As far as the grandma seizure, you need $5,000 down and $500/hour to use the “justice” system. Most people simply can’t afford it. The paper ran an article or two, but the law is the law and the authorities have set up entire departments to use that law to fund themselves.
As far as the entrapment, yes. But going to court would have destroyed the men even if they won, which was by no means assured. By signing over everything they at least got to start over.
Incidentally, they were all instantly divorced. I suspect (but don’t know) that their wives were able to claim half of their common property. Perhaps they got some of their stuff back that way. (But I don’t know that. That’s playing games I hope I never have to play.)
Yeah, I’ve gotten a couple of tastes of how expensive justice can be, mostly on the civil side.
I find it amazing that our government acts like justice is frictionless. When you have all the regulation we have, one pencil-neck deep in the bureaucracy is effectively your judge and jury, because he can impose a huge hurdle cost at the stroke of a pen. The IRS moves against conservatives—audits, tax-status games, requests for donor lists—fall into this class of arbitrary penalty.