Yep, this person is a winner....

[SunDevil]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/21/crime.bentley.reut/index.html

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) -- A 17 year-old high school student faked the theft of his 2002 BMW M3 in order to collect insurance money to upgrade to a Bentley, police said on Thursday.

The teen, a student of Skyline High School in Sammamish, a suburb of Seattle, had reported the car stolen earlier this week, said Michael Chiu, a spokesman for the police in Bellevue, another suburb located between Seattle and Sammamish.

Police in another town found the $47,000 BMW being stripped and arrested four suspects, who connected the teen to the theft, leading to his arrest.

"That investigation led us to believe that he wanted to upgrade to a Bentley," Chiu said.

Bentleys, featured frequently in U.S. hip-hop videos, have a suggested retail price of $160,000 for the Continental GT coupe and $240,000 for the Arnage sedan.

The BMW was in the name of the teen's mother name but was used as his vehicle, Chiu said. The student was released to his mother, and prosecutors are considering charges.

[jeff061]

I guess, but can you blame him for wanting to move up from the gutter?

[MikeVic]

This guy should go to jail. Has a BMW and it's not good enough?? Damn him.

[Kodos]

Lethal injection seems appropriate. :)

[Kodos]

Oops. I meant fuel injection.

[Eaglesfan27]

Lethal fuel injection.

[CamEdwards]

if that were my kid he would now be responsible for his own transportation. he would also be responsible for putting himself through college. he would be written out of the will. and he would have to get used to going through the rest with two assholes because I would have ripped him a new one.

[lighthousekeeper]

if that were my kid ... he would have to get used to going through the rest with two assholes because I would have ripped him a new one.

raping my kid wouldn't be my first reaction to insurance fraud...but to each his own.

[Ksyrup]

These parents don't give a shit...well, that's not true, since this makes them look bad to their friends. The kind of parents that give a high school kid a BMW are the kind that wait until the kid is 27, living at home, dropped out of college, and fired from the first 3 jobs daddy got him, before he gets cut-off of anything meaningful. I don't even have to know these people to know they've enabled and encouraged this kind of crap.

I don't care how much money you have, no high school kid should get something like a BMW for the first car. These parents are as much to blame as the kid.

[CamEdwards]

raping my kid wouldn't be my first reaction to insurance fraud...but to each his own.

the phrase "tearing someone a new asshole" doesn't make me think of child rape... but to each his own.

[Galaxy]

These parents don't give a shit...well, that's not true, since this makes them look bad to their friends. The kind of parents that give a high school kid a BMW are the kind that wait until the kid is 27, living at home, dropped out of college, and fired from the first 3 jobs daddy got him, before he gets cut-off of anything meaningful. I don't even have to know these people to know they've enabled and encouraged this kind of crap.

I don't care how much money you have, no high school kid should get something like a BMW for the first car. These parents are as much to blame as the kid.

Don't watch "My Sweet 16" on MTV.

[Galaxy]

Sad thing is he'll get off, with his parnets giving some money.

[Ksyrup]

Don't watch "My Sweet 16" on MTV.
It's on MTV. Not to worry.

To me, MTV in the 2000's is like VH1 in the 1980's. Ain't no way I'm touching that shit.

[lighthousekeeper]

the phrase "tearing someone a new asshole" doesn't make me think of child rape... but to each his own.

I think there's some connotation of penis involvement.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tear+a+new+asshole

[Rizon]

That kid doesn't have parents. He has breeders.

[Craptacular]

I don't care how much money you have, no high school kid should get something like a BMW for the first car. These parents are as much to blame as the kid.
What about LeBron? Oh wait, the Hummer was probably his 5th or 6th car. My bad.

[Lathum]

I agree with Ksyrup, the parents are at fault

[Comey]

Lethal fuel injection.
That'd cost the taxpayers too much.

[st.cronin]

I went to kind of an upper class high school; several kids I knew drove pricey cars. I don't remember any of them engaged in insurance fraud, though.

Let's not turn this into a class warfare thing.

