Following Up
Occasionally I'll return to a previous article to follow up on how things turned out and either (1) trumpet my ability to predict the outcome or (2) send the original prediction, if any, down the memory hole. Recently I noticed further developments in at least four matters previously covered here. I correctly predicted all these outcomes, as far as you know.
- In January 2024, I used a legal term of art (stupid") to describe a then-recent class action in which the plaintiff alleged she was seriously disappointed and economically injured by discovering that certain Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins she bought for Halloween did not have little pumpkin faces carved into them as the label had suggested. See Plaintiff Aghast That Her Peanut Butter Pumpkins HAD NO EYES" (Jan. 11, 2024). That particular case was dismissed voluntarily, but the lawyers managed to recruit different plaintiffs to bring the same claims again later. But the claims had not become less stupid in the meantime, and I am pleased to report that this second case was recently dismissed involuntarily. See Vidal v. The Hershey Co., No. 24-60831, 2025 WL 2686987 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 19, 2025) (holding plaintiffs did not plausibly allege an economic injury resulted from the alleged failure to meet their subjective, personal expectations of how the [chocolate pumpkin faces] would or should have looked when unpackaged").
- Last July, I mentioned briefly (in Assorted Stupidity #163) that somebody had tried to steal Graceland. And now I will also mention briefly that the woman who tried that has pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced this week to almost five years in prison. The article includes phrases like brazen and blundering," [a life] spattered with financial grifts," and madcap plot born two years ago in Missouri's Ozark Mountains," showing I probably should have devoted more attention to this case.
- The lengthy tale of Nicholas Rossi continues to unfold, but now the only events worth noting involve his convictions and sentences. The Salt Lake Tribune reported this week that the personal-death faker and long-time-identity denier was convicted on a second rape charge dating back to 2008. He's not on trial for denying his identity," Rossi's lawyer said during closing argument. No, but the evidence he fled the country and created an incredibly elaborate backstory, seemingly from a Charles Dickens novel,' about how he was an orphan from Ireland who made a living selling books on the streets of London" does tend to show he was hiding from something, the prosecutor suggested. The jury seems to have agreed.
- In March of this year, I noted that two men had been accused of plotting to use witchcraft to harm a president, though surprisingly the people who made that accusation don't work for Donald Trump. See President Threatened With Witchcraft" (Mar. 20, 2025) (discussing the charges pending in Zambia under that country's Witchcraft Act). On September 15, the BBC reported that both men had been convicted. As discussed previously, like many such laws the Witchcraft Act" is really about fraud, as the magistrate tried to make clear. The question is not whether the accused are wizards or actually possess supernatural powers," he said. It is whether they represented themselves as such, and the evidence clearly shows they did." Among the evidence: they were caught with a live chameleon, which they allegedly planned to use in a ritual that would kill President Hakainde Hichilema within five days (and the chameleon much faster). The president has said he does not believe in witchcraft, and sadly I need to clarify again here that I'm talking about the president of Zambia.
