Judge Orders Man To Pay “Idiot Tax”
A Reading man escaped time behind bars today for throwing a flaming gas can at cars, but will have to pay a special fine that the judge said properly describes his actions. “We’ll call that an idiot tax,” Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Norbert Nadel told Christopher Keim. Keim, 33, pleaded guilty Jan. 29 to attempted aggravated arson in exchange for prosecutors dropping a felonious assault charge stemming from a July 25 incident.
Keim threw a burning plastic gasoline container under a car as it passed his Reading home. The gas container stuck under Joshua Metcalf’s 1997 car as it drove by and destroyed it. Metcalf’s name also is spelled Medcalf in court documents. Metcalf was able to get out of the car with only burned leg hairs before it was destroyed. Initially, Keim denied any involvement. Then he said he was using the gas to burn bank statements and somehow the gas container caught fire and he panicked and threw it.
But assistant prosecutor Jeff Heile said another witness told police that she had a fireball thrown at her car as she passed Keim’s house and when she turned around to see what had happened, she saw Metcalf’s car ablaze. Keim paid Metcalf $3,000 for the car, hoping to avoid jail. Metcalf told officials he had to quit a second job he had because he lost the car, his only way to get to that job.
He did avoid jail, but it still cost him. Nadel placed Keim on probation for three years – telling him if he violated it, he would go to prison for five years – and ordered him to do 40 hours of community service. The judge also fined Keim $2,500 for an “idiot tax,” ordering it to go to Metcalf if his bills from the incident had not been covered by Keim.
Source: Cincinnati.com
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