[jeff061]

No we can, I went to a rich kid's high school, had the repuation of being the "snob's" high school and it was well deserved. Bunch of snobbish assholes with their priorities all fucked up. And I was doing OK to, so its not a jealousy thing.

[Ksyrup]

It's got nothing to do with class, per se. Just that these people do nothing to encourage responsibility and hard work when they give high school kids what people work a lifetime to be able to afford and still can't. For their own good, these kids should be taught the value of money and how hard it really is to get such "throw-away" possessions in real life. There are plenty of other perks they get by being rich that make their lives easier, as it is - vacations, college tuition paid for, maybe even a trust fund, etc. You don't just hand a kid who just turned 16 the keys to your Beemer (even if it was - gasp! - 3 years old!) and expect him to learn JACK SQUAT from that, other than to continue to expect things like this to be given to him for the rest of his life.

I had a roommate my first year of college who was from a well-off southern family. His life consisted of partying, escorting for debutante balls, drinking, and generally screwing off. First semester, he got a 1.06 GPA. He came back from holiday break driving his dad's old BMW. Unbelievable to me.

[oliegirl]

I went to kind of an upper class high school; several kids I knew drove pricey cars. I don't remember any of them engaged in insurance fraud, though.

Let's not turn this into a class warfare thing.


I agree with St. Cronin...I went to an upper middle class high school also, received a nice car when I turned 16, and I don't think that fact alone indicates that my parents were not good role models or didn't teach me anything. You don't know this kid or his family, you cannot make a statment condmening them as parents any more than well-off people can condemn families who don't have money as being bad parents because they can't give their children "everything". Radii and I came from very different families, but we both have very similar values, and if anything, the ties to my family, both immediate and extended, are stronger than his. (Don't worry, he has admitted this to me, not going to cause a fight :))

[Ksyrup]

The fact that they did what they did was irresponsible, IMO. Just because some kids are able to deal with it better than others doesn't make it the right decision.

And yes, I'm assuming quite a bit that I don't know about this scenario - he could be working to pay insurance, the parents could have him on a short leash, maybe the car was from an inheritance and the family had no use for it so they gave it him, etc.

But something tells me that if he thought he could upgrade to a Bentley, he knew he had access to the money he would need to make up the difference between the BMW and the Bentley, and it was probably only a small whinefest with mother and father after the insurance money came in from the BMW, until he got what he wanted. It wasn't like he was going to be able to make a one-for-one swap of cars. That tells me this kid's been getting everything he wants - and even things he knows are beyond what he should have any reasonable expectations for - all his life.

[Ben E Lou]

No we can, I went to a rich kid's high school, had the repuation of being the "snob's" high school and it was well deserved. Bunch of snobbish assholes with their priorities all fucked up. And I was doing OK to, so its not a jealousy thing.It really can vary. I went to a *very* wealthy high school on scholarship (Tuition is currently right at 10 grand. (http://www.brookstoneschool.org/admissions-tuition.cfm)) However, many of my male friends were either given great-grandma's old car from the 70's, a late 70's/early 80's pickup, or a fairly-new small car like a Honda Civic. (I graduated in '87.) I usually parked my '73 Nova in a row with Jerry Rothschild's '71 98, Tom Followill's '74 Buick Skylark, Julian Singer's 70-something convertable El Dorado, and Andrew Rothschild's '76 Cutlass. Another odd/interesting/commendable thing about a number of the parents at my school was that they made their sons do hard manual labor jobs during the summer. Todd Reaves's father owned Reaves Wrecking, and many of my friends (including Todd) worked at Reaves Wrecking in the hot middle Georgia summers for minimum or near-minimum wage. The thought was that they wanted their sons to learn what it meant to work hard and to appreciate what they had. Can't fault 'em for that. They generally gave their sons nicer cars for high school graduation, but not BMW's, which were considered "girl cars" at my high school, probably because...

...the girls, on the other hand, were treated ENTIRELY differently. My school had around 240 students in the high school, so figure that around 140 or so were of driving age, and therefore 70 or so drivers were girls. I can rattle off at least a dozen girls who drove BMW's--a pretty sizeable chunk.

