Asshole of the Week

Sometimes, it's just too easy to pick a winner for this column. Take last week for example. We knew Joey Genovese was going to be our Asshole of the Week after we read the first sentence of the Daily News story about him, and he'll likely be in contention for Asshole of the Year. (Thanks to Bill for writing up last week's column while this Phillyist was watching with dread as his sofa was lofted through a second-floor window by the guys from Old City Movers.) This week's dishonoree, while not quite as much a shoo-in as Genovese was last week, was pretty much a no-brainer as well.

You see, Editor Jill and I were clearing out some of our DVR last night, so we watched an old episode of To Catch a Predator. We've seen all of the episodes, and by the time you've seen a few of them, you really start to worry about the future of mankind. First, there's the alarming number of people who will set up a meeting on the Internet with a teenager for sex, which in and of itself is ridiculous when you could instead just host a birthday party. The number of people who you see on ...Predator makes you wonder how many people are really out there like this. But second, you start to wonder how dumb these people have got to be, realizing that with all of the media frenzy surrounding online predators, police task forces are running stings left and right. And if anyone would know to stay the hell out of this kind of trouble, it's a cop, right? Right? Right, Cpl. Albert Silveri?

Silveri, a Pennsylvania state trooper in the accident reconstruction team, allegedly solicited a 33-year-old woman—fine—and her 8 and 10-year-old daughters—not so much—for sex. One little problem: the "mother" was an undercover detective with the Delaware County District Attorney's Office. Oops! Contrary to popular belief, we're not often ones to rush to judgment based on allegations that we read in the newspaper, but when there's forensic evidence against in the form of your state-issued laptop computer, we lose pretty much all sympathy. Using your employer-issued computer for illicit purposes is pretty much the height of stupidity, especially when your employer is the freakin' government. This stupidity goes beyond even Brett Favre using a Packers-issued cell phone to talk to the Vikings. We just wonder how fast Silveri will plead out.

The good news for Silveri, our Asshole of the Week: at least he never had to hear the words, "I'm Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC, and we're doing a story on adults who try to meet teenagers on the Internet for sex."

Image credit: Flickr user The G-tastic 7.