What is the worst thing you or someone you know have been accused of?

I know this is kind of an intense question, so I will spill a story first. (this also stops this from being an orphan, which is a fear I have).
This is amusing. Well, to me, anyway.
Back in the 70’s, I went to a lot of silent movies in the area. SF, Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive and the UC theater, some down in Palo Alto. There would usually be an accompanyist, and more often than not it was Bob Vaughn. He was remarkable, almost always adding to the enjoyment of the movies. I would often go down and speak to him after the movies, to get an idea of when and where the next silent film would be playing, and to just talk about the genre. He knew tons, and was very kind and generous with that knowledge. I remember his passing 9 years ago, and was saddened by it. He was a really, sweet, nice man.
He apparently was also suspected to be the Zodiac killer.
I just watched the movie Zodiac, and they have a creepy 50ish dude playing him. When I knew him in the mid to late 70’s, he was a frail 65–70 year old gentleman, who always wore a tux while playing. I know that doesn’t mean he wasn’t Zodiac, but I am telling you he wasn’t. Not this guy. And it’s a shame filmmakers can cast aspersions on his life like this.
Made me laugh when I realized that was the guy I used to talk with.

I was accused of stealing money when I worked in the bank. It was between myself and another girl that was sweet as butter. Then she got caught by a customer stealing. They later learned that her and her boyfriend (who worked in another bank for the same bank) where cashing forged checks.
She choose to make it look like I did it because her boyfriend and I once worked together and he hated me with a passion.
I knew all along it was her because I knew I didn’t do it. Plus the money disappeared from my drawer the day I was out sick and she took over my drawer. She didn’t even claim the drawer was short till they did a random count of her money. She claimed she didn’t count the money like she was suppose to when you first take over someones drawer. She was so sweet that everyone thought she must be innocent of it. And of course I was the type to ruffle a few feathers. Funny thing the one thing no one liked was that I did everything by the book. I always made sure I wasn’t shorted or even shorted anyone else because I wouldn’t take the time to count the money.
People always got annoyed when I would count the money they gave me after they counted it. But most of the time they would do it on a machine and some bills would stick together. I would do both which was bank policy. They all thought it was a waste of time.

A member of my family used to help an old lady out by doing chores for her, shopping and the like. Through her they were introduced to one of her in laws and that person asked them to do some work for them in their home (voluntarily). This old man then accused them of theft. It went to court and my relative was found not guilty. They had to go through the whole court case though and all the stress that brings.

The person accused was the MOST honest person I have met. I remember getting on a bus and paying half fare when I should have paid the full price. I didn’t know my relative was behind me and he made me go back and pay the additional money. He was a kind, caring person and I never knew him to lie or behave in an dishonest way ever. He was mortified by the accusation. The old man concerned was a nasty piece of work although I have no idea what his motivation was in bringing those charges.

It was autumn 1967, and I hitched a ride. A cop pulled us over and told the driver he was free to leave, but told me that I wasn’t.

He asked me some questions and told me that I matched the description of a burglary suspect. When he decided it wasn’t me, I said, “That’s a relief, ociffer, I thought you was pullin’ my ass over for dis j in my pocket”. ;-p

That’s all true, except for the last sentence before this one.

I heard about this dude who was held at gunpoint by the fuzz, for what turned out to having the rear license plate from a stolen car.

Some car thieves switched the license plate from the car they stole with the one on the innocent dude’s, and took off….

I was accused of breaking into a neighbor’s house when I was a kid, about 10yrs old. I knew the two kids who did it, I knew when they did it and I was invited but I declined to go along. The kids said I was with them because they knew I knew and assumed wrongly that I was the one who’d told on them- parents figured it out themselves because it was rocket science. My own parents didn’t believe me and I was made to go to the neighbors and apologize for “my part” in the vandalism and volunteer to take whatever punishment they saw fit. It was beyond humiliating and I hated my parents for years for that.

It’s bad enough that posting it on the internet would be a very, very bad idea.

