Posted on 03/16/2005 10:27:20 AM PST by franksolich
Nightmare carpenters con pensioner
A 69-year-old woman who thought she was hiring professional carpenters to do some construction got a band of criminals led by an Estonian pimp.
Ragna Hjelle's nightmare began when she found an ad in the newspaper for a carpentry firm. She wanted professional help to finish the renovation of a basement apartment that she had begun with her partner Jonas, who passed away suddenly last year.
Hjelle called the number in the ad and "a friendly Norwegian" paid her a visit, newspaper Bergens Tidende reports. "He had some able lads that could help me at a reasonable price," Hjelle told the paper.
The crew turned out to be four Estonians led by a 42-year-old man now in Bergen Prison, doing time for large-scale pimping and procurement.
"They were here a few weeks, drank coffee in my kitchen. I got assurances that they knew their stuff, one of them was an trained electrician they said," Hjelle remembered. She paid over NOK 40,000 (USD 6,500) for their work, and has been paying ever since to undo what they did.
When they finished and left Hjelle soon found out that they had done far more damage than good. Wooden strips dangled, paneling was crooked and splintered and the wiring behind the carpentry was even worse.
The electrical work was under legal standards and even hazardous.
"I got a shock when I saw what was hidden in the wall. The hadn't used the cable (I bought them) but stolen my husband's old extension cord. The inspector said that I would have been a dead woman if I had done weeding in the flower bed," Hjelle said.
In the days to come Hjelle found out that some of her partner's tools had been stolen and that the head carpenter had been arrested in Bergen's biggest ever raid on pimps.
A later newspaper article revealed that the carpenters' van had been used to steal over three tons of clothes from the Salvation Army.
The 69-year-old widow has resigned herself to her economic losses, but remains bitter than most of the gang has gotten away.
Well, you posted a story yourself a little while back how Norwegians have lost faith in the justice system, and want harsher punishment.
I think an overwhelming number of people would have wanted these two put away for life (and I mean for LIFE), and even in liberal Norway, I am sure quite a few would want to see them dead (Personally I am against death penalty).
I have problems with the death penalty myself--the deal about respect for all life--but I like to at least have it on the books.
Right, the one news article about Norwegians having little or no faith in their judicial system--some of those numbers were pretty high, in the 70-percentile. I just wish those sentiments would translate into votes.
Well, the one party that is tough on crime, wants lower taxes, wants to boost our defence forces, and supports the USA, is pretty much getting the "Bush treatment" by a united Norwegian media chorus, so it kind of hard to break through.
Nontheless, the party polls consistently around 14-20 percent, on occasion over 30 percent. However, all the other parties treat them like a pariah.
However, the emergence of the red-green alliance might stir things up, and wake the "Conservative" party up.
Time will tell.
<<has faith and confidence in the judgement of the Norwegian people to make the right decisions.
We all flub up once in a while (I am thinking here especially of 1976, 1992, and 1996, in America), but in the long term, common sense prevails.
<<am even optimistic about the French, by the way.
They'll come around--not today, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, but some time.
I share your faith, but I was always the eternal optimist.
It is certainy going to be a hard slog. I am waiting for a football game to start, and is having the BBC world on in the background.
Some guy is being interviewed, and when he was asked whether osama bin laden is a terrorist, he kind of hesitatingly admitted, "Well, he seems to sometimes use terrorist means. If that makes him a terrorist, then I guess he might be called one"
How generous of him :roll eyes:
Have a good one, I appologize to hijacking your thread.
Cheers.
Looks like probably Danish Viking were ones who raided London and the monasteries --->>>
Raids on the English coast increased from 835. In 850-1, a fleet of 350 Danish ships sailed up the Thames and sacked London, others pillaged Canterbury, and an army settled at Thanet, Kent. Permanent settlements were established and remained through to the 11th century. This resulted in many Norse elements in place names.
As a result of their raids, there were virtually no monasteries in the north and east of Britain.
The problem is not only that the maximum punishment for any crime is 21 years, but that there is almost automatic release on parole when 2/3 of the prison time is served. Thus you have murderers doing less than 10 years in the slammer.
This is maddening and often makes me angry quite beyond words!
Such people are treasures, and one must value them while they are among us; they are our link with the past, and with God.
What happens after death is incomprehensible to the limited finite fallible human mind, and yeah, I know it's trendy, it's hip, it's cool, these days to think that death is the end; that this life is all we have, but I defer to the judgement of greater men who have reminded us, ".....the trumpet shall sound, and the death shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be saved....."
My hopes and prayers to you sir, that you might become as great, as good, as wonderful, in your life as your great-aunt had been in her own temporal life.
I don't think the problem is so much with Estonians as with pimps. Pimping is not the best training for carpentry. Pimps tend to be sadistic and lazy.
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