Don's Blog: March 2017

Clay Shaw/Man of a Million Fragments: The True Story of Clay Shaw/Dueling Voices/I Lost It at the Beginning/101 Reasons Not To Murder The Entire Saudi Royal Family/He Knew Where He Was Going (?)

Saturday, March 4, 2017

The Dark Side of Judge Wapner

In the news today, at Dinosaur National Monument on the Colorado/Utah border, a stegosaurus egg hatched after being placed in open sunlight for sixteen days. Some children visiting the park had removed the egg from its storage case. Efforts are being made to place the animal in a good home...

In Nashville, Tennessee, an embattled judge being investigated for corruption has agreed to provide a comprehensive list of the names of all the women with whom he has had sex in his chambers. Judge Casey...

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a handful of individuals who had appeared before Judge Joseph Wapner on "The People's Court" have stepped forward to maintain that the judge sometimes demanded a portion of the awards he dished out.

Henry Sophalonius, who appeared on the TV show in 1986, said that before deciding in his favor on a dispute involving $79, the judge summoned him privately to his chambers and demanded a "rebate" of $41. "I was with him up to a third of the amount he awarded," Sophalonius remarked bitterly. "But to demand more than half, I thought that clearly crossed the line..."

In another instance, Donna Shammarosky said that, in a 1987 appearance on the show, the judge awarded her custody of a French poodle after she and her boyfriend of seven years split up. "But he let it be known that he would only do it if he could stop by my apartment during certain hours to pet Flossie," Shammrosky recalled. "It didn't seem like a big deal at the time, so I agreed to it. But then he started showing up at all hours wanting to pet her, and once he even went in when I wasn't there and took Flossie home with him! I had to beg for her back."

The bailiff on the show, Rusty, did not return phone calls; neither did announcer Doug Llewelyn...