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Doug McIntyre: The long - and short - reach of the law
Los Angeles Daily News ^ | 1/27/13 | Doug McIntyre

Posted on 01/27/2013 12:31:16 PM PST by Mark

Robin Hall (Brevard County Sheriff's Department)

She could run but she couldn't hide.

The long arm of the law has finally caught up with the notorious Robin Hall and I, for one, feel safer.

Way back in 1991, an 18-year Robin Hall entered a Florida Wal-Mart store and brazenly snatched a pack of cigarettes. That's right, she was a shoplifter. And a smoker.

A smoking shoplifter. That's the worst kind.

Caught red-handed, Hall was turned over to authorities and ordered to pay the state of Florida $85 in court costs.

But Hall was too slippery for Florida.

She dodged her debt to society, stiffing the taxpayers out of the 85 bucks and set about creating what she thought was a brilliant facade to throw the police off her trail.

Robin Hall worked her way through college where she earned excellent grades. Robin Hall kept her nose clean and never stole anything again.

Robin Hall eventually married and has been a loving mother to her two children, and just to screw with the law, Robin Hall moved to Connecticut where she found employment as an architect designing jet engines for Pratt & Whitney.

She's no rocket scientist, just a jet engine architect. Yes, Robin Hall thought she was pretty clever, all right. But criminals always trip themselves up and so did Robin.

She took a family vacation, a cruise, on the Disney Dream. But her dream of fleeing justice quickly became her nightmare when Hall's past finally caught up with her.

Upon arrival last week at Port Canaveral, a routine check of the passenger list for terrorists turned up the 22-year-old warrant on Hall.

The law was there to greet Robin at the gangway. Held on an out-of-county warrant that prohibits bail, Hall sat in the Brevard County Jail awaiting transfer to Orange County, Fla., the scene of her crimes. A blubbering Hall made a play for heartstrings, telling the media, "I just want it all to be over so I can go home."

Maybe she should have thought of that before she helped herself to a pack of Wal-Mart's smokes. There are no statutes of limitations in Marlboro Country.

Of course, had Robin Hall just been a child-molesting priest assigned to L.A.'s Cardinal Roger Mahony she could have taken all the cruises she'd like.

Because we also learned last week, the head of America's largest Catholic congregation conspired with his chief lieutenant to impede criminal and civil investigations into the sexual predator priests under their supervision.

Thirty-thousand pages of nauseating documents point to the direct involvement of Mahony and then Monsignor (now Bishop) Thomas Curry in obstructing law enforcement including the transfer of rapists and child molesters out of state and out of the reach of investigators. And there's nothing we can do about it. After all, these rapes happened many years ago, some as far back as 1991.

Holy smokes.

________________________________________

Doug McIntyre's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.

You can reach him at Doug@KABC.com.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abuse; catholic; church
Oh my!
1 posted on 01/27/2013 12:31:26 PM PST by Mark
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To: Mark

An architect designing jet engines? That and the TSA makes me not want to fly.


2 posted on 01/27/2013 12:44:04 PM PST by LoneRangerMassachusetts (The meek shall not inherit the Earth)
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To: LoneRangerMassachusetts

Don’t worry. Jet engine design is a team effort. The Architect has a small task, among the physics doctorates, engineers, metallurgists, and draftsmen.


3 posted on 01/27/2013 1:04:32 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: donmeaker

They pick out the colors for the cowlings and design new logos.


4 posted on 01/27/2013 2:07:20 PM PST by Boiler Plate ("Why be difficult, when with just a little more work, you can be impossible" Mom)
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