Sirgiorgio Clardy: The Sociopath From Hell

     Sirgiorgio Clardy was bounced from one foster home to another in Portland Oregon because he was a kid no adult could handle. In 2000 when he was thirteen he attacked his foster dad with a baseball bat. Clardy also threatened and attacked teachers, school administrators and classmates. He took brass knuckles to school and once tried to sexually assault a female student.

     By 2013 the 26-year-old Clardy had been convicted of twenty felonies that included crimes such as forcing young women to work as prostitutes, assault and robbery. When police officers arrested him he'd threaten to rape their wives and children. When he wasn't incarcerated, Mr. Clardy made everyone who come into contact with him miserable, including the teenaged girls he forced into prostitution. This brutal pimp had no business living outside of prison walls.

     In the summer of 2012 several 18-year-old prostitutes, against their will, were doing business for Clardy out of the Inn at the Convention Center, a motel on the edge of downtown Portland. During the course of that operation a john tried to leave the motel without paying one of Clardy's prostitutes. Clardy caught the john before he left the motel. The pimp knocked the free-loader off his feet then stomped his face. With the john on the ground bleeding, Clardy took all of his money. It took plastic surgery to repair the damage to the assault victim's face.

     Police officers arrested Clardy shortly after that attack. A Multnomah County prosecutor charged the violent pimp with compelling prostitution, first-degree robbery and second-degree assault. The suspect pleaded not guilty to all charges.

     In the months leading up to Clardy's trial he threatened and spit on several lawyers appointed to represent him. Eventually Judge Kelly Skye, realizing that no lawyer wanted to be near this man, declared that he would have to defend himself with the help of a legal advisor who would not be required to sit next to him in court. After awhile even the legal advisor asked the judge to be relieved from the unsavory assignment.

     In July 2013, not long after Clardy's trial got underway in Portland's Multnomah County Circuit Court, the defendant spit on sheriff's deputies and threatened the judge. The next day deputies rolled the defendant into court handcuffed to a wheelchair. To keep him from spitting on people the defendant's head was covered in a mesh bag. Because Clardy refused to get dressed for trial officers had wrapped him in a suicide smock.

     A few days into the trial, notwithstanding the presence of nine deputy sheriffs, Judge Skye ordered the defendant into another courtroom where he'd watch the proceedings on a video monitor. The judge considered the defendant too disruptive to be physically present at his own trial.

     The jurors concluded Clardy's two-week trial by finding him guilty of all charges. At the sentencing hearing a few days later the prosecutor put Dr. Frank Colistro on the stand. The psychologist, in practice for thirty years, said, "I've evaluated serial murderers, serial rapists and I'm going to tell you very few of those people reached the evaluation scores we're going to talk about here."

     According to the forensic psychologist, Mr. Clardy was in the 100th percentile of the narcissistic psychopath scale. "People like Mr. Clardy," the doctor said, "are born bad. It's not something we can fix. That's why we have prisons."

      The prosecutor put Dr. Colistro on the stand to counter the defendant's claim he heard voices and wanted to kill himself. Dr. Colistro testified that Clardy exemplified the textbook case of an anti-social psychopath, a man who thought he was smarter, more attractive and better than anyone else. According to Dr. Colistro, Sirgiorgio Clardy was not mentally ill. He was evil.

     Judge Judy Skye, based upon Sirgiorgio Claudy's violent past, criminal record, courtroom behavior and psychological evaluation declared him a "dangerous offender". People so designated, if given the chance, would offend again. As someone beyond the reach of rehabilitation, Judge Skye sentenced Clardy to 100 years in prison with no chance of parole until he served 36 years. Clardy, upon hearing his sentence, swore at the judge and threatened the deputy sheriffs.

     In January 2014, from his cell at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, Clardy, through a handwritten, three-page complaint, filed a $100 million civil suit against, among others, Phil Knight, the chairman of the Nike Company. Clardy based his tort claim on the theory that Nike, on each shoe, does not provide a label that warns users that stomping a person's face while wearing this Nike product could cause serious injury to the stomped person. As a result of the defendant's omission the plaintiff experienced "great mental suffering".

     Clardy's lawsuit, the product of sociopathy in the extreme, was dismissed by a judge on October 2, 2014. 

Without Shame

A sociopath who gets a taste of fame is like a vampire getting its first taste of blood. Disgraced celebrity sociopaths are pathetic but interesting. These pathological narcissists almost always find some way to get back into the limelight. Following the obligatory apology tour, the disgraced celebrity often resurfaces as the promoter of a ghost-written memoir. Normal people who publicly embarrass themselves feel too ashamed to leave the house. Not so for sociopaths who are born without a sense of shame. When it comes to embarrassment, these people are bullet-proof. The field of politics tends to attract shameless people. Politics and sociopathy is a marriage made in heaven.

