From the crackerjack crime-fighting outfit at the Idaho District Attorney’s office comes word, via press release, of a great & glorious victory:
A Hayden psychosocial rehabilitation worker was sentenced today for Medicaid Provider Fraud, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said. First District Judge John P. Luster sentenced Lindsay A. Nelson, 26, to 30 days in jail, 100 hours of community service or 20 shifts on the Sheriff’s Labor Detail Crew…
Around March 1, 2009, Nelson billed Idaho Medicaid for individual counseling services for two boys. An investigation by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit found that the service provided was taking a group, including the two boys, to the Kottonmouth Kings rap concert in Spokane, Washington.
Most Decibillies probably agree there should be social but not legal sanctions for declaring oneself down with the Kottonmouth Kings—shame and ridicule at the digital whipping post seem like a decent start. But before we convict the defendant in the court of public opinion, let’s consider what the Idaho DA fails to provide us vis-a-vis Nelson’s hardly excellent adventure: Namely, motive.
Think about it. You’re a “psychosocial counselor” dealing with a couple of on-the-cusp troubled young men. You want to give them a Ghost of Christmas Future sort of vision of where the supposedly primrose path of recreational drug use and an overreliance on boner jokes leads…Christ, in that scenario if Insane Clown Posse or Bloodhound Gang aren’t in Spokane that weekend, the Kottonmouth Kings are the very best tools at a mental health professional’s disposal! [Click ‘Read More’]
Okay, okay, so perhaps Nelson is a douchebag. The evidence — twenty-six years-old, at a Kottonmouth Kings concert with children — is nothing to dismiss out of hand. And, yeah, maybe he got the idea for his federally subsidized dipshitpalooza from the Kottonmouth King’s inspiring duet with the aforementioned ICP, “Think 4 Yourself”:
So what! My best guess? These two little mouth-breathers hightailed it to the Guidance Counselor’s office the Monday morning following the concert to ask if it wasn’t too late to sign up for Odyssey of the Mind and/or math club. Fraud?! This locked down motherfucker probably saved Medicaid tens of thousands of dollars in future disability payments to a couple manchildren with brains irrevocably damaged by gas huffing and slipshod attempts at autoerotic asphyxiation!
In other words, Free Lindsay Nelson! (At least if he’ll sign a statement saying he does not now, nor ever has, own copies of Rollin’ Stoned or Hidden Stash 420.)
Also: Almost any other week this would be the strangest rock-related news out there. However, Victory Records, determined not to be outshined, retaliated by announcing the label’s most innovative signing since Earth Crisis:
Hopefully this new joint fares better for Victory and Gottfried than Problem Child 3: Junior in Love. If not, the bar to entering “psychosocial rehabilitation,” a demonstably rewarding profession, is obviously low. Go for it, Gilby!
Also, also: This post seems as appropriate a place as any to give a little space to A) a wonderful piece on ICP by Jon Ronson of THEM fame (thanks Peter Suderman) and B) this kid’s tribute video for Suicidal Tendencies “Cyco Vision.” Not a song from either of the essential Suicidal records, and no baseball hat with upturned brim is a grievous omission, but I do like how he gets all tremble-jiggly while dropping the science:
