Well if he didn't mean it on the phone he sure as hell does now.

Lots of overreaction on all sides here. However, this really bothers me:

On June 27th, he was "was lured to a Fostoria, Ohio, police station with a false story about being suspected in a tavern fight there,"

What? Saying "you threatened a person over the phone" doesn't cut it, so they made up some crazy lie?

@post_break:
That's horrible that they called the police on him. Crime or not, nobody should take that crap seriously. They're harrassing him on the phone, and he mouthed off. Ridiculous.

Using illegal practices to drive a man to terrorist threats, sure sounds like they are an accomplice... Why don't we just tell them they won the lottery and need to pick up there free boat at the police station.

"How exactly you "don't patronize" a borderline-scam warranty company that cold-calls you and tries to trick you ..."

From the article: "Tracie Papenfus said her husband called a St. Louis telemarketing firm - she didn't know the name - after getting a mailer ..."

So, they didn't cold-call him. He called them. They sent him junk mail and he called the number on the flyer and said he's going to "burn down the building and kill the employees and their families."

So to paraphrase the cop: "don't dial the number on junk mail and threaten to kill whoever answers."

I'm still sorry he's in jail. And I agree with him. They piss me off too and I have the same fantasy he does. But I don't say it out loud. The folks that run the scam should be in federal PMITA prison. And we should have a live Web feed so we can watch. And be able to pipe our laughter and heckling into their jail cells via the net to disturb their peace forever.

Darn.

Just this afternoon I asked the telewhore what it would cost for a profanity. The telewhore was ticked off. Does this mean I could be arrested for solicitating prostitution?

@Darrone: Or "their" free boat...

@XianZomby: Yeah, I used "cold call" very loosely to describe the act of sending spam via snail mail to his address. I shouldn't have--lazy writing. I'll change it to "spam."

My main point, however, is that they made the first move.

@Coles_Law: No, I think that is how they got him to come in. Cops do that to people all the time but usually when they can't find the person to arrest so they will tell them they won a contest or something and when they get there they are arrested.

@Chris Walters: But can we agree on PMITA prision for the telemarketers?

@XianZomby: As long as there's that piping-in-our-laughter part, yes.

@Coles_Law:

Sounds like the old police detective false story to gain the persons trust and prove their alibi (or lack there-of) for a non related incident.

The guy could prove he wasn't at the tavern by claiming he was home alone... which proves he was at home at the time the call was placed and could be the only person responsible.

Remember, the police are allowed to lie, and you are not. Unless you ask the police to investigate an incident you better damn well know why you are answering their questions.

Sounds to me suspiciously like someone at the company in question has a friend or relative at the police dept. I have seen this in the past on more than one occasion. Once my bro-in-law's son was playing his drums, indoors, in the basement. Police show up and arrest him, not the adult son, for disturbing the peace. No warning, no citation. Turns out the 23-year-old neighbor, who had a habit of having late night fights, was the daughter of the sargent. Almost had a riot as the rest of the neighbors began protesting. Most police look for some verification before anything as bold as an arrest, due to the possibility of the locality being sued.

I'm glad that obviously over the top threats made in anger in response to mail fraud can get this much attention from the police. I have no doubts that the mechanic isn't a particularly nice guy, but this is outrageous. The police not only tricked him into traveling half a thousand miles for their bullshit shenanigans, but they did it preying on his desire to help in an investigation. I sincerely hope there is some way that mail fraud statutes can be applied to that.

On the bright side, I'm sure this will be the start of a great career for some defense attorney willing to do some pro bono work.

On the plus side, we now know where these fuckers are operating from.

Any St. Louis-area Consumeristas willing to do some scouting?

@Chris Walters: No, they didn't "make the first move". Real life is not a game where you get to threaten people with death if the company they work for pisses you off somehow.

I suspect if Consumerist posted a snarky story including a consumer complaint that turned out to be false, and the wronged business owner threatened to kill you and your families, you wouldn't be sitting around mumbling "well, gee, can't blame the guy, we made the first move."

@Coles_Law: Unless I missed something the story doesn't say if he was lured there by the police who made up the phony story.

I know police run sting operations where they'll send mail to people who have open warrants telling them they've won something then lure them to an address where they are arrested. It's possible they did the same thing here so they wouldn't have to drive 900 miles to pick him up and then bring him back to their jurisdiction.

