking lot.

[18:47 - 18:47] TERI: Okay.

[18:48 - 20:03] JAKE: ... that was shot in a scuffle with some other people after they left a strip club. Or no, they tried to go to a strip club but it was closed. It was something like that. They were in town for the judicial conference. And I'm not trying to be super judgmental about it, but it was a bit of a black eye for the judiciary generally. One of those three judges was eventually resigned from the bench, I think because I think she got charged with an additional crime, but all three judges got charged with crimes based on that event, although they most certainly got the worst of it. They were not armed with firearms and I think two of them got shot. 

Yeah, Judge Jacobs. I think was almost certainly one of the judges that was shot. I'm not making light of any of that, but he didn't get disbarred or removed from the bench for that. He's definitely not going to get in any kind of trouble for making the wrong ruling on a close case like that.

Prosecuting Fauci

[20:03 - 21:20] TERI: Interesting. So now we're going to do a quick political-criminal crossover here and talk about Indiana's Lieutenant Governor. He has been out publicly saying that prosecutors should charge Anthony Fauci over the COVID policies, or that the General Assembly should give the Attorney General the power to file those criminal charges himself. 

The people pushing for charges are talking about a whole range of possible crimes: lying to Congress, fraud, political nuisance, deceptive trade practices, and some broader theories tied to the COVID response and gain-of-function research. 

Right now Florida's Attorney General has an active investigation open that could go either civil or criminal, and there is also a Senate contempt referral sitting over at the Department of Justice.

So just to clarify, in Indiana only the local and county prosecutors actually have the authority to file criminal charges.

[21:09 - 21:10] KASSI: That's correct. 

Is expanding the Attorney General's charging authority a good idea?

[21:11 - 21:20] TERI: Is expanding the Attorney General's charging authority a good idea in general, or would it risk turning that office into a political weapon?

[21:21 - 21:41] JAKE: Well, one, it already is a political weapon, right? So I wouldn't, I don't know about the risk. I mean it has already become extraordinarily political. I feel often kind of weirdly bad for the folks who work there just because it's a job. Right, I just want to come pick up my lawyer check and go home at the end of the day. I don't want to be dragged into whether or not Fauci can lie about whether he lied and getting more trouble or not.

[21:59 - 22:01] KASSI: Generally, yeah.

[22:01 - 24:09] JAKE: I mean so what I would say is that it is an extraordinarily bad idea for the legislature to give the Attorney General the ability to charge people. And there's a few reasons why. One is like where does he get to charge them? Does it get to be in Marion County, or does it get to be in whatever county they supposedly committed the crime in? How is he going to charge Fauci? As far as I know Fauci never came to Indiana. You never did anything in Indiana. It was Indiana politicians and government officials that were making Indiana policy. Like what are they going to charge Fauci with in Indiana? But you know, Mike Beckwith doesn't understand how criminal law works, so it's not a surprise that he hasn't thought through those things.

But then the other question I have is if you let the Attorney General do that, then what you're doing is you're letting the entire state of Indiana vote on who should be charged in a particular county. So that means that now people are voting on politicians in small counties. Right? 

I'm from a small county. I'm not been out of shape about them being allowed to vote; they totally ought to vote. They shouldn't get to decide who charges people in the county where I live, right? 

I don't need voters in Vanderburgh County or Harrison County or Evansville or Knox County or any of those small little counties down south picking who gets to charge people in my county with crimes, any more than they would like it if we got to. Right. This is why county prosecutors are required to live in the county where they are the prosecutor.

So just a terrible idea. But just another way that the conservatives are attempting to influence Marion County, the Marion County judicial system overall, and they've already done that a bunch with the way they pick judges in Marion County as well. 

Do local and county prosecutors have a realistic plan forward to prosecute Fauci?

[24:10 - 24:32] TERI: So do the local and county prosecutors, there's no realistic plan for anything like that? There's no path forward. So Lieutenant Governor, he's calling on these prosecutors to do it. Like what? Path forward? Can you see one anywhere?

[24:33 - 25:23] JAKE: I mean I guess it depends on what crime he thinks Fauci committed in Indiana. But I'm not aware of one.

