Bill White convicted
William A. White, a.k.a. “Wild Bill White,” has been convicted of using threatening speech against a bill collector while White stood to gain from the transaction:
Angry with the way Citibank was handling his account, William A. White dug up a bank employee’s home address, her telephone number and the name of her husband.
He then sent the information to Jennifer Petsche in an e-mail, threatening to share it with other dissatisfied customers.
“Consider this,” White wrote. “As I’m sure, being in the collection business and having the attitude about it that you do, that you often make people upset. Lord knows that drawing too much publicity and making people upset is what did in Joan Lefkow.”
But because White sought personal gain from Petsche — he wanted to improve his credit score by getting her to clear up his disputed credit card debt — prosecutors have charged him with threatening her with the intent to extort.
[+|Roanoke Times]
While we’re not surprised that White’s provocative antics got such a response in the election year of Barack Obama, we find this a troubling precedent — people need to be able to fight back against bill collectors.