None-the-less, what was done to him is overkill (no pun intended).

Please, really, read the OP link article.

When I read it I felt that Mr. Papenfus is a knucklehead and/or was affected by legit persciption medication, but nevertheless has a wholly legitmate and approprate complaint to make. And, as mentioned by earlier posters, over-reaction by all parties involved.

So, icky as it seems, I admire the guy a bit. If I hear of a legal fund, I will certianly donate. Which brings up another problem: Will my donation put on a list of donors to terrorists, and put me in a worse spot in the TSA no fly list?

Ok, but wouldn't the charges have to be filed with St. Louis City Police Department because the call ORIGINATED there? I'm from St. Louis and went thru a prank call/stalking issue and they told me that they couldn't let me file a complaint in the municipality I was in (where the call was picked up) but it had to be filed with wherever the person was who was PLACING the call. And since 300 N. Tucker is in STL city limits (downtown, actually), I would think that that's where you file charges or a complaint.

Also - STLToday.com is the Web site for the newspaper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. AAAAAND...the STL Post Dispatch is located at 900 N. Tucker, right down the block from the telemarketing place. They'll have a bird's eye view if somebody in the St. Louis area gets fed up with the telemarketing and decides to pay them a visit.

@Bogart's Falcon aka Philly Falcon: RTFA.

@HeartBurnKid: Agent of R.O.A.C.H.: The reporter of this article shoulda took themselves down the road. STLToday.com is the Web site for the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper - which is located at 900 N. Tucker - right down the street from the telemarketing place.

Mr Papenfus should consider a temporary insanity plea. That's how his behavior appears.

@Vanilla5: Ahhh, I see. He called THEM. I thought they cold-called HIM.

Nevermind.

@tbax929: You should read the article - he got a mailer and then...well -

He called the firm after receiving the mailer, then he called the company back to complain some more, said Douglas Forsyth, a local attorney representing Papenfus. The call during which Papenfus allegedly made a terrorist threat was initiated by the firm, in a response to a voice-mail message left by Papenfus, Forsyth said.

It was an escalating issue. The full lesson is "Do not overeact to a direct mailer that you know is junkmail, call repeatidly with some vague goal in mind that amounts to 'make them feel bad' that will likely end in having your anger management issues lead to bad decisions you can't take back."

@XianZomby: Actually they call all the time here in Ohio. I get at least one call from them every other day, and it has been going on for months now. In fact I just received one of their postcards yesterday saying pretty much word for word what they said here. Of course when I'm in a bad mood, and want to annoy them I don't threaten to kill them all I just pick up the phone and leave it off the hook until they hang up.

@mythago: I agree with your premise, but your analogy is off.

The analog would be Consumerist knowingly posting false stories about the business.

Unless you're just alleging that the auto-warranty company is guilty on simply not fact-checking.

@Xerloq: Snark is irrelevant in either situation.

@Vanilla5: Are you talking about a complaint, pressing charges, or a law suit?

Pretty sure you can file suit/press charges complaint wherever the plantiff or defendant live. Generally, as the plantiff, you should file in whichever jurisdiction has the laws most favorable to you, so you're more likely to win.

@mythago: I think you missed my point--the officer suggests you don't patronize companies like this. Papenfus didn't patronize them. He wasn't even shopping for a warranty. They contacted him first.

So yes they did in fact make the first move. There's no splitting hairs or arguing semantics about that. They reached out to him with a transparently false "warning" in an attempt to get his business.

What happened after that was unfortunate all around, and we obviously don't condone it. (See title of post.)

It would be interesting to know exactly what Papenfus said. The fact that law enforcement has taken it this far makes me wonder if he was very specific with the threats, which would actually fit the charge.

One would hope that if they extradited this guy to a different state and held him on such a high bond they had a pretty good reason. Then again, maybe it's a total abuse of discretion on the prosecutor's part.

Meanwhile, take this as an example of what happens to all defendants who don't have the money to post bail. This guy has been in jail for three weeks and hasn't been convicted of anything yet.

@ChuckECheese: That's an extremely hard case to win, despite what TV will have you believe.

Ultimately the guy screwed up. It sucks they called the police, but death threats are kinda over the top, regardless of the receiver.

@ChuckECheese: Well, the risk there is you end up locked in the loony bin for longer than you would have been in jail.

