Kentucky Fugitive Charged With Sex Crimes Arrested in Identity Theft Case

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Michael Mease, 40, was wanted on felony charges including first-degree rape in Hardin County, Kentucky, where authorities say his four victims were ages 9 to 15:

Someone came to Knoxville police headquarters on Tuesday complaining that his wife’s ex-boyfriend may have stolen his identity. The ex-boyfriend was working at an area restaurant, and the man told police he’d been notified that his government assistance had been stopped because he worked at a local restaurant, according to KPD.
The man, however, didn’t work at the business.
Knoxville police learned the ex-boyfriend was wanted in Kentucky. Members of KPD’s Repeat Offender Squad kept watch on the restaurant until the suspect left at closing Tuesday.
“At approximately 11:30 p.m., the suspect was observed leaving the business,” according to KPD. “As officers approached the suspect he fled on foot. K-9 Officer Nate Skellenger utilized his (K-9) partner, Ammo, to detain the fleeing suspect. The suspect tried to fight off Ammo but was unsuccessful.”
Mease was treated at University of Tennessee Medical Center for several dog bites.
According to police, he had a valid driver’s license from North Carolina with his picture on it, but the license was in the name of man who had reported the identity theft.
Once Mease’s real name was determined, authorities linked him to the sex crimes in Kentucky.
In Knoxville, he also faces charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation, resisting arrest and being a fugitive from justice.

This case illustrates something about crime that liberals can’t seem to understand: Most crime is committed by career criminals. Habitual lawbreakers who commit serious crimes also commit petty crimes. By the time a criminal gets busted for a serious offense like murder or rape, chances are he has already gotten away with numerous other offenses, such as burglary, drug possession, petty theft and assault. The classic illustration of this was when Bill Bratton was hired to head New York City’s transit police. Bratton cracked down on fare-beaters — people who jump the turnstiles or otherwise enter the subway system without paying — and insisted that each of them be booked and fingerprinted. The results: About 1 in 7 of the arrested fare-beaters were wanted on criminal warrants, including aggravated assault, murder and rape, and many of them were found to be carrying weapons.

The success of Bratton’s efforts, which were subsequently expanded when Rudy Giuliani became mayor, have been credited as validating the so-called “Broken Windows” theory of law enforcement, but it’s really just common sense. Criminal behavior is not randomly distributed within the population. Habitual criminality arises from an anti-social disposition, among individuals with an arrogant disregard for law and a resentment of authority. The habitual criminal thinks he’s smarter than the cops. He harbors disdain for honest law-abiding citizens — decent people are just “chumps” in the eyes of an outlaw — and his crimes against others are justified in his mind by a defiant sense that he deserves whatever he desires, and that society is wrong to forbid him from getting what he wants. By the time a career criminal is caught for a serious crime, he has usually already gotten away with many other crimes, and attributes his apprehension to “bad luck.”

Instead of recognizing the wrongfulness of his crime (and the justice of the law), he sits in jail thinking about how he can be a more successful criminal when he gets back on the streets. Most of his fellow inmates have the same attitude and so, whenever he is released from custody, he continues his criminal career with the benefit of a jailhouse education, having picked up ideas from fellow criminals on how to get away with his next crime. This was the basic story of Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, where two petty criminals met in jail and formed a team, subsequently committing a notorious mass murder in Kansas.

So, police in Knoxville investigating a report of identity theft discover that the suspect is wanted for heinous sex crimes in Kentucky. Does anyone believe that Michael Mease had otherwise lived an honest law-abiding life? Were the crimes with which he is now charged the only crimes he ever committed? Or is it more likely that these charges against Mease are merely the tip of a large iceberg of lifelong criminality?

While you ponder that question, consider another recent story in Tennessee: Corey Huddleston, 52, was charged with aggravated burglary and sexual battery after police say he pushed his way into a home in Dickson and began asking about the family’s 14-year-old daughter. Police say Huddleston later climbed into a bedroom window, hoping to find the girl, and instead found the girl’s father. The kicker:

He has more than 100 prior charges on his criminal history, including theft, assault, aggravated rape, and many more.

Why was this one-man crime wave free on the streets of Dickson, Tennessee, population 15,000 and 45 minutes west of Nashville?

Only certain rapes, committed against a certain kind of victim by a certain kind of rapist, get attention from feminists, who became hysterical about a fictional rape by the imaginary “Haven Monahan” but ignore real rapists whose crimes don’t fit the feminist narrative.

