Slashdot Mirror
Compensation for Bandwidth Costs is Extortion?
Tha_Big_Guy23 asks: "According to this article, a man who created a website for his local Sheriff's department is being charged with extortion. This was caused by taking down the website after repeated attempts to get compensation from the county to cover the bandwidth costs. As a result, all his personal computer property, and company computer property was seized and he was jailed."
"After being jailed he was charged with extortion, larceny by conversion, using a computer to commit a crime, and obstruction of justice. This website explains in more detail the circumstances surrounding the situation. Has anyone on Slashdot ever had an experience where a client was unwilling to compensate you for either your work, and/or the resources required to do your work?"
While the end result of this situation is a shame, let this situation serve as a warning for those of you who work, without a contract in place. While it is the general hope that people will behave in an honorable manner, sometimes this is just not the case, and contracts exist to protect both parties, when things go sour.
While the end result of this situation is a shame, let this situation serve as a warning for those of you who work, without a contract in place. While it is the general hope that people will behave in an honorable manner, sometimes this is just not the case, and contracts exist to protect both parties, when things go sour.
This guy gives website designers a bad name. I'd say he definitely belongs in prison. 3.5 million hits per month? Oh, yeah, right. I get the feeling that this guy was planning to pull this stunt all along, but I bet he wasn't counting on getting arrested. Another clue is the fact that he set the domain name up as his own property so the town would be unable to switch to another server. What a noble thing to do. And then there's his final bill... $300,000?! To offset the "huge expense" of running the website? WHAT huge expense? How much was he paying for hosting? DIdn't want to lose any more money? Why didn't he just set it up on a different server and let the town pay for it themselves? I think this guy wants to the town to pay for the loss he's taken running his business in the first place, and shutting the server down while handing over such a massive bill is, IMHO, extortion, and should be treated as such. I hope they throw the book at him, and throw it at him hard, to serve as a warning to anyone else thinking of pulling a stunt like this. Whew, I'm outta breath. Gotta go lay down for a minute.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I could see something getting out of hand with just verbal communications, misunderstandings, etc.
Anyone providing or buying services ought to insist on a written contract that both parties sign. Then, there's no question of consequences if someone doesn't pay within 30 days, etc.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
My knee was jerking furiously until I read your excellent post. I can rest easy now knowing that there's two sides to this story and we have another sensationalized /. article.
everyone on his MSN contact list was placed under observation.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
An article from today on this topic.
Perhaps this should be a lessong to all to work out your contracts a bit more clearly in advance.
$300,000 for three years is...
$100,000 for one year, which is...
$ 8,333 for one month of hosting.
(blatant_plug)
Well, don't host with that guy, come host with Tigerhost.com. We only charge $100/month for businesses! (And $16 for personal sites.)
(/blatant_plug)
Seriously, though, at those rates, he could retire on just that one site.
libertarianswag.com
Since the site shut down Jan. 1, the sheriff's office set up its own site, www.macomb-sheriff.com. The new site is bare bones compared to the original one, but Hackel said it provide the most important function -- public communication with his office in the form of e-mail.
I see why they needed somebody else to build their web site -- they think they need a web page in order to receive email!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Now this is weird, I _just_ took a break to read slashdot from desiging the website for the police service in my city.
Thank god I'm not going to be hosting it.
He's going to be pissed once he realises he's been slashdotted.
If it didn't have the bandwidth problems before, it sure will now!
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
First off, there was no contract.
Second, he told them that he'd discuss pay at a later date since they were to busy to handle it to begin with. If I donated 2 years of my time, I'd sure as hell want compensation.
He did what any normal person would do: shut off their service since they didn't pay. In fact, he did one up on what most would do. They didn't pay for TWO YEARS and he let them go on that long. Try not paying YOUR hosting bill and see what it gets you. A shutdown site, that's what.
How the hell is this extortion? Not even REMOTELY. People are stupid. They don't realize it takes time and money, not to mention VALUE of what he had turned the site into.
