27 January 2013

It Is Good To Be The Kingston

So let me get this straight.  An FBI Special Agent and an Assistant US Attorney go joyriding in a rare Ferrari,  being held by the FBI, and total the car seconds after exiting the parking lot, and the Department of Justice says they don't have to pay for it...

...and a federal judge agrees?  

Does that sound right to you?  Did they promise the judge a ride in the next exotic sportscar that makes it to their lot?

The Italian car was stolen off a lot in Pennsylvania in 2003 and discovered in Lexington, Kentucky five years and six hundred and forty-two miles later, by the FBI in an unrelated investigation.  They held onto it while investigating the thief, with the permission of Motors Insurance Company, the owner, since paying the claim of $630,000 to the dealer. 

The car "sat" on the government lot from August of 2008  until the May 27, 2009 accident.  I put "sat" in quotation marks, because I doubt Special Agent Kingston was the first to take it for a spin.  He was just the first driver to get behind the wheel and wrap it around a tree.

Crashed FerrariOne of only three hundred and forty-nine made, the 1995 F50 Ferrari has appreciated in value, and MIC sued the US government for three-quarters of a million for the wreckage. 

Tough grits, said US District Court Judge Avern Cohn.  It seems you can recover damages caused by fed employees, except for goods being detained by a law enforcement officer.  The judge also opined that had the accident really happened during a joyride, it would be harder to recover damages from the government, because the boys were acting outside the scope of their official duties.   

I guess if that is the case MIC could try and go after SA Kingston, personally.  I'd like to see that.  I've always wondered what makes those FBI guys so "special", anyway.  It's obviously not their driving skills.

It is hard to weep for an insurance company, but still....I guess MIC won't be giving the G-men permission to hang onto their property anymore.  

Read the article at:  Crash Dummy


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