Most people don't understand or don't really think a lot about the fact that you have to be you get charged in the county where you committed the crime. They can't charge a person in Indiana for something that they did in D.C. So like, yeah, he just, here's the thing: it makes him popular with the specific subset of voters that he wants to appeal to for him to say things like 'we should charge Anthony Fauci.' I doubt anyone is taking it very seriously among the folks that actually understand how to do these things.

Can a local prosecutor bring criminal charges against a mad scientist for something done on a global level?

[25:24 - 25:55] TERI: Right. So I guess the bigger question, this will wrap it up on this specific issue: let's say some mad scientist did something truly criminal that affected everyone in the United States or the world for that matter, could a single county prosecutor in Indiana bring a criminal case on a small local level for something that massive, or does the system just not work that way? Like say like hypothetically.

[25:56 - 26:02] KASSI: I mean I guess if you're thinking like I'm thinking of an airborne weapon or something.

[26:02 - 26:04] TERI: Yeah, like that. 

[26:05 - 27:15] KASSI: I would think somewhere in there there would be a path to connecting that, because I mean if you could directly release it, I mean it's kind of like you throw something and I meant to throw it over here but it went over there, and the intent follows the path. It doesn't contain to actually where it went. I'm like 'I didn't mean to do that, I didn't mean to punch him in the face, I meant to throw it.'

So I think there could be a nexus in that situation. But what they're talking about with Fauci, I think it fails to understand a number of things. Like specifically I don't even know what the specific allegations are saying that he did wrong, and the thing is no one knows about these things. And being wrong and doing something knowingly wrong are not the same thing. And it's one of the benefits that you get as a public servant is that as long as you're working with good faith you're protected even if you are wrong. And I haven't seen any evidence that Dr. Fauci acted with bad faith, so proving that beyond a reasonable doubt I would think would be very difficult.

[27:16 - 28:40] JAKE: Yeah. And to your hypothetical, it depends a lot on what the mad scientist did. Right? So if the mad scientist hacked our nuclear stockpile and launched a nuclear weapon that landed in Indiana and killed people, yeah, I mean he's guilty of murder and can probably be charged with a thousand counts of murder however many people he killed. But you know it depends on what he did. He can't just say like 'he's a mad scientist and he did some stuff.'

There's this odd sort of subset of mostly conservatives I think that are really, really mad at Fauci and they want him to be charged with a bunch of crimes, and they are specifically alleging a lot of bad faith on his part. But I don't necessarily get it at this point. It seems like it's just they'll pull a couple of lines out of his diary from 2020 and be like 'this proves that he knew the whole time.' It's like, man, that was right in the middle of it. He probably didn't, you probably didn't really know anything. Like none of us did. 

[28:40 - 28:44] TERI: That little thing is one piece of the huge puzzle.  

[28:45 - 28:48] JAKE: Right. But they just want to focus on the one little piece and go 'ah'! 

[28:48 - 28:52] KASSI: And they're judging it from hindsight. 

[28:52 - 28:55] JAKE: Right. I made all sorts of stupid decisions in 2020.

[28:56 - 29:00] TERI: I did too. Now we...

[30:00 - 30:03] JAKE: Teri's like 'I did too, I took that job working for you guys.'

The Dollar Tree Gooner

[29:04 - 30:43] TERI: No, no, no, that was a great decision. But we are going to move on to a quick national story that's equal parts disgusting and weird. According to reporting from NBC 7 San Diego and a post from Colin Rugg on X, this month Dollar Tree is being sued after at least eleven women were allegedly targeted in what's being called the 'Dollar Tree gooner' trend where men are wiping semen on female shoppers inside the stores. 

One of the suspects is a twenty-two-year-old male Marine who was arrested on multiple counts of lewd acts and sexual battery after hitting three different women at the same San Diego store in a week. And this is not just a California problem, reporting incidences in multiple states including Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Colorado, Florida, and more. 

There are videos online of these attacks and the whole thing has gotten so bizarre that there's even a crypto coin and a Pokémon card about this Dollar Tree gooner. 