Granted he didn't have a contract, but both parties are at fault. You can't NOT have a contract then call "extortion" and throw him in jail. Sorry, that's not how it works.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
First of all, $300,000 is extravagant by any standards. He should have charged his actual costs, after all, he did agree to do the site in exchange for publicity. Thus, the designer should have asked to have the county pay the real cost. I simply cannot imagine the ISP involved was charging that much.
Secondly, the designer should have never shut the site down without sending the county properly served due notice. In other words, registered or certified mails, preferably coming from an attorney.
Finally, the designer should have sued the county, and then through the litigation a settlement would have been obtained -- most likely through binding arbitration.
But, at the same time, to settle a civil disagreement through criminal prosecution seems to be abuse of power at most naked.
Both of the parties should be spanked by their Mamas.
It does appear the webmaster is a scumbag, and probably had evil intentions from the getgo. However, the sheriff's office made an oral agreement, no written contract, with this person.
The evil webmaster then said, after 3 years and however many hits later, I need some cash. Pay me a lot of money or I'll shut it off to cut my costs.
Sheriff replies "Screw You!" and throws him in jail.
This is a Civil Issue, not a bullshit criminal case.
Don't be a zoa (zealous overbearing ass), be happy!
Odd. I would say that it is proof positive that you should not, in any circumstances, commit a crime against an entire police department.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
The article lists www.macombsheriff.com as the offending web site.
.com TLD? Was it a commercial web site? I'm sick of .gov and .mil sites using .com because it's k00l3r. These sites should use the proper TLD, and of course it should be impossible for a _person_ to own these domains.
.org because he felt like supporting Verisign, what with all of their sitefinder-related legal fees.
Which begs the question: Why does it have a
Of course, when I rule the world there will be different TLDs for individuals, companies, military, government, and nonprofits - and a commercial site would never be able to even claim an individual's web site is infringing (or whatever) since they will live in different namespaces.
Ironically, the alleged extortionist's domain is justice4pat.com, seeming to suggest that this is a business venture for him.
Or maybe he just decided not to use
The response of the Sheriff's Dept. is clearly overblown, but this guy was clearly not operating on the level.
To be honest, I wouldn't want to do business with either party.
The real issue is whether he's owed money or not. As someone pointed out, he's basically asking for over $8,000 per month hosting what should be a relatively small local site (I'd like to see how his hits were measured -- if those are unique visits, I'd be pretty surprised). The article seems to imply that he already had a verbal contract to provide the service for free in return for publicity (as suggested by the article). If that's the case, then he's essentially trying to change the terms of his agreement unilaterally while holding the site hostage, and that's what's getting him the extortion charge.
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
Have you seen their website? http://www.macomb-sheriff.com/
Their new web designer should probably go to jail too.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
"Welcome to the Springfield Police department web site."
"Press YES if you have committed a crime, and wish to confess. Otherwise, press NO."
[Click]
"You have selected NO, which means you have committed a crime, but do not wish to confess."
"A padywagon is now speeding to your location."
"In the meantime, please look at our online store. You have the right to remain...Fabulous!"
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
No he didn't take anything away from the sheriff, the web site was his property. If the sheriff valued the web site, he should have had a contract that spelled out ownership. Since he hadn't given any money for the site, how can he claim ownership? It shows that the sheriff valued the site a $0.
It's the sheriff who unjustly took property away.
The fact is that he did, based on my reading of the statue commit extoration.
The lesson to be learned:
1. Have a contract in place, don't do things on a handshake and a nod.
A contract - and the exercise of building one - isn't just a legal play. A good contract is an agreement on what X will do for Y, and what Y will do in return for X. It is like an API definition.
2. If you have a dispute, don't take it into your hands.
He should have sat down with an attorney and have had them put together a letter of the following form:
"Dear Sir,
The service I have been providing to you per our oral agreement of December XX, XXXX and subsequentally afirmed in various conversations and by you use of the service, is currently costing me $XXX.XX a month to provide due to the traffic level of XXX,XXX visits per month.
To date I have not received payment for this service. Given the current situation, I can no longer continue to provide this service beyond (today+30 days).
If you aren't willing to pay for the service I am providing, will work with to transition to another service provider within these 30 days.
