Reuters News reported today that a German man had ended his ten-day protest of a fraud conviction by coming down out of a treehouse-like box that he had built on top of a 72-foot-tall pole.  As the report put it, Fred Gregor, 45, "was bidding to have his 15-month conviction for fraud overturned by squatting in his tiny cubicle atop a converted television mast."

I don’t have any experience with European law, but it seems their requirements for appeal are fairly difficult to meet.  In the US, we would just file a motion for new trial or a notice of appeal.  I suppose that does tend to involve squatting in a tiny cubicle at least for some period of time, but we don’t have to build it ourselves.

It’s not clear why Gregor thought his pole squat would convince the court or anyone else that his conviction should be overturned, but he told Reuters in a phone interview last week that he would not come down until he got a new trial.  The phone was likely hoisted up in the same bucket that his wife was using to send his meals up, which is the same bucket that she ultimately used to end his futile protest today.  Gregor’s wife, a 25-year-old former stripper (and mother of their five children), sent up a topless picture of herself in Gregor’s lunch box in an effort to encourage him to come down.  He did.

Link: Reuters via Yahoo! News.