Now the lawsuit claims Dollar Tree knew about the problem, had broken cameras and some of their aisles, and did nothing. Now I could not find any of these reports happening in Indiana, but it is nationwide and Indiana does have Dollar Trees. 

Can you punch someone in the throat after they wipe semen on you?

So I want to know: if something like that happened here and the woman punched the guy in the throat, could she walk away on self-defense or is she looking at some type of charge herself? 

[30:43 - 31:02] KASSI: Is he trying to wipe a second round of semen and it was to deflect that, because the thing is if semen's on you there's no more semen coming at you, or no more attack. You aren't allowed to punch because that's retribution. That's not self-defense. 

[31:02 - 31:31] JAKE: So it depends on what he's doing. If he has battered you and you are in reasonable fear of being battered again, and believe me those count as batteries in Indiana. Okay? So if he is continuing to stand in front of you and appears to continue to have semen on his hand and you think he's going to do it a second time, yes, punch him in the throat. 

[31:31 - 31:22] TERI: So it's just one-time, no punch? 

[31:23 - 31:39] JAKE: But if he is walking away from you, you are no longer in danger of an additional battery. Then you are not allowed to go chase him down.

[31:39 - 31:52] TERI: But what if I know that there are people that do this to multiple women, that's what's reported in the news? So what if I had that in my mind like he might come back and get me?

[31:54 - 32:01] JAKE: Right. So the fear has to be reasonable, and what you're describing is reasonable fear. But the threat also has to be immediate. 

[32:01 - 32:05] TERI: And it's not when he's walking away... because I can walk away.

[32:06 - 32:17] JAKE: Well, you don't have to walk away. But when he's walking away, you at that point aren't reasonably in fear that he's going to do it again immediately at that moment. Now. If you see him again and he comes at you later, hand open, smile on his face, looking weirdly satisfied it would probably be reasonable to preemptively punch him in that situation. 

So if you're like 'that's the guy that wiped semen on me last week and he's coming at me again,' you don't have to wait. 

[32:42 - 32:48] TERI: Okay, that's good to know. Not like I'm going to be spending my time in the dollar stores, but just, 

[32:48 - 32:52] JAKE: We go, we go to the dollar store and we're not going to judge you if you go, it's cool. 

[32:52 - 33:02] TERI: I get my birthday party supplies there for sure. But they're here, and I don't know this may happen to some female Hoosier out there. 

[33:02 - 33:10] KASSI: It's just because the store has money. You know, the jizz smear guy doesn't have any money.

[33:10 - 33:11] JAKE: Semen.

[33:11 - ] KASSI: -- Semen. ...  or he'd be respectful and hire someone for this to exercise this kink or whatever. But I don't see what responsibility they have. I mean, that seemed like a pretty weak claim. But that's a civil suit, so.

[33:33 - 33:50] JAKE: I mean I guess if they have identified the problem and they do not, you know, they have an opportunity to trespass the person and they don't, maybe then. But yeah, I mean generally the business isn't going to be responsible for everything that the person does there, especially something that's kind of unforeseeable.

[33:51 - 33:58] TERI: But now with it being reported that this is a nationwide trend, is it a little foreseeable?

[33:58 - 34:16] KASSI: Well then you gotta think about the reality. Well who gets to draw that line? So somebody does this, now every single store across the country or even across the city is now legally obligated to put up safety, I mean no one's obligated to have security cameras up.

[34:16 - 34:44] JAKE: Yeah. So this is where discovery comes into play sometimes in these situations, right? Because now that the person has sued Dollar Tree or Dollar General, they can issue subpoenas and pull inter-store memos, emails, anything related to this phenomenon. And if they can prove for example that Dollar Tree sent a memo out to all of their stores telling them "hey, watch out for the guy smearing semen on people, that's gross". 

[34:46 - 34:47] KASSI: Turn off your cameras or something. 

[34:48 - 35:14] JAKE: Here's a picture of one of them at your store. You should ban him if you see him again.' And they didn't do it, you know then it would be foreseeable. Right? In fact we can say it's foreseeable because they foresaw it. But if not then I don't know, this is the first I was hearing of this. All I have to say about it from a personal opinion is, what? No, don't. Like, just why? 