Please note, any assistance in such a transition, doesn't indicate a release of my claims for services provided for XX months at a cost of $x,xxx a month.
Yours,
Joe WebMaster
3. Didn't anyone every teach him "you don't spit into the wind, you don't tug on Superman's cape, and you don't anger the local Sheriff!"?
I haven't read a single comment that is at the heart of this issue. The reason the Sheriffs department considers it extortion, is because they claim they own the content.
Demanding money to give a person something that he/she owns IS extortion. But does the Sheriffs department own the content, or does the hoster (since he was hosting it for free).
It should probably have been a civil case first to resolve the IP. The owner of the IP would then have had firm legal ground for whatever action they wanted.
But I don't agree with slapping him with a criminal suit right off the bat.
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
3.5 million hits per month, not year, is what he's reporting. Not that it justifies the $300,000 but the number you've got is off by more than an order of magnitude.
NERDS!!!!
The quotes you state are from the Justice 4 Pat campaign, an apparently biased source drumming up support for Pat.
Personally, I'd trust a newspaper over blatant assertions by an activist site any day.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
- If you do decide your work is worth something then don't jump from free to $300,000
You shouldn't offer things for free if you really want to profit. All you'll do is make yourself miserable at best. If you're really stupid you might even lose touch with reality and demand $300,000. Did he really expect them to pay? Unbelievable...
"Never tell me the odds"
I'm a programmer. My friend works in IT at a local USDA lab. One of the scientists there told my friend they needed to automate some of their "blasting". They needed to take DNA they found in plants and compare it to a bunch of national databases and depending on the results take it to other national databases, etc. etc (these national databases were all websites so it was A LOT of text processing). The final results needed to be put into an excel spreadsheet. I worked for a couple of months and had about 4 complete rewrites. It worked fine at my house, but it did not work at their labs.
What happened was, they had many many computers being natted with one ip address. These websites would see one ip address flooding their servers and cut them off or give one of MANY random errors. It was almost impossible to reproduce anywhere else. I got almost no co-operation on their part to get more ip addresses for the boxes doing the dna blasting. All they would say is "It doesn't work right". That was the extent of my bug reporting. "It doesn't work right".
It was basically impossible to get meetings with them and the project lasted about 5 months with only 5 meetings (each lasting less than a half hour). After not seeing one penny of payment and MANY thousands of lines of code later, I told them I'm not going to work on it anymore until I get some payment. That's about when I couldn't get a hold of them anymore.
That was my first and last time working on code without a contract before hand. I did not recieve a single penny for my months of work. They acted like they were in it to help out a young programmer. The USDA was in it to help the USDA. About the end of it all they hired a "programmer". One of these people who had many degrees and could "program" in many languages, but couldn't write a simple program on the spot. From what I understand they tried to get him to write it because he was supposed to be this experienced programmer with many degrees. It made me feel good that after 6 months they still don't have anything from him.
They were greedy. They taught me a lesson. Don't work for ANYONE, without a contract before hand. No matter how much they pretend they are looking out for your interests, THEY'RE NOT.
To all of you posters claiming he should have had a contract, I say why... he offered to run the site for free, a site the HE OWNS and worked on. Was he supposed to contract with himself ? Or maybe a contract that states that he would work for free until such time as he didn't want to any longer ?
I don't get it ? Is there really any legal reason he can't pull down HIS OWN website ? If he approaches the Sheriff and suggests that he need money for bandwidth or he's turning HIS WEBSITE off, how is that extorting ?
All you William Hung fansites take note... don't take them down or else !
An arrest, possible prison sentence, confiscation of equipment... if anyone doesn't see this as a small-town Sheriff abusing their position they are missing the point.
It's not illegal to ask for money to support YOUR website...
Wouldn't that make Slashdot guilty of extorting money by withholding stories from non-subscribers ?
Nuts...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
putting aside the blatant extortion, since when was "using a computer to commit a crime" a crime? Commiting a crime is bad in itself, but when you use a computer to do it, it's even worse? Does that make sense?
IT BURNS IT BURNS!
I was going to say it looks like a 10 year old designed it. But my 10 year old came in and said "Gee dad, that sure sucks.".
