Beats Prison

[Lady Cop]

this guy took poison when his verdict came down. right in court.

he was found guilty of arson and was looking at a long sentence. went from rich to poor.
i guess he couldn't face the prospect of years in prison.
a friend mentioned case to me and all i said was "beats prison". he laughed and said that about sums it up.

could you? would you off yourself?

they often do, but not right in the courtroom.

he escaped the blaze wearing quite convenient SCUBA gear. here's the story:
----------------------------
AP & other sources
PHOENIX AZ. As the word "guilty" filled the silence of a Phoenix courtroom, defendant Michael Marin closed his eyes, put his head in his hands and appeared to put something in his mouth. He then took a swig from a sports bottle.

Minutes later, the 53-year-old Marin was dead.

Now investigators are trying to confirm their suspicion that Marin popped a poison pill after the jury found him guilty of arson, a bizarre ending to a case that began in 2009 when he emerged from his burning mansion in scuba gear.

Prosecutors said he torched his home when he couldn't keep up with the payments. Marin, an attorney and father of four, faced seven to 21 years in prison.

"This is one of the strangest cases I've seen in a long time," said Jeff Sprong, a spokesman with the Maricopa County sheriff's office. "We're hoping to find out exactly what he was thinking and exactly what he took."

Detectives will get the liquid from the sports drink tested for poisons. An autopsy was being conducted Friday to determine if any poison was in Marin's system, but results weren't expected to be released for months.

Marin's four grown children, who live in Arizona, did not return requests for comment, nor did his attorney, Andrew Clemency, or prosecutor Chris Rapp.

Marin, a former Wall Street trader, had summited Everest and wrote on his Facebook page that he had scaled six of the world's seven tallest mountains. He also was an art collector who had original Picassos.

Prosecutors painted him as a desperate man who had $50 in his bank account in July 2009, down from $900,000 a year earlier. He also had a monthly mortgage payment on the mansion of $17,250 and an upcoming balloon payment of $2.3 million.

Marin also owed $2,500 a month on a different home and owed $34,000 in taxes, prosecutors said.

On July 5, 2009, Marin told investigators that he escaped a blaze in his 10,000-sqaure-foot mansion in a posh part of Phoenix using a rope ladder and wearing scuba gear to avoid inhaling smoke.

Fire investigators later determined that the blaze was intentionally set. As Marin was led off to jail, he told reporters that he was innocent and "utterly shocked" that he was being arrested.

On Thursday, a jury found Marin guilty of a felony count of arson of an occupied structure.

After the verdict, he appeared to put something in his mouth, according to video footage. Soon after, a bright-red Marin coughed, reached for a tissue, buried his face in his hands and appeared to sob, The Arizona Republic reported.

Marin then began making noises that sounded like snores and whoops as he began convulsing and fell on the floor face-first, according to the newspaper.

Sprong, the sheriff's spokesman, said an investigator in the courtroom tried to resuscitate Marin. He was pronounced dead soon after at a hospital. Sprong said the department planned to interview his family and search his home.



video in court:

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video....D=23650891












escaped fire with SCUBA gear

[Ma Huang Sor]

Crazy fucking bastard.

[Lady Cop]

Crazy fucking bastard.

crappy thing to do to his 4 kids. i don't know their ages. have to look it up.

2 grandkids also.

Yale Law school. wow. what a waste.

Marin's four grown children, who live in Arizona, did not return requests for comment

Among Marin's last posts on Facebook, in November 2009, was a photo of his four children that said there was something more important to him than his Everest conquest.

"More than anything else I may have accomplished in this life, this is what really matters to me: the blessing of knowing the amazing individuals I am privileged to call my children," he wrote.

[OnBendedKnee]

Yes, and no.
Like pulling a bandaid off quickly or slowly.
He chose the quick method.

Kids will cry for awhile and then move on with their lives.
His spending 16 years in prison is both an embarrassment and anxiety producing for the children.

Plus we as tax payers now save 80K a year not having to support his ArsonAss.

[Donovan]

I think poison pills ought to be offered as an option when guilty verdicts are handed down. Lots of other cultures in history had such a system, from the Greeks to the Japanese. It's a little like telling someone, "You fucked up, now do the right thing. Kill yourself."

[Lady Cop]

he had quite a life. scaled Everest, traveled.

tox will take 2 weeks.

[Tonyg41]

I think poison pills ought to be offered as an option when guilty verdicts are handed down. Lots of other cultures in history had such a system, from the Greeks to the Japanese. It's a little like telling someone, "You fucked up, now do the right thing. Kill yourself."

I agree completely

[Maggot]

Next!

[OnBendedKnee]

Killing himself was the ultimate, "Whoops-a-daisy!"

[Riotgear]

...he escaped a blaze in his 10,000-sqaure-foot mansion in a posh part of Phoenix using a rope ladder and wearing scuba gear to avoid inhaling smoke.

Fucking...AWESOME!!!

[pspence]

Crazy fucking bastard.

crappy thing to do to his 4 kids. i don't know their ages. have to look it up.

2 grandkids also.

Yale Law school. wow. what a waste.

Chicken shit to do that to his kids. Suicide most selfish thing you can do to a family.

[Cracker]

You own your own life, nobody else.

The guy climbed Everest, why stick around for a jail cell? Go out on top.

[Lady Cop]

excellent observation...it's a long way from the rarefied air at the Everest summit, to a dank prison cell.

[Donovan]

"Investigators hope to find out what he was thinking"


Probably something along the lines of "Fuck THIS."

[pspence]

Yes, and no.
Like pulling a bandaid off quickly or slowly.
He chose the quick method.

