Woman Flips off Judge and Gets 30 Days in Jail

UPDATED: 18-year-old Penelope Soto was let off after she apologized

A Florida teenager, upset over her $10,000 bail bond, flipped the bird at a Miami judge and was then shocked to receive a 30-day sentence for contempt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfttKjMM8rQ

18-year-old Penelope Soto irritated Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat by laughing her way through her bail hearing for possessing Xanax without a prescription. The drug charges were Soto's first offense. The judge asked her how much her jewelry was worth, to which she responded by giggling. "It's not a joke, you know, we're not in a club now," the judge said. "We are not in a club, be serious about it."

He set Soto's bail at $5,000, and she responded "adios" as she left the courtroom. That flippant signoff was apparently the final straw: Rodriguez-Chomat laughed to himself, called her back, and re-set her bail at $10,000.

"Are you serious?" asked Soto, now looking shocked. "I am serious," replied the judge. "Adios!" he added. In response Soto flipped him the bird and shouted "fuck you!" The judge then called her back again and sentenced her to 30 days in jail.

Yahoo! News offers the moral of the tale: "Never mess with people who have the power to make your life miserable." The Blaze suggests the same lesson.

But one might draw a different moral from the story: Americans can land in jail for some pretty trivial things – and maybe it's not always warranted.

Updated Feb 8, 6:15pm PST: The judge dropped the charges after Penelope Soto appeared in court again and apologized for her previous behavior. He said he didn't want her to spend her life labeled a convicted felon, and wished her luck with her rehab program. (Earlier this week, a different judge sentenced her to rehab for possessing Xanax.)

Via Yahoo.com.

Do you agree with the judge's decision to give Soto 30 days in jail?

[MongoAPillager]

i would have to see a better picture,possibly an bikini shot to make an accurate assessment of her case

[Fishbone345]

Goths and bikinis don't mix. Careful your statement doesn't get deleted, we aren't suppose to talk about that stuff you know.

[DerivePI]

I think the orange goes well with her hair.

[MongoAPillager]

@Fishbone345 I'm gonna throw caution to the wind and risk it!!! what goth?

[PoliticalSpice]

@MongoAPillager After watching the tape I think the judge deserved to be flipped off...

[Medicinebow]

You can't fix stupid.

[Food4thoughts]

But you can sentence it lol

[marine1]

is common courtesy and respect for authority too much to expect in our courts now a days?

[AceLuby]

I don't see why he raised it in the first place... but I do understand the jail time after the bird flip.

[Dan_Tien]

"I don't see why he raised it in the first place" Because he can.

[dances-weebles]

he raised it the first time because of her snotty attitude in court and her refusal to take the proceedings seriously.

[AceLuby]

@dances-weebles Maybe I missed something, but looked to me that it wasn't until the proceeding was over, he said "bye bye", she said adios, that he then raised it. I didn't see anything that would have warranted her to come back. Plus, by the look of her and her surname it seems that she's latina. I just didn't see anything there...

[dances-weebles]

@AceLuby well, from watching the video it seems to me that she was acting as though she was amused by the entire proceeding and wasn't taking the judge seriously. one would think that if one is in court on criminal charges that they might want to take things somewhat seriously. a simple 'yes, sir' may have been in order.

i asked my 11 year old daughter to watch it with no comment from me and she said,'god, she's stupid'

[ACTSmom]

@AceLuby ...the judge is also Latino....Judge Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat...why do you guys always want to make everything a racial issue? She was being a smart aleck the whole way through and showed absolutely no respect to the court. I'm not sure why "adios" was a reason to up her fine, but she needs a good take down from somebody.

[2b1ask1]

Believe it or not Libtards, you can't act in court any way that you want to!

[Denizen_Kate]

I must have missed the part of this article that disclosed the defendant's political leanings. Or the judge's, for that matter. Any chance to "flip the bird" at liberals, eh?

[thatgirl]

Could you please point out just where in the article it says this female was a liberal? Oh wait.....you cant, cant you?
*rolls eyes

[dances-weebles]

@thatgirl she looked like a republican to me.

[thatgirl]

@dances-weebles The outfit was a dead giveaway, wasnt it? ;P

[puppybrownie]

Gotta love the spoiled, irreverent, entitlement generation. With her attitude she will qualify for welfare for life, or a low class hooker. And, there's a million more just like her!

[mtkopf]

Where does it say she receives welfare , foodstamps, or any other govt support?

What about all the displays of civil disobedience that occurred in the 60s and early 70s?

[thatgirl]

@mtkopf Isnt it astounding what people can read into things by merely applying their own prejudices to any given situation?

[culinary]

@mtkopf really? I agree and it has nothing to do with color. Considering her crime and attitude, she will absolutely be good for nothing. This prescription pill problem has personally affected my family and let me tell you, it doesn't get better.

[Thegrif]

Disrespect a Judge in his courtroom, hell she needed 30 days for that and another 30 days for being that stupid.

[TexasMule]

You are right, she does deserve more time than what she got. With the higher bail she just might be in that long waiting on pre-trial. She did not show any respect for the judge or the court.

[PayThatCEO]

Idiot

[MarkJM]

That's putting it lightly....

[SignifiedNBlue]

Love it!.I know a bipolar jerk that was found guilty and flipped of the witnesses in front of Judge and he did nothing

[zeke]

From someone who has bi-polar disorder and does'nt consider themselves a jerk! I think after reading some of your recent posts the jury is still out on you!

[DARSB]

Bet that's the last time she disses a judge.