I hope they get this guy before he defaces any other web site.
I know a bit myself, but have no interest in really sharing anything as my memory might not be perfect on all matters detailing some of the things this 'sheriff' has been involved in.
Needless to say, I am certain that one could find something searching goole, The Detroit News or Detroit Free Press and other Michigan, Detroit Area publications.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Wait, please RTFA. He OFFERED to run the site for free initially, I quote:
Doesn't sound like he was getting screwed to me. Sounds like he pulled a turnaround when he asked the county for $300,000 all of a sudden.
I've actually been in a situation when we've had to shut someone's site down because they wouldn't pay. It took us more than 6 months to do it though, because we were professional and considerate, and it wasn't even a big site, just one of our small clients. But we had to do it after a while because he was just totally ignoring our bills and communications. He did eventually pay a reduced sum that we agreed to through negotiations. We then surrendered his domain gladly. But my point is, we gave him a long time and we tried really hard to communicate with him before shutting him down. It was the most drastic thing I've EVER done to a client, and I still feel a little weird about it.
This sounds different. Sounds like ye old bait and switch to me. And it doesn't really sound like they were out of communication--something I'm sure should have been worked out before the drastic step of shutting down their site happened. ESPECIALLY considering this guy offered to do it for free initially. You don't just shut down someone's site, especially not a high profile client like this. You just don't. There are other avenues way before that happens.
Of interesting note... The domain justice4pat.com (The 2nd link) has their DNS hosted by runningwolf.com servers... Runningwolf was the name of Pat's company. Hmmm....
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
The way the website offer should have started the process was by sending them a registered letter informing the sheriff that he no longer could afford to offer the county his services for free, and that as of a certain date he intends on terminating the service unless another agreement can be made.
He could then conclude the letter by informing them that he is willing to provide services to the county at less then his normal prices, and would be willing to consider a request for an extention of the deadline for a reasonable time if needed to ensure continuity.
Extortion charges are a bit extreme, but if he's trying to show his power over the site to the sheriff, he shouldn't overreach. He managed to get the sheriff to overreach as well, and while the charges will likely be overruled by a court, that isn't a fun thing to have to go through.
They guy was frikkin arrested, his equipment impounded, and he's being threatened with 20 years in jail. For a dispute that should be settled in civil court. Is the guy snow white innocent in the whole affair? Probably not. Is the police department committing a huge abuse of authority? Hell yes!
Fountainhead Media (MACOMBSHERIFF-DOM)
19950 Denby
Portsmouth, VA 23708
US
Domain Name: MACOMBSHERIFF.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Stanley, Michael (36687838P)
fountainhead_463@hotmail.com
Fountainhead Media
19950 Denby
Portsmouth, VA 23708
US
999-999-9999
Never piss off people who can legally carry guns.
Seriously though, let's look at the charges:
Extortion: How could Pat Richard extort anyone by shutting off his own server? Imagine loaning your car to someone, then deciding you cannot afford paying the gas, the insurance, and the up-keep. You give him an ultimatum, either buy the car or I'll take it back. Under what system of justice could you be charged with extortion under that scenario?!
Larceny by conversion: How could he convert his own property? Via this charge the Sheriff's Office is essentially admitting that the website was theirs, but on the other hand, they refuse to pay for it. They should not be able to have it both ways.
Using a computer to commit a crime: Turning off your own server is a crime?!
Obstruction of justice: See above.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Regardless, with the domain name it's IP, a civil issue. It's parked, so the sheriff's office can do the WIPO cybersquatting claim, but, AFAIK and IANAL, it's not criminal.
Who owns the content? If the sheriff's department does, holding the content hostage may be illegal. But then again, there was a private towing company that illegally towed my car from a private lot where I had a legal right to park, and would not return it. They violated two sections of the vehicle code in the illegal tow, then had additional violations (actually flaunting some of them) in the operation of their impound lot. What did the cops say? "This is a civil matter. Pay the impound fees and then sue them."
The cops probably threw him in jail to try to intimidate him, which forced the DA's hand to prosecute, or perhaps it's collusion between the DA and the cops.
