Masturbating in Public

and getting caught. Sides v. City of Champaign is an unfortunate case of PDA gone horribly wrong. I think it's because he was doing it in a Target parking lot in front of his girlfriend, who was apparently in the passenger's seat of the car dude was using to block everyone else's view of his dong. Notice that it wasn't midnight alone in a Target parking lot; dude whipped it out at approximately 1pm in Champaign, IL.

The worst part: He got caught on video camera, and a Target employee called the police who came and arrested him. The claim up on appeal was the summary judgment dismissal of his 1983 claim (*yawn*), but the $$$ is the original $175 fine he got for the indecent exposure:

The officers cited Sides, but not Manuel, for violating Champaign’s public indecency ordinance, which prohibits anyone over sixteen years of age from performing acts of sexual intercourse, sexual penetration or “lewd exposure of the body” in public. Champaign Mun. Code § 23-111. The notice to appear listed a minimum fine amount of $175, which the city later claimed was imposed by the city municipal code. Id. § 1-21(b) & Table I. After investigation, Sides discovered that the minimum fine had not been listed in the appropriate section of the code published at the time he committed the offense; he argued to the state trial court that no such minimum fine applied to him. The court agreed, dismissing the city’s complaint without prejudice to refiling without the purported minimum fine. The city filed a new complaint as amended. City of Champaign v. Sides, 810 N.E.2d 287, 292, 294 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004). Sides was convicted and fined $500 under a jury instruction that permitted the jury to impose a fine from $1 to $750. See Champaign Mun. Code § 1-21(c).

The JP has never before seen someone with his foot that far in his mouth.