Another of my year end customs is to give you a few of the ripoffs and rotters who infested the news in 2007.
Washington, D.C. Roy Pearson Jr., whose $54 million lawsuit against a Northeast Washington dry cleaning shop was rejected in court, has lost his job as an administrative law judge. A city commission voted against reappointing Pearson after his battle against Custom Cleaners, alleging the shop lost a pair of pants he brought in for $10.50 worth of alterations. The owners said they found the pants but Pearson sued, saying they were not his. He became a worldwide symbol of legal abuse for his lawsuit in which he demanded to be paid for car rentals so he could go to a different dry cleaner, $500,000 for emotional distress and $542,000 in legal fees. He had been on the bench for two years and was up for a 10-year term.
North Bend A group of high school boys thought it would be fun to shoot students getting off a school bus with pellet guns, but their fun ended after a State Patrol trooper chased them down. The trooper lived only a quarter mile away from where the incident occurred and his daughter and another girl went running there and told him about it. He jumped into his patrol car and chased the teens for five miles, trapping them at a dead end near Rattlesnake Lake. All four were upper classmen at Mount Si High School and all four had criminal records.
Colorado It took two and a half years, but the University of Colorado finally axed Professor Ward Churchill for academic misconduct, including plagiarism. Churchill, who taught ethnic studies, called the people murdered in the World Trade Center on 9/11 Nazis. Churchill also falsely claimed to be part Indian and wore braids to act the part.
Bremerton On March 12, a woman received a phone call telling her shed won $824,000 from Won Global Sweepstakes and asking her to send money that would go toward taxes and processing fees. The money would be refunded when she received the prize, she was told. She made six payments to a woman in Ontario, Canada but when she received a call for additional money, she called the sheriff.
Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian announced its top official, Secretary Lawrence Small, had resigned amid criticism about his spending. Small, the first businessman to run the 160-year-old museum, had served seven years as secretary. An internal audit showed that he made $90,000 in unauthorized expenses, which included private jet travel and expensive gifts. He also charged the Smithsonian more than $1.1 million for agreeing to use his home for official functions. The expenses included $273,000 for house cleaning, $2,535 to clean a chandelier and $12,000 for service on his swimming pool.
Atlanta Lawyer Andrew Speaker became the first person placed under federal quarantine since 1963 when he defied orders from health officials to stay put after he was determined to have a rare drug resistant strain of tuberculosis. He flew to Europe where he got married, a ceremony attended by his new father-in-law, a federal microbiologist in Atlanta who knew of his condition, and slipped back home across the Canadian border. Both he and his father-in-law were under investigation.
Kingston A Kingston woman told the sheriffs office she had entered a sweepstakes contest online and received a notice from Virgin Atlantic Clearinghouse in Canada, telling her she had won $65,000, along with a check for $4,650 which turned out to be forged. She sent the company a money order for $3,550 for a Bahamanian value added tax. The money order was cashed but she never received any money back.

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340.