The facts will come out at trial. Both sides will tell their stories, a judge and 12 people too dumb to get out of jury duty will decide who is telling the truth, and regardless of the outcome, a civil suit will follow.
Welcome to America, where our courts, fine instruments of law, capable of incredible intricacy and precision in legal thought, are used to bludgeon people like a sledgehammer.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
He's an idiot for claiming that the website cost him $300k. That I will agree on.
But... there were two links. One said he did NOT demand back-payment and just wanted forward-payment for his site. That is perfectly legal and if they refuse that, then he has the right to close it. It sux and is shitty business practice, but it's legal.
If he DID demand back-payment for that rediculous amount of money, he deserves trouble. 50 years is excessive. Give him 3 months and keep his computers...
Ever been in jail? Two nights feels like a month... trust me, he'll have plenty of time to think about it in a few months.
I think everyone should spend a weekend wrongly imprisoned in jail... just for the perspective. I did it (not by choice) and many of my opinions about the justice system changed drastically.
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
First off, let's dispense with the "he said, she said" content here. My divorce lawyer once said to me: "There are three sides to every divorce: your side, her side and the truth!"
So, let's try to stick to the facts:
Fact #1. This guy built and hosted the web site and paid for the domain name. Last time I looked, it cost money for bandwith, so some one was paying something. The Sheriff's Dept. admits it wasn't them paying, so it must have been him. Bandwith for 3.5 million hits costs what? $1000.00/month? $5000.00/month? I don't know the exact amount, but this still is a tidy sum of money.
Next, someone paid for the computers to host this site, the rent for the place to house them, the electricity to run them, upgrading, maintenance, etc. Another fairly substantial cost.
Next, someone had to build the web site. It's likely quite slick to win all these awards, and took someone quite a bit of time, not to mention the cost of the computer programs used to create it.
Okay, no one disputes that the guy did all these things. Maybe in the beginning he DID offer to do them for free....
BUT.....(and this is a big but....)
A year ago, he went to the Sheriff's Dept. and told them he couldn't afford to do this for free any more. I'm sure that the bandwidth cost for millions of hits/month were getting pretty steep for him. I'm sure he had to provide mega large servers out of his pocket for hosting too. The Sheriff offered to help him by allowing him to sell ads on the site. It's fairly obvious that the Sheriff was getting MUCH MORE from this site then the guy was. I'm sure the site got much bigger then both of them ever expected it to... In any event, it's fairly obvious that the guy let the Sheriff know of his hardship at least a year before he actually pulled the plug. The Sheriff even admitted this when he allowed the guy the right to place ads on the site.
The way I see this is that it was unreasonable for the Sheriff to expect unlimited web hosting in perpetuity, especially where the costs of providing such hosting had obviously increased dramatically over when the offer was first made (of course, I'm assuming the web site didn't have 3 million + hits a month the first day it opened). There IS an implied contract here actually. That contract was to provide web hosting and email for a small county's Police Dept, NOT a mega site visited 3+ million times a month by people from over 60 countries. The fact that this guy offered his benevolence (and his money!)for as long as he did (in a major economic downturn no less!) should not be cause to put him in jail for extortion. The Sheriff should have known that the gravy train would eventually come to an end, and actually HAD a year's notice that it was fast approaching the station! This sheriff should be fired for several reasons. The first is stupidity. A high school student should have been able to see that this site was costing much more to run then one man can provide for free. Worse, the guy TOLD HIM it was a year BEFORE he pulled the plug! Second, is due to police brutality. There was NO criminal activity here! At best, this should have gone to a CIVIL court. Finally, for theft. The Sheriff had NO RIGHT to confiscate that computer equipment. By doing that (and jailing the guy), he likely put the guy out of business permanently. What a reward, huh? It's like giving the Sheriff a gun for his birthday and then having him shoot you with it!
With friends like that Sheriff, who needs enemies?