[35:14 - 35:17] KASSI: And that term, was that term already existed? What was it, gooner?

[35:17] JAKE: Gooner.

[35:18 - 35:23] TERI: Gooner. Dollar Tree gooner. I don't know, gooner. I've never heard that. 

[35:24 - 35:25] KASSI: I'll be getting on Urban Dictionary.

[35:25 - 35:28] JAKE: I'm too old. I'm too old for this. 

[35:28 - 35:29] TERI: We'll be finding out what a gooner is.

[35:30 - 35:55] JAKE: Like kids in the 90s did dumb stuff, but we also liked it was cool. Like, this is just toxic. This is not hitting a mailbox with a baseball bat, you know what I mean? And I haven't done that either because that looks dangerous. But this is not toilet-papering a tree, right, or throwing an egg or something. What guys, it's not a contest to be the worst person ever.

[35:55 - 35:57] TERI: Yeah, it's really not. Don't compete.

[35:58- 36:00] TERI: We'll get to Florida Man right after this.

Sponsor - Your Cell Phone

[36:00 - 36:28] JAKE: (Sponsor read) Today's update on Florida Man is brought to you by your cell phone. Are you looking for something more addictive than crack cocaine, twice as expensive but also legal? Something that will constantly remind you of how awful you are, mainly so that you can then try to escape your intrusive thoughts by swiping left over and over again until your fingers are raw? Try your cell phone. Here's one of your cell phone's happy users: 

[36:28 - 36:53] KASSI: 'I love my phone. It provides me with 120% of my daily recommended dose of rage. I can't live without it. If I didn't have my phone, I'm not sure what I do. Take a walk? Enjoy a sunset? Take in the beautiful smell of my neighborhood lavender tree at dusk? Fuck that shit. Give me those sweet, sweet dopamine hits and leave me alone, please and thank you.' 

[36:54 - 36:57] JAKE: This message NOT actually brought to you by your cell phone.

Florida Man - Two Florida

[36:59 - 37:15] TERI: So this week's Florida Man is peak Florida Man according to 13 News and local Panama City reporting from this past weekend. Two Florida men get into it in a public parking lot over a woman. 

[37:15 - 37:24] JAKE: See, that is the first mistake, right? You do not combine Florida men. Like Florida Men is more than two times as bad as Florida Man. 

[37:24 - 27:33] TERI: And they bring it to us here. So first Florida Man, I'm, he's thirty-five years old. I was gonna say the thirty-five-year-old and then we have a fifty-two-year-old. Okay.

[37:35 - 37:36] KASSI: I thought the thirty-five was bad.

[37:36 - 38:03] TERI: Well just wait. The fifty-two-year-old, he's sitting in his car in this grocery store parking lot, and the thirty-five-year-old approaches him. And they argue about a woman that the thirty-five-year-old used to date and now the fifty-two-year-old is currently dating. The thirty-five-year-old goes back to his car, grabs a machete, okay, and then hits the fifty-two-year-old in the face with it.

[38:04 - 38:05] JAKE: That's a little bit of an overreaction.

[38:05 - 38:07] TERI: The fifty-two-year-old responds by swinging a hatchet. 

[38:08 - 38:10] JAKE: Hatchet versus machete. 

[38:10 - 38:50] TERI: Yeah, and went down in that parking lot. Both men ended up in the hospital. The thirty-five-year-old had a deep cut to his pinky that exposed the bone and a puncture wound to his abdomen. The fifty-two-year-old with cuts in his hand and face, and he was claiming that he was knocked unconscious.

The police say the thirty-five-year-old was the aggressor. Both get charged with aggravated battery. 

And for extra Florida flavor, the thirty-five-year-old was only released from prison last year after serving time for a 2011 killing in which he fractured a sixteen-year-old's skull with a chain. In a case known as the vampire cult murder.

[38:51 - 38:52] JAKE: I thought he was going to be a machete. 

[38:52 - 39:01] TERI: No. Now the thirty-five-year-old was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for that murder and he was released in June of 2024, so he made it two years.

