Man Busted For Craigslist Sex Barter Offer

MARCH 13--Meet Stan Syring.

In need of a 16-foot trailer for a flat-bottom boat, the Iowa man went on Craigslist and posted an ad proposing a barter deal in the site’s “For Sale/Wanted” section.

What Syring allegedly offered in exchange for the trailer resulted in his arrest this week, according to police.

The Craigslist post by Syring, a married, 37-year-old father, noted that the boat trailer was needed “asap,” and that the poster “will trade for sex if need be.”

After Marion Police Department officers learned of the online ad, they exchanged e-mails with the Craigslist poster discussing whether the offered act would be oral or anal sex. The parties agreed that detail would be settled when they met in person, according to police.

During a subsequent meeting with a male undercover officer, Syring “offered his services as a partner in a sex act in exchange for a boat trailer,” according to a District Court criminal complaint.

Investigators allege that Syring also agreed to give the cop $25 (in addition to the sex act, which is not further described in court papers). A used 16-foot boat trailer typically sells for several hundred dollars.  

Syring was subsequently arrested and charged with prostitution. He was booked Monday into the Linn County jail on the misdemeanor count, and was released from custody the following day. (1 page)       

Malaysian Flight 370 Plane For Sale On Craigslist, Only $70

Malaysia Airlines 777 pops up on Craigslist, and for just $70

Although it's clearly a gag, it might be worth putting together 70 bucks to try to buy this, just in case we live in a computer simulation that's just been infected with a crazy virus.

by Eric Mack

 March 16, 2014 10:30 AM PDT

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When converted from Vietnamese dong, the most sought after plane in the world is advertised on Craigslist for $70.

(Credit: Craigslist / Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)

Leave it to the Internet to yet again capitalize on a mysterious tragedy for the sake of a scam, a punchline, or both. Reporting on the bizarre disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has bounced all over the place over the course of the past several days, with theories on the fate of the Boeing 777 airliner ranging from a hijacking or terrorism to pilot error and an even wider range of conspiratorial hypotheses.

Fortunately, Crave has tracked down the plane. It's currently for sale on the VietnamCraigslist for $15 million.

Actually, it should go without saying that the "Slightly used Boeing 777-300" offered with "not much fuel" and including "all the snacks in the plane" is just a rather insensitive joke. If you don't think that's immediately obvious, I'd also point out that the poster didn't seem to realize that there's a difference between US dollars and Vietnam's currency, the Dong. The listing headline asks for just 1.5 million dong for the plane. That's about $70.

Then again, maybe it would be worth putting together 70 bucks for the one in a billion chance that it gets us the most sought-after plane in the world. After all, there's a chance we're all just part of a computer simulation anyway, and what if that simulation has a serious bug in it centered somewhere in southeast Asia?

Related stories

• Site lets people search satellite images for lost Malaysian plane
• Web collects 650K clues in satellite-image search for missing plane
• Are we in the Matrix? Science looks for signs we're not real

Alas, a phone number is omitted from the ad.

But it does highlight the rather ridiculous media treatment this story has been getting, with mainstream outlets jumping all over each and every thin hypothesis put forward by supposed experts or officials, only to be rebuked time and again.

This is what happens with a big story that keeps rotating through the 24-hour news cycle within a near total fact vacuum.

I've heard normally reputable journalists discussing the possibility that the plane landedseveral days ago, without addressing the clear lack of contact that the hundreds of passengers on board have had with the wider world for the past week, or how an isolated island big enough for a 777 to land on it has been missed amid all the search efforts.

As the old saying goes, if you'll believe that story, I've got a Boeing 777 in Vietnam I can sell you.

Topics:

Internet

Tags:

Malaysia Airlines,

Craigslist

Eric Mack

Crave freelancer Eric Mack is a writer, radio producer, and podcaster based in Taos, N.M., but he lives in Google+. He has written e-books on both Alaska and Android. E-mail Eric.

Craigslist In The News Again

Craigslist Murder Suspect Says She Killed 22 Others

The Associated Press

Feb 15, 2014, 11:14 PM

PennLive.com, Christine Baker/AP Photo

A Pennsylvania woman charged along with her newlywed husband in the murder of a man they met through Craigslist admitted to the slaying in a jailhouse interview with a newspaper and said she has killed more than 20 others across the country, claims police said they are investigating.
In an interview with The Daily Item in Sunbury, 19-year-old Miranda Barbour said she wants to plead guilty to killing Troy LaFerrara in November. She also said in the interview that she has killed at least 22 other people from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a satanic cult.
"I feel it is time to get all of this out. I don't care if people believe me. I just want to get it out," Barbour told the newspaper for a story published Saturday night (http://bit.ly/1f7fvOH).
Sunbury police Chief Steve Mazzeo told the newspaper that investigators have been in contact with the FBI and law enforcement in several other states.
"From information we gathered and from information gathered from her interview we are seriously concerned and have been in contact with the proper authorities," Mazzeo said.
Lawyers for the couple did not immediately return messages from The Associated Press left at their offices Saturday night. Mazzeo and an FBI spokeswoman in Philadelphia did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Sunday.
Attorneys for Barbour and her husband, 22-year-old Elytte Barbour, have both sought psychiatric evaluations for their clients.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both defendants in LaFerrara's killing. Authorities said Miranda Barbour, a petite woman with long brown hair, told investigators she met the 6-foot-2, 278-pound victim after he responded to her Craigslist ad offering companionship for money.
Police allege in court papers that Elytte Barbour told investigators they committed the crime because they wanted to kill someone together. The couple, who were married in North Carolina and moved to Pennsylvania about three weeks before the crime, told police Miranda Barbour stabbed LaFerrara in the front seat of her car while her husband held a cord around his neck.
Miranda Barbour said in the interview that she doesn't want to get out of jail and that she would kill again if she were released. She said she had no remorse and only killed "bad people."
Miranda Barbour offered little detail on the murders she claimed to have participated in in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California. She claims she joined a satanic cult in Alaska when she was 13 before moving to North Carolina. Online records for the woman that the newspaper identified as Barbour's mother show her as having lived in both Alaska and North Carolina.