K1 and myself showed up for court looking respectable, i.e. not in our Krony costumes for once, and with legal representation. Mr. Rook showed up looking like a comic book geek and with no representation. After our lawyer and the judge, who knew one another professionally, had exchanged some polite chit-chat that doubtlessly had Rook's brain ablaze with thoughts of conspiracy, things got under way. Rook was allowed to present his case, whereupon the sketch comedy began. Rook explained about his convention, and that we weren't supposed to be there:
Judge: Why weren't they supposed to be there?
Rook: Because they were not invited.
Judge: So this event was invitation-only?
Rook: Well, no. But we don't really advertise it. I mean, we do have a website...and a newsletter....
Judge: So that would be advertising.
Rook: ...Yes. But they didn't belong there.
Judge: How can you tell if someone does belong there?
Rook: The members have wristbands.
Judge: Did these two individuals have wristbands?
Rook: ...Yes. I have no idea how they got them.
Judge: Couldn't they have purchased them like anyone else?
Rook: Well, I suppose so....
Having failed thus far to mention anything that even sounded like a crime, Mr. Rook brought up the issue of the Krony flyers, and passed copies to the judge, who visibly attempted to suppress a grin upon reading them. "So this matter is over the fact that they brought these flyers into your convention?" the judge asked with a tone which made it clear that the exercise of freedom of the press didn't constitute a good reason to take someone to court. "Yes Ma'am! Anyone bringing those flyers into my convention would be in a lot of trouble!" Rook replied, plainly not catching the inference at all. The judge went on to ask if we had been indoors or outdoors when we had been accosted by security, a toddler-level question which Rook then attempted to answer for about five minutes by dickering over what constituted "indoors" repeatedly and even attempting to draw a diagram of the premises before the increasingly irate judge finally managed to dumb down the question enough for Rook to answer "Outdoors." Myself and K1 sat in stupefied disbelief that the matter of the fake badge, the only actually illegal part of the whole affair, had not been mentioned at all. Finally, Rook indicated that we'd recorded ourselves at the con, and did the court have a VCR for him to use? The answer was no; only the superior court had one, and a murder trial was happening there at present, which we weren't going to be disturbing. At this juncture, Agent K1 offered a suggestion which can only be termed brilliant: he offered to play the judge the master copy of said tape on our camera, which we'd brought along in case we'd been allowed to tape the hearing (we weren't).
Mr. Rook looked shocked as K1 was asked to come up to the bench and present the evidence, growing paler as his nemesis stood side-by-side with the judge, explaining how to use the playback controls as they both ignored his queries as to whether or not the camcorder would play back any sound (it wouldn't). Misunderstanding a suggestion that the judge skim ahead ten or so minutes until the pertinent part arrived (the tape had begun with unrelated footage of a vacation), Rook's head popped up and exclaimed "Ten minutes?! So you were in there even longer than we thought!" Agent K1 replied with an indignant "Excuse me?" and the judge added, with visible irritation, "Hush!" before they resumed. Mr. Rook asked to be excused to get some air while the now rather bored judge watched video showing how we arrived at the hotel, held up our wristbands for display, wandered through the con doing nothing and then got grabbed and dragged away. Immediately afterwards, the baliff entered to explain that Mr. Rook was having a heart attack and an ambulance had been called. Apparently, the fact that the judge had not looked at the flyers and ordered that we be taken out back and hanged from the nearest tree had simply blown his mind.
The hearing now on hold for obvious reasons, we headed back outside just in time to see Mr. Rook being loaded onto the ambulance, which we then taped while proclaiming, "This is what happens when you fuck with the Kronies!" Yes, it was a tad mean. We returned home and proceeded to repeat this story to just about everyone we knew for days on end, barely capable of actually believing the preposterously melodramatic climax which had seemed to signal an end to our worries, all but convinced that the entire charade was over. After such a debacle, surely Mr. Rook wouldn't be such a glutton for punishment as to come back for more.
K1 and myself showed up for court looking respectable, i.e. not in our Krony costumes for once, and with legal representation. Mr. Rook showed up looking like a comic book geek and with no representation. After our lawyer and the judge, who knew one another professionally, had exchanged some polite chit-chat that doubtlessly had Rook's brain ablaze with thoughts of conspiracy, things got under way. Rook was allowed to present his case, whereupon the sketch comedy began. Rook explained about his convention, and that we weren't supposed to be there:
Having failed thus far to mention anything that even sounded like a crime, Mr. Rook brought up the issue of the Krony flyers, and passed copies to the judge, who visibly attempted to suppress a grin upon reading them. "So this matter is over the fact that they brought these flyers into your convention?" the judge asked with a tone which made it clear that the exercise of freedom of the press didn't constitute a good reason to take someone to court. "Yes Ma'am! Anyone bringing those flyers into my convention would be in a lot of trouble!" Rook replied, plainly not catching the inference at all. The judge went on to ask if we had been indoors or outdoors when we had been accosted by security, a toddler-level question which Rook then attempted to answer for about five minutes by dickering over what constituted "indoors" repeatedly and even attempting to draw a diagram of the premises before the increasingly irate judge finally managed to dumb down the question enough for Rook to answer "Outdoors." Myself and K1 sat in stupefied disbelief that the matter of the fake badge, the only actually illegal part of the whole affair, had not been mentioned at all. Finally, Rook indicated that we'd recorded ourselves at the con, and did the court have a VCR for him to use? The answer was no; only the superior court had one, and a murder trial was happening there at present, which we weren't going to be disturbing. At this juncture, Agent K1 offered a suggestion which can only be termed brilliant: he offered to play the judge the master copy of said tape on our camera, which we'd brought along in case we'd been allowed to tape the hearing (we weren't).
The hearing now on hold for obvious reasons, we headed back outside just in time to see Mr. Rook being loaded onto the ambulance, which we then taped while proclaiming, "This is what happens when you fuck with the Kronies!" Yes, it was a tad mean. We returned home and proceeded to repeat this story to just about everyone we knew for days on end, barely capable of actually believing the preposterously melodramatic climax which had seemed to signal an end to our worries, all but convinced that the entire charade was over. After such a debacle, surely Mr. Rook wouldn't be such a glutton for punishment as to come back for more.