[39:03 - 39:13] JAKE: Yeah. Well, the thing about being Florida Man, right, is that when you commit crimes then you go to Florida prison, and when you go to Florida prison all you learn how to do is be more of a Florida Man.

There's no rehabbing in Florida prison. It's just you're surrounded by Florida Men.

What are you going to learn there? Who is his mentor? The guy probably the guy [who] introduced the macaques to that state park that we talked about six years ago, right?

[39:33 - 39:50] TERI: Now the most recent public reports still state that both the thirty-five and fifty-two-year-old are being held in the Bay County jail at a fifty-thousand-dollar bond each. And it's not clear if the fifty-two-year-old has an attorney, but that thirty-five-year-old he's listed as representing himself.

[39:50 - 39:51] JAKE: Yeah. Why not? 

[39:51 - 39:54] KASSI: All the lawyers have failed them up to this point. 

[39:54 - 40:01] JAKE: Right? It didn't go well. I mean he tried a lawyer the first time probably and it didn't work out well. Florida Man learns from his mistakes. He'll just go by himself this time.

[40:03 - 40:10] TERI: Now if this happened in Indiana, would the two men be charged with the same thing?

[40:10 - 41:09] JAKE: If it happened in Indiana, neither would get charged with anything. 

Just kidding. The dude who just walks up because he's mad and clocks the other dude in the face with a machete would get charged with battery with a deadly weapon, probably also aggravated battery, but it depends on the specifics of the injuries, and maybe attempted murder, especially if he said something smart like 'I'll kill your Florida ass' before he hit him with the machete. 

The guy who returns with the hatchet possibly doesn't get charged with anything. I'm surprised he got charged with anything in Florida, especially since we know that's a stand-your-ground state.

There are specifics where both people can get charged. The interesting question, and I know Kassi has dealt with this issue before, so the interesting question is what do they do when the first one comes to trial?

[41:10 - 41:11] KASSI: As far as getting the other one to testify?

[41:12 - ] JAKE: right? How are you going to get one guy to testify against the other?

Because if I'm hatchet guy and I'm being charged with hitting a guy with a hatchet and they call me to testify against machete guy, I'm going to be like 'one, two, three, four, fifth.' I plead the fifth.

That's from Dave Chappelle by the way.

Yeah, no. I'm going to be like, so many numbers to choose from. Which one? Oh yeah, the fifth. The Fifth Amendment. 

[41:43 - 41:49] Dr. Anthony Fauci - July 29, 2026: 

"On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution." 

[41:51 - 42:40] JAKE: Like, he, hatchet guy, is not testifying. And the only way, I don't know about Florida, but in Indiana, the only way you can get hatchet guy to testify in that situation is if you give him use immunity. But you can force upon him by promising him that you won't use anything he says in the trial against him. But then you're stuck with whatever hatchet-wielding Florida Man says from the stand. Which could be 'dude hit me with a machete,' could be 'dude hit me with an alligator,' could be 'I wasn't there, I don't remember it very well. I don't have any clue how I got all these machete marks on my face.' But they also might have video since it was in a supermarket parking lot. I don't know.

Florida Man Board Game by UltraPro

[42:41 - 42:55] TERI: That's true. So years ago we talked about a Florida Man board game, and I don't think we ever actually got one, but I did. ... And maybe we could play a couple rounds sometime.

[42:55 - 42:56 JAKE: Oh my gosh. 

[42:56 - 42:57] KASSI: For sure. Absolutely.

[42:58 - 43:18] JAKE: We don't have a video here, so I'm going to describe this. Push it over to me a little bit. There we go.

The Gator Gazettes Florida Man. Can you tell which outrageous story is made up? This is adult, it's not suitable for work, for two to ten players, adult content.

Did you buy this somewhere? You didn't make this, did you?

[43:18 - 43:19] TERI: I bought it.

[43:19 - 43:21] JAKE: Okay. I was gonna say this...

[43:21 - 43:22] TERI: I would, I'd like to take credit, but no.

[43:23 - 43:24] KASSI: Credit it's an Ultra Pro game.