Most of the people at my school were from old Southern money families, so I'm guessing that it was just that old-school Southern mentality at work.

[Ksyrup]

There is a high school on the north side of Atlanta - and I can't for the life of me remember the name - that we played a soccer game against back when I was in high school (I didn't play, I just kept stats, did announcing at home games, etc.). I still remember pulling into the parking lot and seeing row after row of Mercedes, Audis, and BMWs in the student parking lot. We started counting and came up with at least 50% of the cars we saw were those types. It was unbelievable. And our high school wasn't exactly in poor-town, either, but we'd never seen anything like that.

I want to say it was Marietta, or maybe Pace (?), but it's been almost 20 years and I've been away from the area for too long to recall.

[Ben E Lou]

There is a high school on the north side of Atlanta - and I can't for the life of me remember the name - that we played a soccer game against back when I was in high school (I didn't play, I just kept stats, did announcing at home games, etc.). I still remember pulling into the parking lot and seeing row after row of Mercedes, Audis, and BMWs in the student parking lot. We started counting and came up with at least 50% of the cars we saw were those types. It was unbelievable. And our high school wasn't exactly in poor-town, either, but we'd never seen anything like that.

I want to say it was Marietta, or maybe Pace (?), but it's been almost 20 years and I've been away from the area for too long to recall.That sounds like a good bit like Pace Academy. It is right down the street from the Governors' Mansion. Just checked their web site. Tuition is north of 15 grand.

[Ksyrup]

That's probably it. About all I can remember of that particular trip was that it was for the girl's soccer team, and I quite enjoyed the scenery on the pitch. And aside from coaches, I was like the only guy anywhere near the field.

Not that it did me any good. :(

[st.cronin]

The fact that they did what they did was irresponsible, IMO. Just because some kids are able to deal with it better than others doesn't make it the right decision.

And yes, I'm assuming quite a bit that I don't know about this scenario - he could be working to pay insurance, the parents could have him on a short leash, maybe the car was from an inheritance and the family had no use for it so they gave it him, etc.

But something tells me that if he thought he could upgrade to a Bentley, he knew he had access to the money he would need to make up the difference between the BMW and the Bentley, and it was probably only a small whinefest with mother and father after the insurance money came in from the BMW, until he got what he wanted. It wasn't like he was going to be able to make a one-for-one swap of cars. That tells me this kid's been getting everything he wants - and even things he knows are beyond what he should have any reasonable expectations for - all his life.

If the kid grew up in a ghetto and had committed a comparable crime people would be saying 'that's what happens when you grow up without a father/on welfare/etc.' It's a stupid argument.

[Franklinnoble]

This is just bad parenting.

I don't care how much money I have. I could win $50 million in the lottery tomorrow, and you can bet your ass my 15 year old's only car from me is going to be a piece of shit 1984 Buick LeSabre or some shit, because I'm not giving a teenager an expesive car that he's just going to trash anyway. A big old crappy car is slower, safer, and less likely to get ripped off. If he wrecks it, it's not a big loss. Plus it's just irresponsible to "train" your kids to think that shit like BMW's just comes easy. I want my children to learn to pull their own weight.

[Ksyrup]

Makes sense to me, FN.

[judicial clerk]

When I first turned 16, my parents let me drive a bitchin' ford Fiesta to school. It was passed down form my parents to my older sister to me. it had over 200,000 miles and a wood screw holding part of the dash on. It didn't make me too snobby.

My parents tried not to coddle me too much, though. To quote my father in discussing me with one of my new high school teachers, "If [judicial clerk]gets out of line, you have my permission to kick his ass."

.

[Franklinnoble]

When I first turned 16, my parents let me drive a bitchin' ford Fiesta to school. It was passed down form my parents to my older sister to me. it had over 200,000 miles and a wood screw holding part of the dash on. It didn't make me too snobby.

My parents tried not to coddle me too much, though. To quote my father in discussing me with one of my new high school teachers, "If [judicial clerk]gets out of line, you have my permission to kick his ass."

