This story is in the news in Colorado:

A car strikes a man riding a bicycle near one of the Colorado ski towns, causing a lot of injuries and keeps going. When the police catch up with the car, the driver has pulled over and is in the process of placing his broken side mirror and a piece of his bumper in the trunk, but he's unaware that he hit the bicyclist, doesn't know what happened to damage his car.

The District Attorney in that county isn't sure if he's going to file charges because the driver of the car is a personal asset manager (stockbroker) in Denver and manages $1 billion in funds. The DA doesn't want to interfere with his ability to make a living.

Whaat?

If the guy was some chump making minimum wage at McDonalds or less than minimum at Wal-Mart, there'd be no question about interfering with his ability to make a living, he'd be in jail right now or certainly have charges filed against him.

The guy who was hit is a physician, and he wrote to the DA asking that there be some sort of prosecution because he or some other innocent victim could have been killed. So it's not as if the car hit some minimum-wage or welfare-supported village idiot who has little to contribute to society. Apparently it doesn't matter if the injuries would prevent this doctor from making a living or pay restitution.

THEN! Here's the good part. The defense has two facets: The financial manager was supposedly overcome by NEW CAR FUMES emanating from the fine leather upholstery of his new Mercedes.

But that's not the defense he's going to use, he's going to use the SLEEP APNEA defense. In other words he is sleep deprived from sleep apnea (where you stop breathing in your sleep and it usually wakes you up, and you go back to sleep). People suffering from sleep apnea don't always realize they are sleep deprived, they think they slept for 8 hours, and they nod off during the day.

So when he drove into the bicycle rider, he was asleep at the wheel, and this is supposed to be okay because he had sleep apnea and he doesn't need to be held accountable because he makes a lot of money.

I think he could liquidate some of his no doubt considerable assets to pay restitution. There isn't much point in a penalty or fine if it doesn't hurt a little bit.

It's one of those deals where you don't know whether to laugh or cry or vomit.