I Am a Bully' Sign-Holder Calls Sentence Unfair

[bonnie]

'I am a bully' sign-holder calls sentence unfair

Apr 13th 2014 5:16PM

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I am a bully sentence

Edmond Aviv holds a sign in South Euclid, Ohio declaring he's a bully, a requirement of his sentence because he was accused of harassing a neighbor and her disabled children for the past 15 years.

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio man who spent hours on a street corner Sunday with a sign declaring he's a bully says that the punishment in a disorderly conduct case was unfair and that the judge who sentenced him has ruined his life.

Sixty-two-year-old Edmond Aviv mostly ignored honking horns and people who stopped by to talk with him in South Euclid, the Northeast Ohio Media Group reported http://bit.ly/1p0xNrR ).

"The judge destroyed me," Aviv said. "This isn't fair at all."

The sentence stemmed from a neighborhood dispute in which a woman said Aviv had bullied her and her disabled children for years. Aviv pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, and Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers ordered him to display the sign for five hours Sunday as part of his sentence.

The judge selected the wording for it: "I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in."

Aviv arrived at the corner with the sign just before 9 a.m. Sunday. Within a couple of minutes, a passing motorist honked a car horn. Later in the morning, he was sitting in a chair holding the hand-lettered sign in front of him.

Dozens of drivers honked their horns and some passers-by yelled at him. Some pedestrians took pictures.

Aviv denied bullying his neighbors, but declined to answer other questions. A court probation officer monitored him, and Aviv's attorney stopped by to check on him. The lawyer didn't immediately return telephone calls to his office Sunday.

Aviv has feuded with his neighbor Sandra Prugh for the past 15 years, court records show. The most recent case stemmed from Aviv being annoyed at the smell coming from Prugh's dryer vent when she did laundry, according to the records. In retaliation, Aviv hooked up kerosene to a fan, which blew the smell onto Pugh's property, the records said.

Prugh has two adult adopted children with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Her husband has dementia, and her son is paralyzed.

Prugh said in a letter to the court that Aviv had called her an ethnic slur while she was holding her adopted black children, spit on her several times, regularly threw dog feces on her son's car windshield, and once smeared feces on a wheelchair ramp.

"I am very concerned for the safety of our family," Prugh wrote in a letter to the court for Aviv's sentencing. She said she just wants to live in peace.

The judge also ordered Aviv to serve 15 days in jail and undergo anger management classes and counseling. Aviv also had to submit an apology letter to Prugh.

"I want to express my sincere apology for acting irrationally towards your house and the safety of your children," Aviv wrote. "I understand my actions could have caused harm but at that time I was not really thinking about it."

[bonnie]

Some thoughts on the same article

Public humiliation as judicial punishment?

Thomas Lifson

A case in Cleveland raises the issue of the appropriateness of using public humiliation in place of incarceration or fines as a means of punishment for certain crimes. In the distant past, public shaming and discomfort, in the form of the pillory stocks, was a prominent feature of American justice, often for crimes like adultery that today are not considered criminal.

Adam Ferrise of Cleveland.com reports:

The man accused of bullying his neighbors for 15 years, including children with developmental disabilities, carried out part of his punishment on Sunday by sitting at a busy intersection with a large sign that says he’s a bully.

Edmond Aviv, 62, endured five hours of people yelling at him from passing cars while holding a sign that said: "I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in."

While I usually experience a gag reflex when the word “diversity” starts getting thrown around, the fellow sounds like a nasty piece of work:

One neighbor, Alex Simmons, the 21-year-old son of South Euclid Municipal Court Bailiff Isaiah Simmons, said Aviv yelled racial slurs at him while growing up in the neighborhood.

“He called me porch monkey a couple times and the N-word,” Alex Simmons said. “I told my parents at the time and they said to avoid his house and be the bigger person. This punishment is great. Justice has been served.”

And

Court records say Aviv harassed Sandra Prugh’s family for 15 years. Prugh has two adult adopted children with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy and epilepsy, a husband suffering from dementia and a paralyzed son.

Records say the most recent case stemmed from Aviv being annoyed at the smell of Downy coming from Prugh's dryer vent when she did laundry.

Court records say Aviv tried to sue the family in 2010 because the smell bothered him. The case was thrown out. Shortly after, Aviv dumped fabric softener on Prugh's lawn, the letter says.

Court records say Aviv later made a device that linked kerosene to a fan in his garage. The fan blew the fumes onto Prugh's property, reports say. One of Prugh’s children became ill because of the fumes, Williams-Byers previously said.

Prugh called police on April 9 and April 11, 2013, reports say. Firefighters and police discovered the kerosene contraption and made Aviv dismantle it, reports say.

Quite obviously, incarceration today has many serious problems, among them cost (unionized prison guards in California often make six figures a year) and the inability of authorities to control rape and other violence among males and females, to a lesser but still serious degree.

But is pure humiliation a tool we want to expand the use of? The Aviv case has an eye-for-an-eye character to it, given that he was dealing out humiliation to others, and needs to take a taste of his own medicine.

Is it time to develop something akin to high technology stocks, devices that are not physically harmful but exact public humiliation?