Likable Versus Unlikable Politicians

In politics there are two kinds of sociopath: likable and unlikable. The likable politician has learned how to behave like a normal person and gets by under a veneer of oily charm. A sociopath who can act like a regular person will occasionally apologize, not because he feels bad about something he's done or said, but because it's politically advantageous. The unlikable sociopath survives by intimation and fear. When forced to apologize for something, the unlikable comes off wooden and insincere. The unlikable politician should never apologize. The better approach for the politician who can't fake contrition is to deny, blame others, or claim some kind of victimhood. Since a sociopath cannot conceive of doing anything wrong, this approach is at least sincere.

A Nation of Sociopaths

     It was Joe McGinniss, in his 1984 book Fatal Vision, who introduced the general public to sociopathy, a personality disorder found in normal looking and acting people who commit cold-blooded murder. "Fatal Vision" explores the sociopathic personality of Dr. Jefferey MacDonald, an Army physician convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and two small children.

     In the true crime genre, the 1980s became the golden era of books about serial killers, all of whom were sociopaths. Readers and TV viewers became familiar with FBI profilers John Douglas, Robert Ressler, and Roy Hazelwood, the founders of the FBI's Psychological Behavioral Unit housed at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Through hundreds of books and true crime television shows, serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Jefferey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) became household names. Dr. Park Dietz, a high-profile forensic psychiatrist, author and expert witness, educated the public on the most common traits found in the sociopathic personality which include: narcissism, lack of empathy, pathological lying, the inability to admit guilt, the belief they are smarter than everybody, and the belief they are above society's rules of behavior and laws. 

     Now, when people discuss sociopathy, it is not always in the context of criminal behavior. That's because not all people with sociopathic qualities are serial killers and/or rapists. Recently there have been numerous articles about how to identify a sociopathic person, what professions tend to attract them (politics, journalism, business, and law) and how to deal with these difficult people.

     Nobody knows for sure if sociopaths are born or made, but they seem to be multiplying. Perhaps it's our celebrity culture where rich and famous people are worshiped regardless of how they achieved their wealth and fame. The lesson here seems to be: If you want something bad enough, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you will succeed because you are special and deserve to get what you want.

    Many young people, if they don't realize their dreams of wealth and fame become despondent and morose. They live the rest of their miserable lives blaming "society" for their lost opportunities. Some of them turn to drugs, alcohol and crime.

The Violent, Repeat Offender

There are people who like to please others, and those who mainly want to please themselves. The vast majority of serial murderers, pedophiles, rapists, stalkers, child abusers, and men who repeatedly hit women, are sociopathic self pleasers. These violent criminals are not crazy, they know exactly what they're doing and like what they do. It's their personalities that are broken, not their minds. Since broken personalities cannot be repaired, these criminals, once incarcerated, should remain behind bars. Until the people who control our criminal justice system realize this, society will be plagued by the violent serial offender.

Thornton P. Knowles On How to Spot a "Polidiopath"

     What do you get when you cross a sociopath with a superficial, dishonest, humorless, thin-skinned idiot? You get an idiot-politician, or, if I may coin a term, a "polidiopath." When I imagine such a person dozens of well-known politicians leap to mind. And I imagine, unless you are a "polidiopathophile," it's the same with you.

     I suspect that most polidiopaths are in high office because in politics, polidiopathy rises to the top. These are people who never admit they are wrong, go to extreme lengths to cover-up their mistakes, scandals and crimes, and when confronted with their blunders and follies, blame others. They are extremely sure of themselves as leaders, and almost always lead us in the wrong direction.

     Polidiopaths give themselves away by what they do in the name of public service. The following is a short list of behaviorial patterns that makes it easy to spot one. Polidiopaths:

1.  Make compaign promises they know, and we know, they won't keep.

2. Pass feel-good, window-dressing laws that do more harm than good.

3. Create terrible economic problems then take credit for useless or harmful corrective legislation.

4. Lie boldly and badly to cover-up their blunders, crimes, and embarrassing behavior.

5. Never admit, in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, that they are wrong.

6. Blame others for the effects of their over-governance.

7. Do whatever it takes to destroy their political enemies.

8. Use insider information to make killings in the stock market.

9. Sell their votes to special interests.

10. Pander to voters' lowest instincts.

     Spotting polidiopaths in Washington and in our state capitals is as easy as spotting stars on a clear night. Getting them replaced by decent people is obviously not so easy. Low congressional approval ratings will not do the trick. In a republic, politicians reflect the citizens they represent. Before we get better leaders, we need to be better ourselves.