Any individual who would even think to "threaten to burn down their place of business and then kill them and their families" when a telemarketer calls needs serious help AND the police called on them.

Enough said about this post.

@Chris Walters: Did they contact him first? Absolutely. But "make the first move" really implies that hey, it was their fault, they started it.

@AliyaBabasaur: I did, as you so kindly and eloquently put it RTFA. What it stated, in part is:

"Papenfus' wife, Tracie, said she hasn't seen her husband since his arrest on June 27, when he was lured to a Fostoria, Ohio, police station with a false story about being suspected in a tavern fight there.

It does not say if the police made up the story to get him there or if they were give a phony story from someone possibly the the piece of crap at the location the OP called. After he was there, or while he was on his way, the real reason could have surfaced.

An assumption could be made, by how the paragraph was worded, that the police made up the story. However, we don't know that for sure.

What's their phone number? I'll call them up and threaten to burn down their building too. seriously (pay phone of course, with a hoodie on so Skynet can't see me) This case is just another example of why America is in shambles: stupid money wasting lawsuit by a fraud-spewing company against a fed up regular dude charged with TERRORISM. HA St. Louis police. If that's terrorism then what is a road side bomb? What are suicide bombers? What is hijacking planes of innocent civilians and flying them into office buildings full of innocent civilians? How dare someone put a phone call in the same category...

@mythago: @Woden501: I agree it was a bad move on the part of the OP to make the threats. Hopefully the judge will have received a large number of letters and telephone calls from these asshats selling the warranties. That might make him more sympathetic to the OP.

After reading the linked article, I'm still wondering what kind of evidence there was that Papenfus had threatened the telescammer company, other than the telescammer's say-so? It doesn't seem to indicate that Papenfus had been recorded making the threat to burn the building down. The only verifications of the threat mentioned in the article seem to come from his wife and his own attorney, statements presumably made after he was arrested. So it does seem clear that he did actually threaten to burn down the building.

I would hope that the police had more evidence to go on than just the tele-scammer's statement before they arrested the guy.

@midwestkel: Yes, and it is perfectly legal. There's a reason people call cops "pigs."

Isn't the word "terrorism" generally restricted to ideologically based acts? Since when is yelling at somebody on the phone a "terrorist threat?"

So I'm confused. It took them over a month to bring him in after the offense? They brought him in in Ohio and then transferred him without extradition to Missouri? The St. Louis City Workhouse, oddly named as it is, is apparently a city jail--how'd he get in there?

I totally agree that you do not, not, not get to threaten violence to people, over the phone or anywhere else. But there's a whole lot of WTF? about this case.

Let this be a lesson to you all. Never answer cops' questions unless required by law. If he didn't go to the station (and likely confess), he probably would never have been arrested.

While I have no love for shady borderline-scam companies that prey on consumers already suffering from a global recession, Postawko was right when he said that "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Cold-calling and sending fraudulent mail is a crime in itself which should be prosecuted but it does not make it okay to commit the additional crime of threatening to kill someone.

@Chris Walters:
Actually, I think you missed the point. The cop isn't saying he's at fault because he initiated contact with the company. He's saying that the mature (not illegal) response to an unwanted and unsolicited business offer is to not do business with that company, rather than calling them in a childish rage to threaten some telephone-answering peon.

But sorry, go ahead and interpret entirely clear sentences whichever way entertains you the most.

@Xerloq: I really just wanted to file a complaint just to get something on record just in case he decided he really wanted to let the crazy out one day - mostly at my dad's behest.

For them to call and lie to his face about warranty expiration and then have the police arrest him when he lies about burning down their store (and killing their families, although he went to far with that statement)

What happened to free speech in this case and proof of intent? It wasn't like the man got arrested after having been pulled over while barreling down the interstate making threats on a cell phone on his way to Missouri along with a few canisters full of gasoline, a couple of chainsaws some .45s and a ski mask!

@Xerloq:

You generally have to file in a jurisdiction that is convenient for the defendant.

@JiminyChristmas:

I wonder if it is recorded - could be a catch 22 on the telemarketer's part - they may have said things they shouldn't have to try to scam him, but then he flips out and tells him he's going to hunt them like deer. Do they turn it over to the cops?

@Nathanael Dale Ries:
Since when does free speech extend to death threats?

Call the White House and threaten to kill the President and let us know how your free speech defense works at your trial.