Posted on 12/05/2010 11:20:34 AM PST by Second Amendment First
Ronald Lee Foster, 66, of Beaver Falls, tried to apply for a gun permit about two years ago, he was shocked when he was denied because he was a felon.
The retired shift supervisor at Armstrong World Industries had no idea why they would say he had a felony conviction, but then he started thinking about what had seemed like a small offense from almost 50 years ago.
In 1963, then-18-year-old Mr. Foster and 16 of his fellow Marines were stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and only making $82 a month. They wanted a way to come up with some spare change, so they started cutting off the outer lips of pennies and using them as dimes in the vending machines.
Their luck ran out when a Secret Service agent was put in the barracks, Mr. Foster said, probably because the vending company had caught on.
After rounding up everyone involved, they took the Marines before a judge.
“They marched us into the judge and he gave us a one year probation and $20 fine. None of us knew we had a felony at the time,” he said.
It was a small punishment with much bigger consequences. The judge charged the men with mutilating coins, which is considered a felony, not a misdemeanor, a fact Mr. Foster discovered 45 years later.
He found a lawyer right away to see if he could get it expunged.
“I didn’t feel like having a felony hanging over my head,” he said.
But felonies cannot be expunged, so the lawyer came up with the idea to try for a presidential pardon.
“He filled out the paperwork, and then it was just a waiting game after that,” he said.
He got the call on Friday that he was one of nine individuals who received pardons from President Barack Obama.
“It was a little bit of a surprise since it’s a year and a half since I started the procedure,” said Mr. Foster.
The White House announced the pardons Friday as Mr. Obama was on the way home from a surprise visit to Afghanistan.
“The president was moved by the strength of the applicants’ post-conviction efforts at atonement, as well as their superior citizenship and individual achievements in the years since their convictions,” said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin.
Presidential pardons often come around the holidays, but they can sometimes be controversial, such as when Bill Clinton pardoned fugitive financier Marc Rich at the end of his presidency.
President George W. Bush drew heat for commuting the sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, in the case of the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. But Mr. Bush rejected Mr. Cheney’s vigorous urging that he later pardon Mr. Libby as well.
Mr. Obama has received 551 pardon petitions in the course of his presidency, of which he’s denied 131, according to the Justice Department.
Another 265 petitions were closed without presidential action.
Mr. Foster said he feels pretty good about it finally happening, and even a little surprised, but to him, it was the right thing to do.
“You read all the paperwork and the story behind and it just didn’t make sense to have a felony for that offense,” he said.
It will take about two or three weeks before the felony is out of the system, but Mr. Foster already has plans.
“[Getting a permit] will be the first thing I will do,” he said.
An uncle impressed on my that it was a felony to deface U.S. currency, even a peney. Every time I see one of these machines, I think of that and wonder WTF?
>> Do pennies on rail road tracks count? <<
Normally just a misdemeanor. Becomes a felony only if you derail the train.
This was not simply mutilating coins; they used them essentially to steal cash from the owners of the vending machines.
I think there was one of those penny flatteners at Disnyland once.
My guess is that since you pay for it the penny is replaced by the machine owner.
Actually they were using them to steal merchandise from the machines, but that’s not what they were charged with.
The first machine I saw like this charged a nickle to smash your penny. Now it cots 2 quarters to commit the same crime.
Then wait about 20-30 minutes and you will find that pizza in the dumpster behind the pizzaria. They just discard pizzas that are undeliverable.
I have also heard that a young Dostoevski and friends would capture plain birds, then paint them in exotic colors and sell them to tourists on the streets of Moscow as rare African species.
Probably not...
The Treasury's Letter to Vance Fowler
Is it legal to press pennies or other coins?
Mr. Angelo Rosato reproduced this letter from the Department of the Treasury to Mr. Vance Fowler in his book "Encyclopedia of the Modern Elongated", (ISBN 0-9626996-2-4) angrospub@aol.com. The letter was dated July 22, 1980, letterhead: The Department of the Treasury, Office of the Director of the Mint, and is probably the source of many quotes collectors have seen over the years. It reads in part:
"This is in reply to your letter of Jun 20, 1980, concerning United States statutes governing the destruction, melting, or other extramonetary uses of United States coins. You refer to and question the legality of a souvenir machine which compresses coins and returns a souvenir. You refer to Title 18, U. S. C. sections 331 and 475.
As you are already aware, a federal statute in the criminal code of the United States (18 U.S.C. 331), indeed makes it illegal if one "fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales or lightens" any U.S. coin. However, being a criminal statute, a fraudulent intent is required for violation. Thus, the mere act of compressing coins into souvenirs is not illegal, without other factors being present.
Section 475, which you refer to in your letter, regarding the attachment of notice or advertisement to legal tender, does not apply to your souvenirs in this case. Your are not impressing or attaching a business or professional card, notice or advertisement to a coin, your are simply making an impression on the coin.
We hope this information answers your question. If we can be of any further assistance, please contact us.
Sincerely,
Kenneth B. Gubin
I’d forgotten the penny on the railroad track-—I did that too!
Sorry, looks like I mangled the URL when I pasted it, here it is in full:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2635498/posts
I also confess to the same antics, when we went camping there was a major railroad line into Los Angeles nearby.
If you were willing to expend a nickle, Thomas Jefferson's head turned into a mushroom cloud, LOL.
Thanks, I missed that thread.
Not a problem; if you do read it I’d like to know what you think about the thought experiment I present in Post #236.
I grew up near a rail yard and squashing small objects on the tracks was a regular pastime. My favorite was a dead rat, and the resulting grease spot.
Just suppose I had some fraudulent intent while I was a kid.
Now Im really conflicted. I better go check my secret stash of incandescent light bulbs.
LOL Thanks for the laugh.
The internet has ruined many a childhood memory.
And, like happened to me recently, reconnected many people with friends thought long since gone...
He keeps this up, I might someday find myself agreeing with him regularly. In about a hundred years...
Actually, this is #3, but I can't remember off-hand what #2 was. #1 was his comments about “sagging” and not wanting to see anyone’s underwear.
OS
Merchandise = cash. The vending machine owners paid cash for the merchandise. It's just a matter of semantics.
I wasn't saying I agree with the felony charge, but even petty theft is a crime. Some just get away with it on a much larger scale. Charlie Rangel, for instance.
no
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