Thornton P. Knowles

Politician Know Thy Self: Sociopathy and the Quest for the Presidency

     Only a sociopath believes that he or she can lead the free world. A normal person knows better. While some presidents and candidates for the office do a pretty good job of disguising their sociopathy, they all give themselves away. It became obvious that Jimmy Carter thought he was Jesus. Richard Nixon turned out to be paranoid and a crook. George W. Bush had conversations with God. Bill Clinton's bold-face lying and reckless behavior exposed his sociopathy. President Obama's favorite word was"I," and Herman Cain repeatedly referred to himself in third person. John Edwards swooned over his refection in the mirror, and let a aide take the fall in his love-child scandal. Newt Gingrich's ruthless treatment of his first wife and his belief that he knew everything qualified him for the presidency. And Hillary Clinton? Where to begin? As for Donald Trump, what normal person believes that he alone can "drain the swamp" and make America great again?

     It would be refreshing for a presidential candidate to step up to the mike and say, "I am a sociopath. I'm smarter than the people whose money and votes I solicit, and I will lie to get your support. And when I get into office, I'll continue to lie and keep on asking for money and votes in order to keep the job all politically oriented sociopaths covet." This, of course, will never happen because it requires telling the truth to people who don't want to hear it anyway.

Anthony Weiner: The Problem With Disgraced Politicians

     I would argue that if you like and respect politicians, you are either one yourself, want to be a politician, or are related to one. Or maybe you are just stupid. (Okay, that was a bit harsh.) But really, who likes these people? Who can like a sociopath?

     Since I harbor such an intense dislike of politicians, I love political scandals. The bigger the scandal, the better I like it. And I don't care which party the disgraced politician represents. In that regard, I am nonpartisan. While major political scandals raise my spirits, the feeling doesn't last very long. That's because disgraced politicians have a way of coming back. I call it the Bill Clinton Syndrome. Even Richard Nixon, the man behind Watergate, the mother of Twentieth Century political scandals, managed to inch his way back to a certain degree of respectability. (Death is usually a big help in that regard.)

     Politicians, as sociopaths, are incapable of experiencing shame or embarrassment. So instead of fading into obscurity with red faces, these people keep clawing their way back into the limelight and positions of power. They resist political oblivion the way cockroaches fight off insecticide.

Anthony Weiner

     The former U. S. Congressman from New York City is one of my all time favorite disgraced politicians. This is the guy who was run out of office in June 2011 for transmitting photographs of his private parts to female constituents. At first he claimed that someone had hacked into his cellphone. That was a lie, and he was caught with his pants down, as it were.

     The beauty of the Weiner scandal is that this man is such a pompous blowhard, pathological narcissist, and clownish fool. If you didn't thoroughly enjoy his fall from grace, you're obviously not a connoisseur of the political downfall. Or maybe you are, but don't like to admit it.

     Anthony Weiner, the media-whore congressman who, before his fall, was considered one of the leading contenders in the upcoming New York City mayoral race, has been chomping at the bit to make a political comeback. In March 2013, less than two years following his colossal disgrace, Weiner shelled out $106,500 for two polls to determine what New Yorkers think of him now. The polls were in anticipation of a possible Weiner run for mayor or city comptroller.

     While the news was bad for him, it was music to my ears. According to reports, New York voters have not forgotten what a fool he made of himself and the people who put him into office. This doesn't mean, of course, that we've heard the last of Anthony Weiner. Like all good sociopaths, he never admits defeat. That's the part I don't like. 

DUI Suspect Amanda Bynes to Obama: "Help! I'm a Celebrity!"

     At three in the morning on April 6, 2012, in West Hollywood, California, a 26-year-old TV actress named Amanda Bynes, while making a right-hand turn in her BMW, sideswiped a police car. Suspecting that she was driving under the influence, the officer asked her to take a breathalyzer or a blood test. She refused both.

     On Tuesday, June 5, Bynes received a summons charging her with misdemeanor DUI. If convicted, she could be sentenced to 48 hours in jail, and get three years probation. Bynes would also have to enroll in a 9-month alcohol program, and could lose her driver's license for up to a year.

     Apparently outraged by the DUI charge, the actress sent the following tweet to the President of the United States: "Hey Barack Obama. I don't drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don't hit and run. The end."

     At first blush, asking the leader of the free world to fire a local cop over a wrongful DUI arrest seems puerile and stupid even for an entertainment celebrity. But on second thought, maybe not. Obama is known for sticking his nose into criminal cases. In 2009, after a local police officer in New Jersey detained Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Obama called the arrest "stupid." (Basing this analysis, I guess, on his vast experience in law enforcement.) More recently, the president injected himself into the Treyvon Martin case by telling the world that if he had a son, the boy would look like Treyvon. (Upon hearing that, I proposed that we make shooting anyone who looks like the president of the United States a federal crime.) And we know that Obama loves Hollywood celebrities, not for their fame, but for their money.

     Since Obama is not above trying to intimidate members of the U.S. Supreme Court, if I were the Hollywood police officer who busted the airhead, I'd get ready for a late night visit by, say, George Clooney.