@MyNewtBoobs

Would it have anything to do with the alleged theft of Newt Gingrich’s breasts? ;-)

Don’t be afraid to post smaller things. If it helps, change who it happened to.

That said, this really, really, did happen to a friend of my sisters:
She worked as a house cleaner. Once a week, she would come in and clean all the rooms, vacuuming, dusting, whatever.
She got into the bathroom, and found a hair curler. She wound up the cord, and put it in the small drawer in front of the sink.
She came back the next week, and when she got to the bathroom, she found a different hair curler. Once again, she wound up the cord, and put it in the same drawer.
That night, the owners of that house called her up, and fired her.
She asked why.
They explained that she had stolen the two hair curlers.
She told them she put them in the drawer in front of the sink. “There isn’t a drawer there!” they said.
“Yes, there is. Go look.”
Apparently, the wife was shocked to find that the bathroom sink had a drawer that she thought was just facing. They begged my sister’s friend to continue cleaning for them, but she refused to return.

When I was in college, I was a bank teller and was accused of cashing a stolen check. I was at a busy branch as a pool teller, but I’d been there enough that I knew a lot of the business customers. The chief of security went through my tapes for that day with me, and I recognized the account number of the transaction before the stolen check transaction. So we watched the security tape with the owner of the business that the employee who said I’d cashed her stolen paycheck worked for. I recognized the customer from the transaction before the check, and then there was the employee herself cashing her own check next. Her employer was very embarrassed, and fired the woman for lying and trying to cheat him out of a second check. No one ever apologized to me.

Child abuse and neglect. Yep, my husband and I.

It was resolved through the court and found to be complete and utter nonsense. In fact, at one point the person who was making the accusations blatantly said that the whole thing was fabricated.

My ex-husband was detained by RCMP the morning of our wedding day because he matched the physical description of a thief they were looking for. He turned out too young to have done the deeds.

Yeah man, I was once accused of death threats. In late elementary school, early grade 8, there was this girl, Brigitte. She was one of em super popular hot chicks who belonged in a clique and all. I was the super non hot chick into horror movies and video games and who didn’t really make any friends, so the blame was put on me, because I guess that wasn’t normal? I personally don’t think it’s all that weird though.
So anyway, one morning, we were told that someone had carved these words on her desk with a sharp object; You’re dead, bitch.
I always thought it was a bit odd, because we had five minute breaks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, plus our hour lunch. So if it was a student, he or she would have to obey to those rules and work around them to carve the threat.
Doesn’t leave much time to carve in death threats on students’ desks. The halls were reasonably monitored, especially during lunch hour. Still, you could easily get by if you learned how to do so, and didn’t mind some few detentions or lectures while you were learning. I snuck around the school quite a lot, even had access to the basement at some few points. (it was fucking awesome in there haha) But I NEVER fucking carved death threats on anyone’s desk.
I broke rules to either piss people off or find a quiet place to spend lunch hour in, but I never did any of this to severely scare people.

That desk carving wasn’t the only death threat that this girl received, there were a few others in the span of two weeks, but that one topped the sundae, so to speak. It got really serious, and the police came to our school. Thing is, at one point I was called in to the principle’s office and the police officers asked me a few questions. Maybe they did to other kids too, and maybe not, but obviously someone, or a lot of somoenes singled me out as a potential threat, based on the fucking type of shit they asked me. Brigitte and I were not friends no, but we barely ever spoke to one another either. We were part of totally different scenes too busy being in those scenes to really notice the other, besides us knowing one another from being in some of the same classes.

I was quickly left alone though. We never had any real follow up to this two week incident, but I assume it was dealt with since it vanished away as fast as it came. I’m guessing they figured it out, hell maybe little ol’ Symbeline was blamed for carving the death threat on the desk…but I never even saw it. The teachers would not let anyone near the desk, and it was replaced.
Thing is I was accused, made fun of and everything for a good two weeks by a lot of people for something I barely knew anything about, for some girl that I didn’t even know, or at least barely. Maybe I’m making too much a big deal of this though, because my dad was never actually notified of this, at least not that I know of, and I never told him, when this was going on. I just figure he would have been notified, but believe it or not, he was not. Or if he was, I got no wind of that.
I prolly should have told him though, but for some reason I really didn’t want to.

As far as Facebook is concerned today, she’s good and well.

But what pisses me off so much is that for the cops to ask me shit, teachers must have suggested ME, even if it may have come from student opinion. I was extremely hurt, and very saddened during that ordeal haha. Not to mention it all really scared me.
I mean so little was revealed to us about Brigitte’s death threats, including me, yet I was pinpointed as the one whom knew everything about it. :/
But I keep asking myself, when I think of this, why? Is it because I was from a poor family who lived in a shitty hood and going to a school where kids had well off parents, because I liked horror movies, or because I looked freaky, well no matter what it was, I don’t think it was very fair at all. As I say, maybe other kids were suspected too. There was this one guy, Eric, who had a hardcore childhood, and was the biggest troublemaker in a school otherwise mostly devoid of that. And all the tough boys wanting to fight him got themselves served. But he never said anything about that incident. He was so fucking braindead I’m not even sure he even knew about the whole thing lol.
I was led to believe then that I was the only one that was suspected. Maybe not of course, but it felt like shit at the time lol, whether only I was suspected or not.

Worse thing is, we never learned who did all this to Brigitte. No details were given. All we knew is that someone wanted to kill or harm her, or scare her a lot. Every student even had their backpacks checked for a while for dangerous content. Hilarious thing is, mine was never checked, not once.

…probably because I didn’t even have a backpack hahahha

I love your question, but it does open up old wounds and that pisses me off. XD GQ :)

Now that Symbeline has mentioned school and jogged my memory: the FBI came to our house in 1958 (I think) because I wrote a paper in the 4th grade saying that I wanted to visit the USSR.

IIRC, they interrogated my parents about possible espionage or treasonous activities.

I didn’t hear about it from my peeps until I was in my 20’s or later.

How old were you in grade 4! Wow…

@Mz_Lizzy

I was about 10, and my paper was definitely distinguishable from the writings of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Khrushchev. ;-)

Bizarre.

Some of the things, I’ve been accused of (in no particular order of being the worst or not):

Lying, being a murder, cheating, harming/eating cats, hearing voices, insanity, being a vampire, being a picky eater, cruelty, owing a gun/planning to kill people with it, massive drug use, statutory rape/seduction, having orgies, dipsomania, kleptomania, arrogance, low self esteem, domestic abuse, petty crime, violent crime, running a stop sign, failing to signal properly, being a dirty hippie, being a thief, being fat, being too thin, having great health, having poor health, being an asshole, being a hard worker, being lazy, being cool, being a loser, being a bad kid, being a good kid, being preppie, being gothic, being a being too white, being too black, being a pipe-bomber, being a pussy, being a dangerous individual, being too nice, being a quitter, not knowing when to stop, not being a people person, being charming, being weird, having “bitch-tits”, being a man, being a woman, having a dancer or swimmer’s physique, being a non-conformist, being a hipster, not being myself, being myself too often, being intimidating, being interesting or intriguing, being shy, being awkward, being very confidant, displaying antisocial behavior, being perfectly normal, being a liability for a class-action law suit, being selfish, being gay, being bitter, being happy go lucky, being sensitive and other general lewd and immoral behavior.

I’ve forgotten a bunch clearly.

Truly both the garden variety of wonton criminal acts, and a broad rainbow of the exotic perverse and twisted. It almost makes me proud. I have this epic wild child mythos going for me, that I have to “thank” the small town gossips and religious-educational demagogs for. I had a real fucked-up childhood, but that’s what happens when you are brought up in a judgmental religious cult. I pretty much feel like Frankenstein Monster, where at the end, the villages come together with fire and pitchforks to get me. Good times.

I found ten grand in $100 bills up in the drop ceiling of a vacant office I was remodeling..WOO HOO!!! I spent $700 of it and suddenly realized it was counterfiet and more than one bill had the same serial number. I pawned off the cash to a best friend for a couple bags of pot and 2 years later there was a knock on my front door. I opened the door and a very nice man opens his wallet and shows me his gold US Marshalls badge and asked if he could talk to me.

Long story short I got accused of passing counterfeit money….serious felony charges. A high priced white collar attorney got the US Marshall to agree I was just a dumb ass kid and they never pressed charges. Boy were they pissed and wanted send my ass to jail!

My now ex-friend who I traded the cash to and ratted me out and the guy he sold the money too didn’t get off so easy.

@Cruiser

“I found ten grand in $100 bills up in the drop ceiling of a vacant office I was remodeling..WOO HOO!!! I spent $700 of it and suddenly realized it was counterfiet and more than one bill had the same serial number.”

LMAO! Good on you for catching the duped serial numbers.
I think I would have just turned all the money over without spending any of it, but I’m not totally sure about that. ;-p

Boy, I’m such a goodie-goodie by comparison, except for that one time I set a fire under the porch of the house I lived in when I was 6. I had my reasons, but obviously, the fire didn’t catch.

The worst I’ve been accused of is abandonment of my aunt by her son, who didn’t want to have to deal with her mental illness, but also didn’t want to have her hospitalized. They were (are?) both heavily invested in the idea that mental illness is a stigma and not something that can be treated like any other illness. Be that as it may, the idea that I was supposed to uproot myself from my own life, return to Milwaukee and be a live-in caretaker for a non-medicated schizophrenic and borderline person who had a lot of rage issues and liked hitting people galled me, and I didn’t see how it was going to solve anything.

When I told him he should have her checked out and get her some real help, he called me “lazy” (among other cheerfully vulgar epithets) and said I was an ungrateful bitch. I will never understand that. Ever. Just take her to the hospital! Having some young woman go in and “babysit” is going to fix what, exactly? For all I know, today she’s happy and whole and medicated, but I couldn’t care less. Dunzo!

@aprilsimnel

“Boy, I’m such a goodie-goodie by comparison, except for that one time I set a fire under the porch of the house I lived in when I was 6. I had my reasons, but obviously, the fire didn’t catch.”

No need to feel such modesty: your intentions were most likely felonious, and I don’t mean Monk. ;-p
Actually, I still do some things that were felonies in CA before 1/1/75. ;-)

@Brian1946 Cat was already out of the bag as I had already spent it and my friend was very persuasive about making the money disappear without a trace. How wrong he was…Just stupid shit for sure and cost me dearly to plead my case.

My previous step mom’s son was accused of being a murderer. He was never proven innocent, so now he’s in jail. ):

My ex-wife accused me of intentionally hurting her 4 year old son when we were wrestling. She called the base security (military) and they pretended to take her seriously, but they know who I am and they already knew we were in the middle of a divorce she didn’t want.

When I was in high school, a young woman was murdered a little ways away from my school. She was working in an adult video store, and witnesses were able to give a reasonable description of the guy. A friend of mine was taken in for questioning by the police. The murder happened during our final exams, and my friend was hopelessly failing a class, so he didn’t bother to go and write the exam since there was no way he’d be able to make a passing grade. Because he wasn’t at school that day, they took him in even though he looked nothing like the witnesses’ description and was 16 years old (when the guy was described as being in his late 20s). They eventually did a DNA test and he was let go.

A childhood friend of my dad’s, with whom he’s remained friendly, was accused by a former foster child of his, of sexual assault. We used to visit this guy and his family, as they still live in my dad’s hometown, when we’d visit my grandmother. He has 3 sons and 2 adopted kids (former fosters), and they’ve fostered about 20 or so children throughout their marriage. The accuser came forward about 30 years after he had left their home. The case went to trial, and my dad’s friend was ruled innocent based on interviews with all the other foster kids and other people in the community saying that he’s always been a good man. Also, the accuser wasn’t the only foster child at the time, so that helped. It’s really sad when people make things up like that.