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TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (195) . . . The Sequel!

This week's bonus joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Bendigo Advertiser (via Techdirt) (from Friday, November 21; links good at time of posting):

TIMOTHY McCORMACK produced four excellent character references to persuade a judge to give him a lighter sentence for faking his engineering credentials to work on Qantas aircraft.

But during his sentencing hearing in the District Court yesterday he sat hunkered down in the dock with his head between his fists, bent so low that only his hair was visible to the bench.

The references were too good to be true, the court heard. The fake engineer had also falsified each of his references.

They included a fictional school counsellor, which had been misspelt "councilor", and an allegedly fictional Senior Sergeant Woodward, who purported to be the president of a fictional Hornsby Junior Australian Rules Football Club.

"There is no football club by that name," said the Crown prosecutor, Paul McGuire. Judge Mark Marien, who described the proceedings as an "extra-ordinary event", said that all the references were formatted in the same way and signed by the same hand. McCormack, 27, pleaded guilty in September to 42 charges relating to the falsification of documents, including his exam results for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority's aircraft maintenance engineer licence and his engineering credentials.

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Full post as published by Infamy or Praise on November 28, 2008 (boomark / email).