It’s been almost two months since a Phoenix jury found Jodi
Arias guilty of first degree murder for killing Travis Alexander. She is now a convicted felon and should not
be able to profit in any manner from the notoriety of her crime – and boy was
her crime notorious. The majority of
people facing such serious charges resulting from such an unthinkable act of
violence against another human being would lay low and perhaps take some time
to reflect on what happened, how they ended up behind bars and how they could
have possibly taken another human beings life away from them. Apparently Jodi Arias is not one of the
majority.
Of the many things that make Jodi Arias such an unlikeable
defendant is the manner in which she has conducted herself while awaiting
trial. The shameless media interviews,
the numerous lies about how Travis Alexander ended up dead in that shower, the
vile and unproven allegations she made about him being a sexual deviant – the list
goes on. Her use of social media and the
internet has been unbelievable. How does
a woman behind bars have multiple websites pawning her wares and accepting
donations on her behalf, ensuring she has plenty of honey buns and other
commissary items to make her comfortable in jail?
This is the same woman who told the taxpayers she was
indigent and couldn’t afford her own legal representation. So she got a $2,000,000 defense team. While it’s unknown exactly how much Arias has
made since her arrest back in July of 2008 through her online art auctions, her
website that sells her “original artwork” as well as “limited edition” copies
of certain pieces (“due to popular demand!”), her rip-off originally designed “Survivor”
t-shirts and outright donations.
Although in poor taste, I don’t believe it was outright illegal before
she was convicted of this crime.
Everything should have changed with the guilty verdict. Has it?
Her website is still up and running, and although some of the pieces of
display say “not for sale”, there are plenty of pieces that are – prices are listed. What’s even more disturbing is that people
can buy these using MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover Cards and
others. Do these big corporations know
who they are enabling?
Once she was convicted of murder, any and all proceeds from
these type of activities should be going to the Arizona Industrial Commission
where the family of the victim can file a claim to get these proceeds. Arias’ Survivor t-shirts are still for
sale. Who’s monitoring these monetary
transactions? Will Arias be able to
funnel that money to her family before the state figures out what’s been going
on? It’s difficult to say how much she
has received purely from donations.
Arias is still tweeting from behind bars, although she assured her
followers that Donovan Bering is not the facilitator. Guess that became a problem since she’s also
a convicted felon – no doubt the outraged public was responsible for bringing
that to the attention of the appropriate parties.
Arias’ twitter account tells the story. On May 13, 2013 she tweeted to remind her supporters
that donations to her family or to her should only be made via her supporter
website that I won’t name here. You know the one I’m referring to. Should she be accepting or receiving
donations at all after May 8th? What gives? As you probably know, on
June 22 she tweeted that she is not currently accepting donations for appeals,
apparently she is unsure if she will “plea or appeal”. Her words, not
mine! And her latest tweet, made 20
hours ago “A lawyer is someone who profits from your experience”. Deep thoughts. So who’s in charge of monitoring these sales,
the money movement and ensuring it doesn’t ultimately end up in the hands of
the felon or her family members? Does
anybody know? The Alexander family has
retained attorneys for their wrongful death civil suit against Jodi Arias. That
will be a slam dunk now that she has been found guilty. My concern is that she’s moving money out of
the reach of the Alexanders. It would be nice to know that someone is watching
and monitoring her activities, these web sales and donations. Crime should never ever pay! What can we do as concerned citizens do to
ensure criminals aren’t compensated for their notoriety? Does anybody have any ideas?