[dances-weebles]

i doubt it. i used to work with a guy who did things like that regularly. one night i court for public intox the judge said, '30 dollars or 30 days' he looked at the judge and grinned and said, 'i'll take the money'. to that the judge said, 'okay, 60 days'. the next time he was in court (the same judge) he turned around and punched the cop who had hauled him in.

[DARSB]

@dances-weebles Wow, he really liked jail, huh?

[dances-weebles]

@DARSB not really, but then again he wasn't the sharpest fork on the dinner table.

i had a business partner during the early 70s who was even worse. he looked a good bit like harry, from 'harry and the hendersons' and was about the same size. we had a short haul contract working in the boulder, co. area which lasted for about 9 weeks. i think that it was about the third friday that we were there one of the local cops stopped him for speeding in his pickup truck. vern came back to the motel room with a bottle of cheap wine and got blasted... then he went out looking for the cop and broke his nose for him... and got arrested and spent the weekend in jail. on monday he threw bail and we worked through the next week, but by friday night he was still a bit torqued, so he got drunk again and went out hunting his cop friend... same results. this went on every week until we finished up the job... during the middle of the last week, though, the cop found me sitting in the diner by the motel and asked me please to put a leash and muzzle on vern... i told him that we were finishing up and would be out of there by the weekend. he said,'good... this shit's beginning to get old.'

[Fitz]

I think the judge is taking himself way too seriously. He should have just laughed it off.

[LGRepublican]

Maybe you're right. He should have gone old school, slapped her in the face, and said watch your mouth little girl.....

[Fitz]

@LGRepublican A finger sticking up in the air is pretty harmless. If we fail to react or react in a good way, like smile and wave, it will soon lose its effect.

[Fitz]

@LGRepublican but on the other hand, if she has learned anything at all she will think twice before she uses it again.

[Newte]

I think he did the right thing,,she wasnt taking him seriously enough, hopefully 30 days in jail will scare her straight

[Newte]

@Fitz It depends on the situation, its harmless when i give my brother the finger, but not on the highway when some idiot cuts in front of me..she deserved what she got

[morphine-bunni]

whatever happened to freedom of speech.?

[Denizen_Kate]

Whatever happened to good manners? Courts have rules of decorum. I'm not sure the 1st Amendment applies in this case.

[texas_cutie75]

There is also another one..the right to remain silent!! She should have exercised that right.

[LGRepublican]

What ever happened to common sense?

"Your in a court, not in Clancy's pool room"..... Moe Howard (1936)

[Fishbone345]

Her rights weren't taken. She said what she wanted.
Just because you 'can' say something doesn't mean you should.

[Thegrif]

It’s well-settled that judges have the power to summarily convict and punish anyone who displays contempt of court in the judge’s presence. Some have argued that the law governing contempt is so vague that it can be used to punish virtually anything which isn’t explicitly against the law, but happens to anger the judge. However, that’s not entirely the case. While contempt of court is different from other criminal convictions in that it rarely requires a trial (the judge personally witnessed the entire act of contempt, allowing him to make the necessary determinations of fact), like any other conviction, it can be appealed.

[PNWest]

Judges abuse their power everyday. In this case I don't really care. The spoiled little brat can learn a bit about politeness over the next 30 days. She should have taken a xanax to calm down before her hearing.

[harold_lloyd]

From looking at the video, I don't think she needed any more Xanax. She was floating nicely.

[Libertyiskey]

I'd rather her rot under a bridge popping Xanax then have tax dollars pay for her roof over her head and three meals a day.

[Denizen_Kate]

"Americans can land in jail for some pretty trivial things ... " Flipping off the judge and shouting "fuck you" is not trivial. I don't think I've ever heard a more blatant definition of contempt of court. What a stupid young woman.

[CanadianIndy]

Hear, hear!

Besides, the amount of ruckus that a judge has to put up with on a daily basis is ridiculous already. They're like traffic wardens and meter maids.

[LGRepublican]

Good for the judge. Sometimes it's necessary to teach people about respect. Since it's pretty obvious this girl (I refuse to use the term adult) had none for the judge, the law, or the crime she committed, she needed to be taught a lesson. Maybe next time she'll think twice about a punk and acting like a b*tch when dealing with an authority figure.

[Thunderchicken]

Something gramps used to say about poking a hornet nest comes to mind.

[TexasMule]

Your gramps was a pretty smart man, that would have been good avice for this young lady!

[Arumizy]

A lesson is learned today, maybe she will figure out you should at the very least respect the cop that pulled you over or the judge who has the ability to make your life suck. Children have no respect what so ever these days.

[texas_cutie75]

She got off lucky, the judge had other prisoners behind her, he had to keep control. Good for him!! That young lady has some growing up to do.

[mtkopf]

Shame on me for voting before watching the video!
It is quite clear that:
1) The defendant was either under the influence of some sort of intoxicant by her actions at the start of the hearing.

2) A defense attorney may have recognized that and offered to represent the girl and was denied( I seriously doubt that an 18 yr old with an income of $200/week has considerable assets).

3) She is Hispanic and the judge is Hispanic as well. He said "bye-bye" and she responded with "adios" in a respectful manner.

The judge should have scolded her but, he abused his power in this situation and should be reprimanded.

[Canoochee]

LOL this happened in a case a close friend was involved in. The perp's gf had already been warned about rolling her eyes and shaking her head. When she was leaving she told my friend 'Fxxx You' The judge heard her and had the deputies chase her down bring her back and she spent the next 24 hours in jail.