Kids will cry for awhile and then move on with their lives.
His spending 16 years in prison is both an embarrassment and anxiety producing for the children.

Yeah, having a parent in prison would be major embarrassing for sure. But my gawwwdd I would certainly like to think it would be better for my kids in the long run for me to have faced prison with courage, endured it as best as i could and visit with them etc than to have blown my freakin' head off.

Then again if I had to face years in one of those 3^rd world prisons ...wheres that
Cyanide pill?

[pspence]

[quote='Donovan' pid='261952' dateline='1341098457']
I think poison pills ought to be offered as an option when guilty verdicts are handed down. Lots of other cultures in history had such a system, from the Greeks to the Japanese. It's a little like telling someone, "You fucked up, now do the right thing. Kill yourself."
[/


Slippery slope...next thing you know they're giving those the powder for shoplifting a candy bar...they do that shit in china. they throw anyone in jail for the most minor thing and in secret (saw a video of it on 20/20) execute them in shifts of approx 100 at a time..the nurses are standing by ready with the coolers to take their body parts. No shit.

[ramseycat]

You own your own life, nobody else.

The guy climbed Everest, why stick around for a jail cell? Go out on top.

He wasn't on top. He was a convected felon. He lost all his money and resorted to arson to scam his way out of paying what he owed. I wouldn't say he was anywhere near the top.

[Lady Cop]

(CNN) -- The death last month of a 53-year-old former investment banker who collapsed in an Arizona courtroom, minutes after a jury found him guilty of torching his palatial Phoenix estate, appears to have been a suicide, police said Tuesday.

Michael Marin was facing a sentence of seven to 21 years in prison on June 28 when courtroom video shows that he appeared to put something into his mouth and swallowed. Minutes later, he appeared to put something else into his mouth, and again swallowed. Shortly afterward, he went into convulsions and was taken to Maricopa County Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Late Monday or early Tuesday, Marin's adult son received a delayed e-mail from his father "telling him that if things don't go good in court, Marin's wills are in place and his car can be found at a Mesa location," Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told reporters. The family relayed that information to police, who searched the car's cargo area and found a canister labeled sodium cyanide, he said.

Investigators determined that Marin had ordered the quick-acting poison -- typically used in agriculture and gold mining -- from a California-based company and that it was delivered by FedEx to his home in 2011.

"All indications point to suicide but, until the final report, this case still remains open," he said.

The coroner will determine the cause of death.

"We assume that Marin made capsules out of this toxic substance before coming to court on June 28," he said. The product, which typically sells for $68 for 200 grams, was on sale this week for half off, Arpaio said.

He described the family as "very distraught," but cooperating with investigators.

During his career working for Wall Street investment banks, the Yale University Law School graduate had collected Picasso artwork, driven a Rolls Royce and flew his own plane.

"He was en engaging character," said Paul Rubin, who profiled Marin in 2008 for the Phoenix New Times newspaper. "He's the smartest guy in the room, the smoothest talker in the room," Rubin told CNN. "He gets all the girls, he's that guy. And he hit a brick wall."

Marin's brick wall proved to be his 10,000 square-foot home in the Biltmore Estates, an exclusive enclave in Phoenix.

Marin bought the house in 2008, as the real estate market was collapsing, with an interest-only mortgage payment of $17,250 per month.

But Marin had long before been fired from Wall Street and had not worked in years.

Prosecutors say he concocted a scheme to raffle off the house and, in the process, make himself $1 million. Raffle tickets would sell for $25 apiece, with the proceeds going to the Child Crisis Center.

Investigators say Marin climbed Mount Everest to generate publicity for the raffle, doing interviews with local television stations from the mountain.

But Joe Epps, the forensic accountant who unraveled Marin's personal finances for investigators, told CNN it was all a ploy.

"What happened was he paid $2,550,000 for the house and set up with a couple of friends of his a bogus second mortgage designed to increase the value of the house for $950,000, a second mortgage that didn't really exist," he said.

Epps said the ploy was intended to make $1 million for Marin while also making him look as though he was helping charity.

But in April 2009, the Arizona attorney general ruled the raffle was illegal. By then, Marin was six months from having to make a balloon payment of roughly $2 million to lenders or risk a major jump in his monthly payments. His financial world was collapsing.

"I don't think he really thought this through, and it ended up where he had to do something that was pretty wacky, which was burn down his house," said Rubin.

Early July 5, 2009, fire engulfed Marin's Biltmore home. He called 911 from his upstairs bedroom, then emerged from the burning home wearing SCUBA gear that happened to have been in his bedroom.

"Every fireman on the scene was, 'You're not going to believe this guy -- he came out of a ladder out of his master bedroom wearing a SCUBA tank, a SCUBA mask and a snorkel,'" said Phoenix Fire Captain Jeff Peabody. "Yeah, you're right, I find that odd."

Speaking after the fire from his hospital bed, Marin recounted his improbable escape.

"I realized that I actually had some air left in that tank, and that's what enabled me to get back to the window and deploy that ladder," he told a reporter. "If I hadn't had those two things, we wouldn't be talking."

Peabody says he found four locations in the house where fires had been intentionally set and a line of phone books that helped the fire spread.

Marin's attorney said last week that his client had shown no signs of being suicidal.

"It was a gigantic shock," he said. "I think it's fair to say that we certainly had no inkling that this was going to happen. I'm not aware that anybody did."

[cladking]

D'oh.

I just didn't see that last post.

Death is the easy way out but it's always pretty final with no appeal and no parole.

[shitstorm]

He destroyed himself with his own greed. I wish more of that type would take cyanide.