Meet James Colliton, a disbarred corporate lawyer who served 19 months in jail after bribing a mother so he could sleep with her 13 and 15 year-old daughters. Colliton recently sued American Express for $4 million, claiming that he was captured because the credit card company told authorities that the fugitive gutter-cretin was signing for hotel rooms in Ontario.

Colliton insisted he wasn’t running from the law and had gone to Canada only to attend some harness races.

“You’re not a fugitive if you sign into a major chain hotel using your driver’s license and your American Express card,” he said.

In his suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Colliton says Canadian authorities would never have “falsely arrested” or “unlawfully detained” him on immigration charges if American Express hadn’t revealed when and where he had used his credit card.

“That’s not why I gave them 20 years of fees and thousands of dollars in profits,” he said. “They spied on me.”

We’re not lawyers, but we’re pretty sure convicted felons lose their right to moral indignation or the right to vote or something.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that if you’re an indicted pedophile on the run, don’t use American Express.

Ex-con sues AmEx, says it aided in his arrest in Grimsby, Ont. [The Canadian Press]
Ratted out by American Express, charges perv attorney [New York Daily News]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.