 

43 comments

  3. This case illustrates something about crime that liberals can’t get seem to understand: Most crime is committed by career criminals. Habitual lawbreakers who commit serious crimes also commit petty crimes.
    Very true! I learned that lesson while working a part time job in a grocery store while in High School, most people nailed for shoplifting had LONG criminal records. In many cases they had outstanding warrants sometimes for violent crimes. This was why the store detectives (or whatever they’re calling them these days — Loss Prevention, Shrink Stoppers etc) were usually big muscular dudes. If there was a scrawny loss prevention person he/she was typically backed up by at least one big muscular dude.
    When I was young and naïve I found it amazing that someone would willingly up the ante from stealing a bottle of Advil to Felony Assault so willingly. why not just admit the theft and face the consequences? Because most “petty” criminals have done other crimes. Heck, based on that fact most of the time when they nailed kids for shoplifting they let them off with a warning. They’d just try to scare the kid by having a cop pretend he was going to arrest him, but instead just call the parents (which in some cases may have been worse in the short term).

  5. Troubled Guy: I don’t know… lately I just don’t feel like there’s anything special about me.

    Booth: You are an incredibly sensitive man, who inspires joy-joy feelings in all those around you.

  6. …decent people are just “chumps” in the eyes of an outlaw…

    This is a huge point. They are narcissists of the worst kind. Scofflaws view themselves as “greater,” smarter, higher evolved. In short, they think they’re the X-Men.

    And, yeah, I knew a girl whose boyfriend was in jail, and she called him “really unlucky.” THAT’S why he kept getting arrested.

    Oh, and another thing: How did you write that entire post without using the word “scofflaw”? Why did I have to show up and take care of that for you?

  7. Stacy just wanted to see how long it would take for someone to realize that he didn’t use all his “big words.”

  8. Having been involved over the years with the criminal justice system, working both the prosecution and defense sides of the street, I can say there’s merit to what you write. It’s worthy to note, however, that the vast majority of people charged with crimes are simply stupid and/or have backgrounds which lend themselves to becoming involved in extra-legal activities.

    What you see is that Progressive/Leftist policies facilitate stupidity. Instead of mandating responsibility and respect for society as evidenced by respect for societies rules, we subsidize irresponsible behaviors. I cannot count the number of young people charged with petty offenses who lived in homes where no one had the same last name and where the sole source of income was government largesse.

    Solely based upon my observations, I would say probably 10-15% of all criminals are truly sociopaths. The rest could use a good hiding out behind the barn a couple of times and would probably stay out of trouble.

  9. I should probably add, there’s no question that “big” criminals start small and have significant prior histories. However, “small” criminals are almost always idiots.

  10. A serial killer was captured in Atlanta earlier this year when he jumped the turnstile at a MARTA station.

  11. “… involved over the years with the criminal justice system …”

    Having been a teenage dopehead and known associate of hoodlums, I have my own direct knowledge about the criminal mentality. You might be surprised how much crime a bunch of white boys could perpetrate in Douglas County, Georgia, back in the day. Some of those boys eventually straightened up, and others ended up in the jailhouse or the graveyard. Me, I got into the disreputable racket known as “journalism.”

    At any rate, because we were white hoodlums, nobody made excuses for us or told us we were victims of societal oppression. Were their cultural factors involved in our juvenile delinquency? Did some of us come from “troubled homes”? Yeah. So what? You transport people from rural farm life to modern suburbia, and there will be a certain amount of predictable stress, plus children will be influenced by peers and media in ways that their parents never experienced growing up on an Alabama farm during the Great Depression. And then there were the cataclysmic social and political upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s. So, yes, one could possibly contextualize (as academics would say) the circumstances of my adolescent rebellion. But this does not change the fact that the law is the law, nor do unfortunate circumstances relieve the individual of his duty to obey the law, and the last thing a teenage hoodlum needs or deserves is pity.

    Now, do you need to ask why I am not sympathetic to criminals, rioters and cop-killers for whom the media expects us to feel pity? This whole “white guilt” bullshit trip is for the overprivileged and naive.

  12. There’s also the phenomenon of “in for a penny, in for a pound.”
    After you’ve murdered someone, the state can only execute you once. No point in obeying any laws after that.

  14. Everybody knows “criminal” is a code word. People say it when they really mean “n*gger.”

    Though personally, I think nagging should be a crime.