Please Note: Pat Ricahrd never attempted to get the sheriff's office to pay him. He informed the sheriff that he could no longer afford to pay for it himself, and that the sheriff would need to come up with a way to finance the hosting/bandwidth. The sheriff refused, beleive that he could continue to have a top-notch high-bandwidth site for free. Have any of you ever had a top notch high traffic site that did not cost you anything? Of course not. Servers, bandwidth, and labor costs money. Pat Richard provided all three of those things for free for several years. He gave the sheriff 2 years to come up with a way to offset the costs of such a service. He gave him an estimate of the cost he had incurred in an effort to make the sheriff understand how costly such things were. When the sheriff refused to finance his own website, Pat was forced to discontinue his services. Period.
On the one hand you have a Sherrif that locks up people if they look at him funny. On the other hand you have a scheming web-designer that tries to rip-off the Sherrif's department.
Sounds like a movie remake of the Dukes of Hazzard to me. Well, after the Avengers, Charlies Angels and Starsky and Hutch what would you expect? Have the Duke boys solve the dispute, add car chases to taste and you have a working script.
I've been reading ./ for years now, and I always thought that it was a BBS that was extremely popular because it linked to lots of news stories, which gave its members a constant stream of new topics to "discuss".
Slashdot is what happens after journalism.
I think some of you relied solely on the poorly written and sheriff-friendly article at the Macomb Daily.
Why don't you see what a real newspaper like the Detroit Free Press has to say about the situation?
Mr. Richard did not ask for $300k. He only cclaimed that to be his previous investment. The only thing he asked for was help in the future.
He gave 12 months formal notice, and more than two years of informal notice, that he needed help financing HIS site. The sheriff refused to help. The site went down. Simple.
In the end, there are really only two ways this can all go:
;-)
1) If this person can prove that they had been trying to negotiate a payment plan with the Sherrif, and that these subsequent charges against him are because he then stopped supplying the service when no settlement could be reached, then he will have a great case; and will probably win more than he says it all cost him.
2) He will go to jail, and has lost all of his computer equipment forever, and may even be restricted as to their use when all said and done.
Personally, I find this all to be an over-abuse of police power.. at this point. IF it turns out that there was no 'demand' for money, only a 'request', then the extortion charge seems pretty steep. Most of the other charges are just being used as 'add-ons' to that main charge - this was what was used in the committing of that crime etc.. However, they ARE serious enough to adequately destroy someones life and livelihood.
Was it reeally called for in this case? Why would they particularly need to seize his equipment and personal effects? Taking these things really do nothing to solve the 'case'.. if anything at all, maybe they would have wanted to server so they cold pull evidence of access logs etc from it, but beyond that, siezing all of his computer and electronic equipment associated with it, is just strong arm tactics.. I'm surprised more people aren't mentioning due process and reasonable search and siezure rules.
Still, the press is not a good place for finding out the 'truth' about such things.. after all, if you where to believe the press, then the Macomb Sherriff's office has enough problems as it is anyway, what with the Old Sherriff Hackell who was brought up on charges for rape (I think it was), and now his son taking over.. who is the currect Sherriff probably involved in this.
Basically, there's more to this than meets the eye, but I still feel there is something wrong when peoples property gets taken without there even being 'good reason'.
But that's just me I guess.. and I'm a bit of a SykeOpath
Absence of evidence, is never evidence of absence..
At least this article get it right in that it states he was not asking for the $300,000 in payment, but just said that is how much it would have cost the county to have the site for those three years. He are the $300,000, but wanted the county to take over the future costs. Detroit Free Press Article Of course, the Sherrif says the money was a DEMAND. Well after a year or more of trying to come up with some sort of agrement and getting no response, he had to shut the site down. The article even points out what both sides agree on certain points: "Both sides agreed on a few points: that Richard started running the site for free a few years ago; that his site became so popular, the Sheriff's Department -- and the public -- came to rely on it. And that Richard decided the site was too costly to run for free any longer. " He got screwed. Period. No due process, no court orders, just a straight up jacking.
Have /. crowd heard about art of negotiation?
Just look at lawyers - sue someone for a 100 million and then settle for 100 thousand.
Him asking 300,000 is nothing more than starting point. What sucks big time is the sheriff refusing to come up with a reasonable agreement at all.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov