Lay Citizen Apologia
Image Source: Mark Schierbecker, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Use the table below to browse the archive. Click a column heading to sort the entries, or click a linked name to open the full case page.
| Accused | Accusation | Year of Apologia |
|---|---|---|
| Ashley Dupre | Sleeping with New York governor Eliot Spitzer | 2008 |
| "Balloon Boy" Parents | Deceiving the public by claiming their boy had been carried away in a balloon | 2009 |
| Daryl Gates | Rodney King beating | 1991 |
| Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold | Statements prior to murder/suicide at Columbine High School | 1999 |
| Harry Whittington | Being shot in the face by Vice-President Dick Cheney | 2006 |
| Lawrence Summers | Telling students that women are less innately gifted than men at math and science | 2005 |
| Lee Boyd Malvo | Sniper shooting rampage in Washington D.C. | 2010 |
| Mark Fuhrman | Repeated use of the "n" word in taped conversations which were played at the O.J. Simpson trial | 1996 |
| Mike Nifong | Pressing charges against three Duke Lacrosse players for rape even though he knew they were innocent | 2007 |
| Steve Bartman | Interfering with a play at the Chicago Cubs game | 2003 |
| Melissa Click | Expelling student journalist from a protest on campus | 2015 |
| Adam and Eve | Eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil | A long time ago |
| Will Skelton | Creating sexist dress code video for high school students. | 2018 |
| Megan Neely | Suggesting Duke University Chinese students speak English | 2019 |
| Brady Sluder | Violating social distancing recommendations by partying at Spring Break during coronavirus. | 2020 |
| James Potok | Prank on flight where he stood up and announced he had just returned from the Hunan province (epicenter of COVID-19) and wasn't feeling well. | 2020 |
| Ivan Dimitrov | Carving his and his girlfriend's name into the Roman Colosseum | 2023 |
| Sherri Papini | Faked her own kidnapping, claiming that she had been abducted and abused by two Hispanic women. | 2016 |
| Glenn Taylor and Dave Hall | As Boy Scout leaders, they filmed themselves pushing a rock formation over at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. | 2013 |
| Raymond Gary Coombs | Went into a grocery store in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic and pretended to cough on people. | 2020 |
| Natalie Greene | Faked her own kidnapping and hired a fetish artist to carve real injuries into her body. | 2025 |
| Ross Ulbricht | Creating anonymous online marketplace that served as a large-scale venue for illegal drugs, guns, and other unlawful goods and services. | 2015 |
| Hwang Woo-suk | Published fake stem cell research in scientific journals. | 2006 |
| Lorena Bobbitt | Cutting off her husband's penis after he sexually assaulted her. | 1993 |
| Jason Arday | Allegations of plagiarism and other irregularities in his academic work. | 2026 |
| Heidi Fleiss | Operating an expensive Los Angeles prostitution business serving wealthy clients. | 1997 |
| Amy “Central Park Karen” Cooper | Threatening to call the police on a Black man simply birdwatching in the park. | 2020 |
| Amy Fisher | Shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco (the wife of her lover) outside the Buttafuoco family home in Massapequa, New York, on May 19, 1992, causing severe and lasting injuries, including partial facial paralysis and hearing loss. | 1999 |
| Kelsey Rush, Putnam’s vine/yard | Posted security-camera footage from outside her cafe and wine bar to the business’s Instagram account after discovering the footage showed two people engaging in sexual behavior. | 2026 |
| Good Good Golf | Published a short promotional video for a Callaway Golf driver that depicted Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark shoving fellow Good Good member Alexis Miestowski to the ground. | 2026 |
| Rachel Dolezal | Represented herself as a Black woman while working as a civil rights activist, in spite of her parents claims that their daughter had no known Black ancestry. | 2015 |
| Stacey Koon | His role in the 1991 beating of Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit through Los Angeles. | 1992 |
| John William King | The barbaric 1998 killing of James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old Black man in Jasper, Texas. | 2019 |
| Jennifer Wilbanks, aka “The Runaway Bride” | Ran away four days before her planned wedding to John Mason, prompting an extensive search involving law-enforcement officers, volunteers, family members, and national media coverage. | 2005 |
| Sir Tim Hunt | Made disparaging remarks about women scientists during a luncheon at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. | 2015 |
| Robert Bush | Robert Bush, the former owner of Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, England, was accused of giving random ashes to the families of deceased persons, while their relative's body remained in the funeral home. | 2026 |
| Wesley R. Curtis | Arrested during a prostitution sting in Cedar City, Utah. | 2011 |
| David Berkowitz | David Berkowitz, widely known as the “Son of Sam,” terrorized New York City during a series of shootings in 1976 and 1977 that killed six people and wounded seven others. | 2002 |