  15. If I misconstrue your response, I apologize. I’m most definitely not “sympathetic to criminals, rioters and cop killers.” And I should note, where I live the population is about 94% Caucasian and form the vast, vast majority of criminal defendants.

    My point is this. Progressives have facilitated this behavior over the years. Petty criminals–most of whom do not advance to become violent felons–have histories which are unfathomable to those of us fortunate enough to grow up with two parents in a Christian household, where personal responsibility is taught from day one. Is that an excuse or justification for the petty criminals’ behavior? No. Is it an explanation? Yes.

    Personal example: I stole some candy from a store when I was about 9 or 10. My mom discovered it. We got back in the car and drove to the store where she made me confront the manager with the “loot” and confess. That’s what most of these people never had.

    As I said, you are correct. The true sociopaths start out small and no matter what, they will move to greater criminality. But not all “small” criminals are sociopaths. They can be saved if the Leftists/Progressives get out of the way.

  18. It should be no surprise that black criminality has increased with the rate of black illegitimacy. The government make for a lousy father. Combine that phenomena with liberal education industry telling these precocious souls that everything they do is wonderful and it is Whitney fault for everything bad that happens ti them what can one expect?

  19. “Criminal behavior is not randomly distributed within the population.”

    Of course not. Much of it is committed by vibrant urban youths.

  20. If he’s a sex criminal AND and identity thief, should I be concerned that he could steal my sexual identity?

    I mean, I chose this gender after much deep cogitation, and I wouldn’t want it being taken away!

  22. What is wrong with Kentucky? I was just “defriended” on facebook by my granddaughter living there with her mom’s family after warning her to keep away from her mother’s father, who had molested her mother at age 13.The guy went out of his way to date women with pre pubescent girls after he was released from jail…hmmm….do you think? Of course, I suspect a lot of his actions will never be reported, or believed by their moms, because after all, he used to be a preacher man…
    So it’s not just serial criminals who do such things, it includes nice guys who get away with this because they are “good” people.
    We are supposed to be “christian” and forgive him, I was told. So blame the feely nicey church preachers who wouldn’t know evil if it bit them in the tush.

  24. That no father thing is really a huge contributor.

    If you encounter someone, and they remember the sound a belt makes when its clearing belt loops, the the sound of a switch wiffing through the air, chances are, that person is ok.

  26. You’ll probably need to check yourself closely every day in the shower, and then report to the authorities at once if you find anything missing.

  27. Oh , now a days that belt thing or that switch cutting could easily result in a visit from DCF if not the police.

    When I was growing up in Fort Lauderdale in my high school…
    > We had a Dean, a former Marine GySgt who, being allowed to paddle you with an old-time wooden racquet ball paddle would make you choose from his selection hanging on the wall before making to bend over a grab the chair.
    >We had a PhysEd coach- a former NCAA champion wrestler- who’d give you a whack and tell you “You don’t like it? Send your dad down here to do something about it”
    > And worst of all a Band Director who’d crack you in the ass with that thin little baton- I reckon that’s what a bamboo caning must feel like. A Band Director!!!

    Thanks to those influences and the watchful eyes of neighbors there was a lot of motivation to straighten up and fly right because God help me if my mom found out about some of it!

  30. Oh. I thought you meant “nogger,” and I was thinking, hey, I like egg nog too, that’s no crime!

  32. What I find disturbing is that this morning I used “scofflaw” in a e-mail.

    Should have used scoundrel or scallywag instead. Or maybe rapscallion.

  34. Bad boys, bad boys, whatchoo gonna do, whatchoo gonna do when they come for you…

    Bad boys!

  36. That’s true. The “real” journalists threw him out of the clubhouse years ago when they found he hadn’t donated to the Clinton Foundation.

    It put his objectivity into question.

  37. To some extent three strike laws may play a part as well. Once you’re on strike three it doesn’t matter if it’s for shoplifting or assault.

  39. Oh, forgive him by all means. But for God’s don’t be dangling candy in front of him.

    That’s what many people claiming to be Christian can’t figure out. Forgive the sinner, but don’t be an idiot. Or put it another way: trust, but verify.

  41. Man A
    Man B

    Man A steals identity of Man B.
    Man A gets job using identity of Man B
    Man B loses welfare because Man A works job under identity of Man B

    Will Man B keep that job so he stays off of welfare?

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