[43:24 - 43:30] JAKE: Ultra Pro Entertainment. You want me to read a couple cards?

[43:30 - 43:35] TERI: Sure, okay. Let's see if Kassi and I can guess which one. 

[43:35 - 43:37] KASSI: There's a map of Florida.

[43:37 - 43:43] JAKE: Yeah, there's like, I think if you get enough right you eventually make it all the way to the end of America's penis. 

[43:43 - 43:49] TERI: And the pieces are you pick your favorite T-shirt. So yeah, like little T-shirts.

[43:49 - 43:53] JAKE: Okay, now I gotta figure out how do you tell which one's real and which one's fake. 

[43:53 - 43:56] TERI: Like they're all a color and one's a different color.

[43:57 - 44:02] JAKE: Okay, the fictional headline is the one in red. Ready?

[44:03] TERI: Yes.

[44:04 - 44:12] JAKE: Yeah. Okay, A: Florida Man impersonates FBI agent, leaves catfish on homeowner's lawn.

[44:12 - 44:13] TERI: That sounds like him.

[44:14 - 44:22] JAKE: B: Florida Man tries to avoid court appearance by claiming he has Ebola. That's like somebody in every state, right? 

[44:22 - 44:25] TERI: Right. That's not specifically Florida.

[44:26 - 45:16] JAKE: C: Florida Man chops off own pinky finger in drunken dare at bar.

[44:26 - 44:31] TERI: For sure. 

[44:32 - 44:33] KASSI: We're supposed to pick the fake one?

[44:34 - 44:35] JAKE: Yeah, one of those three is fake.

[44:35 - 44:37] TERI: There was one I said no.

[44:38 - 44:41] KASSI: ... the one with the impersonate the FBI agent?

[44:42 - 44:43] JAKE: Impersonating the FBI agent, you think that one's fake?

[44:40 - 44:48] KASSI: They all sound, they all sound real, but the first one... The second one was... 

[44:48 - 44:50] JAKE: The second was tries to avoid court by saying he has Ebola. 

[44:50] TERI: I'm going with that one.

[44:52 - 44:54] JAKE: You think that one's fake? 

[44:54] TERI: Yea.

[44:55] JAKE: And you think?

[44:56 - 44:57] KASSI: The first one's fake.

[44:58 - 45:04] JAKE: You're both wrong. That was the third one. The cuts-off-pinky Florida Man.

[45:05 - 45:06] KASSI: Sorry, Florida man. I totally put that one on you. 

[45:06 - 45:26] JAKE: Cutting off his own pinky at the bar in a drunken dare. That that's the fake one. 

A Florida man did apparently, according to this board game which we have not vetted for truthfulness, avoid, try to avoid court by claiming he has Ebola. And another one impersonated an FBI agent leaving a catfish on his homeowner's lawn.

You want to do one more?

[45:27 - 45:27] KASSI & TERI: Sure.

[45:28 - 45:31] JAKE: Okay. Sorry I just kind of co-opted this. Did you want to do it?

[45:31 - 45:32] TERI: No, I like when you co-opt it.. 

[45:32 - 45:46] JAKE: Okay. All right. A: Florida Man accidentally poisoned by own bathtub moonshine. B: Florida Man swallows two necklaces during robbery.

[45:46] TERI: That happened. 

[45:47 - 45:51] JAKE: That's just, where else would you put it? I mean it's either there...

[45:52] TERI: Oh, they will find other places.

[45:53 - 46:07] JAKE: See, the, there, nature's purse... nature's handbag.

C: Florida Man dressed as pirate arrested for firing muskets at cars. 

[46:07] TERI: That probably happens.

[46:08 - 46:14] JAKE: That one seems fake, but the catfish one seemed fake too. 

[46:14 - 46:15] KASSI: I'm going to go with the last one.

[46:15 - 46:17] JAKE: You think the last one is fake?

[46:17 - 46:20] KASSI: A costume operating--

[46:21] TERI: I'm going with the first.

[46:22 - 46:25] JAKE: you're going with A? Okay. Kassi, are you sure?

