Troy Haupt owns the only known copy of Super Bowl I. Not only does the NFL not wish to buy this piece of their history from him, but they have warned him not to sell it outside parties or they will sue him.

Haha, I'd love to but it would narrow down who I am too closely.

It's nothing crazy. Was included in a case due to having a shady business partner, and for nothing really interesting. He owned a dozen companies, I was listed as an officer of one, and bamf. Assets frozen.

It was more of a joke at that time for me. We're talking like... a few thousand dollars. I was a $40k/yr tech for the guy, starting a small business with him as the investor.

But, that experience showed me how corrupt it is and how the prosecutors last objective is justice. I was a home schooled law and order "American Exceptionalist" prior to that experience, so I walked into those first meetings with the government thinking they wanted truth and justice. Ha.

Now that I do rather well, I know how quickly anyone with a minor amount of power can abuse the rubber stamp of a judge they are buds with - so I keep some with an attorney just in case. I don't do anything crazy, I'm just a little eccentric and could absolutely see annoying the wrong petty tyrant because I don't bow down to their power.

So yes, in a way I do actively go looking for these fights. After that first experience the legal process is no longer scary to me, and I quite enjoy the battle. But you really can simply piss off the wrong person and have your life ruined. The whole federal grand jury system proved that point to me in my case!

And since others posted here saying how righteous prosecutors are - We offered to settle with the government for 100% of 2yrs revenue, refunded directly to consumer credit cards (even though they legitimately received the product as described, which was never in question - this was not theft). They refused, and we ended up settling by writing a check directly to that government agency for less than 4% of our offered amount so they could hold it up on TV 9 months later. It was never in question that the money was from illegal proceeds, it was simply a question on how large the fine was going to be.

So yeah, 5 more years and I get to leave this country permanently.

/r/news Thread Parent Link - nytimes.com