.
I didn't realize any of my siblings had an account on here...

[Ksyrup]

I had my dad's old Ford Fiesta! For all of 2 weeks. I got a decent stereo system put in it (that I paid for), and a few days later, some chick pulled out in front of me and to avoid her, I ran up onto a median, totalling (read: $500 worth of damage) it.

My dad then bought me a Honda Civic hatchback with 90K miles for $3K. He couldn't get over the fact that he actually paid for it with a credit card. I ended up paying him back $1,500 over time, plus paid half of the insurance every month.

And that's the way we liked it back then!

[Galaxy]

That sounds like a good bit like Pace Academy. It is right down the street from the Governors' Mansion. Just checked their web site. Tuition is north of 15 grand.
Is this in the Buckhead area?

[Galaxy]

This is just bad parenting.

I don't care how much money I have. I could win $50 million in the lottery tomorrow, and you can bet your ass my 15 year old's only car from me is going to be a piece of shit 1984 Buick LeSabre or some shit, because I'm not giving a teenager an expesive car that he's just going to trash anyway. A big old crappy car is slower, safer, and less likely to get ripped off. If he wrecks it, it's not a big loss. Plus it's just irresponsible to "train" your kids to think that shit like BMW's just comes easy. I want my children to learn to pull their own weight.


Yeap...And people wonder why they can't stand Paris Hilton. Plus, why would you give 16-17 years olds $50k-cars that are pretty powerful and loaded? Alot of kids that age (or the boys may), beat the crap out the cars and don't take care of them (inside and outside).

[Ben E Lou]

Is this in the Buckhead area?Yes, in the residential portion of Buckhead, on West Paces Ferry.

[oliegirl]

But something tells me that if he thought he could upgrade to a Bentley, he knew he had access to the money he would need to make up the difference between the BMW and the Bentley, and it was probably only a small whinefest with mother and father after the insurance money came in from the BMW, until he got what he wanted. It wasn't like he was going to be able to make a one-for-one swap of cars. That tells me this kid's been getting everything he wants - and even things he knows are beyond what he should have any reasonable expectations for - all his life.

But what makes you think his parents would have gone along with this? I have not been following the story outside of this thread, but there are no quotes from his parents, or even references to interviews they gave regarding the situation. The car is 3 years old, maybe his dad has a great job and that was a company car, and when it was time to get a new one, they bought out the old one and let him drive it. Who knows...I just think it's wrong to be so judgemental towards a situation you know very little about. It's one thing to say "I wouldn't parent that way", but to call people irresponsible and be as harsh as some of the comments here have been just because a kid is driving a BMW and pulled a stupid prank, I think is unneccesary and wrong.

[Ksyrup]

I've already said I'm assuming a bunch of facts. It's called speculation.

[st.cronin]

Whenever somebody does something wrong there are hordes of people dying to blame his/her parents. It's a stupid knee jerk argument.

[larrymcg421]

I change my mind. I now support the death penalty. But only for people like this, who are too fucking stupid to live.

[Galaxy]

Whenever somebody does something wrong there are hordes of people dying to blame his/her parents. It's a stupid knee jerk argument.

Why wouldn't the parents be responsibile for the actions of their 17-year-old son. Isn't it the resposibility of the parents to teach children right from wrong?

[st.cronin]

Why wouldn't the parents be responsibile for the actions of their 17-year-old son. Isn't it the resposibility of the parents to teach children right from wrong?

Because if you blame the parents for the actions of their children, then the children in fact bear no responsibility for their actions.

[Galaxy]

Because if you blame the parents for the actions of their children, then the children in fact bear no responsibility for their actions.

True, but I think both parties are to blame. He is still under the parents responsibility. But you need to teach your children responsibility and respect, which this kid imo did not towards his car or his parents (who allowed him this expensive car).

[Galaxy]

I am curious, if he got the insurance coverage, wouldn't he only get the amount that the car is worth? If so, how would he exactly upgrade to a Bentley, which is listed at $100,000+ more then his car.