[46:27 - 46:30] KASSI: You want me to change my answer? 

[46:31 - 46-40] JAKE: We're doing wait-wait-don't-tell-me. Basically this is exactly like wait-wait-don't-tell-me. Remember Peter Seigl sometimes goes 'are you sure that you want to go with' I'm not sure

[46:41 - 46:43] KASSI: I'll go with A.

[46:44 - 46:56] JAKE: You're both correct. Congratulations, excellent work! The fake one is that he accidentally poisoned by his own bathtub moonshine. And the clue that that one's fake is bathtub moonshine.

[46:56 - 47:01] TERI: Right. That's too much moonshine for Florida Man to... in a bathtub...

Lessons not learned from prohibition

{47:02 - ] JAKE: People routinely made moonshine in a bathtub when it was illegal during prohibition. But like all drug users, when you can get it legally you always want to buy it legally, right? Because I'd much rather have Anheuser-Busch make my poison than some guy in his bathtub. Naturally.

It's amazing how few lessons we learned from prohibition, right? We made a drug illegal, people kept doing the drug anyway. The gangsters took over the trade of the drug. A bunch of people got murdered needlessly. A bunch of other people went blind or died by consuming bad batches of the drug. Sound familiar?

[47:46] TERI: Yeah, yeah. 

[47:47 - 47:51] JAKE: Sounds a little bit like a drug. Like something else that's been going on in this country?

[47:51] TERI: A little bit.

[47:52 - 48:01] JAKE: That they don't seem to care. Spoiler alert: the government doesn't really care about you. All right. Thank you for bringing that in though, Teri. That's awesome.

[48:01 - 48:03] TERI: No problem. I thought we would have fun with it. 

[48:04 - 48:06] JAKE: I think we're gonna have a lot of fun with it. You should just leave it here.

[48:06 - 48:10] TERI: Yeah, that's the plan. And that is all I have for this relaunch.

[48:11 - 51:47] JAKE: Well, thank you again for listening to Tales from the Brown Desk. 

Please remember while we may discuss legal issues and provide information regarding the law to our listeners, we do not intend to create an attorney-client relationship with any listener. Our advice may not be applicable to some legal issues. Please consult with an attorney you have hired to review your legal situation before you attempt to apply the things we have said to your case, especially if you are a Florida Man. 

Tales from the Brown Desk is produced by Rigney Law and Teri Muehlhausen, and edited by Teri Muehlhausen. If you want to ask a listener question, email me at Jake at rigneylawindy.com and entitle your email 'Podcast Question' and we'll probably read it on our next podcast. 

Give us new content for free, we have regular jobs, we don't have time to sit around and think about this all day.

Buzzsprout says this podcast will get sixty-two downloads, which is crazy to me because the last one aired five and a half years ago and the last one got thirty-one. Like they said it would be thirty-one, so somehow we have doubled in popularity despite not being on the air for the last five years. Don't ask me how to explain that. Somehow apparently not posting our podcast made us more popular.

I think it's probably because I have the personality of a moth. Everyone was very happy when we went away, and now they'll be very sad that we're back.

The final episode from season one was downloaded almost two hundred and forty times in Frankfurt, Germany. I don't know why. That's like five times as many as have downloaded it in Indianapolis.

I will never know why. I have theories. They don't speak well of me. My guess is there's an AI. My guess is there's an AI company and they are teaching the AI how to talk like humans by listening to podcasts. We also have a few downloads from Vietnam, and I think it's for the same reason. I think that they're just training their AI.

[50:28 - 50:33] KASSI: Shout out to Frankfurt, Germany. If you're a real person out there, shoot us an email. 

[50:34 - 50:38] JAKE: Yes, email us in German so that I can read it in German and not answer the question because I don't understand it.

[50:40 - 50:43] TERI: Yeah. And if you're AI, you can figure out a way to send Jake an email too.

[50:44 - 50:59] JAKE: So I'm sure they're capable, they can do all sorts of fun things. The attorneys at Rigney Law do not comment on their current pending cases. There's nothing we have said in this podcast as a comment on a case we are currently working on. Even if you have the measles, take care.

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