Kotaku
A Texas District Attorney under investigation for a slew of misconduct is being accused of using public money to buy a "gimmicky" computer designed to play computer games in his office.
Rockwall County District Attorney Ray Sumrow is being tried in Dallas on charges of forgery, theft and records tampering. As part of the case, prosecutors allege that he used office funds to buy the computer for personal use.
Prosecutors say the computer, which was loaded with eBay sales, personal emails and a cheat sheet for a computer game, is equipped with two hard drives, seven fans, high-end video and audio cards, a wireless Internet connection and cables that glow under ultraviolet light.
Sumrow used the district attorney's "fee fund", which contains fees collected from hot-check writers, to pay for the PC.
The only question I have is: World of Warcraft?
Rockwall County District Attorney Ray Sumrow used server for personal items, expert says
Comments
Wowzers.
What if he used his own money for the pc to play wow on?
2 hard drives is evidence against the guy for using tax payers money?
Shit.....I've got 4.
Can you say hardcore gamer? That's dedication.
No, it's 7 fans... are they all 120mm? Sunons? How hard core are you sir? I live in Texas, do want my votes?
The sad thing is, even THAT computer can't run Assassin's Creed.
Stealing? Fret not.
At least he didn't have sex with it. Only then would our children's futures be threatened.
Rockwall is right next to me, that's wild...I wonder what the Ebay stuff was?
I'm all for tax money well spent... but, I draw the line just before "cables that glow under ultraviolet light."
yea i live near rockwall too. He could have avoided this and just built his own pc for half the price he paid for that one.
Cables that glow under ultraviolet light. What a legend!
What's Word of Warcraft? Is that lik some online word scrabble game?
=/
is equipped with two hard drives
-Lawyers want to keep records of ALL documents
, seven fans,
-Texas, in fact, gets quite hot. Amazing.
high-end video and audio cards,
-Define 'High End'. I'd guess gaming high end and reporters thinking it's high end are two different things
a wireless Internet connection
-Gasp! Not wireless!
and cables that glow under ultraviolet light.
-...Okay, I got nothing. Other than the fact that these aren't expensive.
And personal email and a game cheat sheet? So he checked out GMail and Gamefaqs. So? Coulda been his lunch break.
I'm calling shenanigans on dallasnews.com
Please let it be Crysis. Its one thing to have a game so powerful it melts the very silicon it runs on, its yet another to actually be so powerful the lust for it destroys a man's life
These are heady times indeed.
When a DA needs to steal money to buy a gaming PC, then you know it's too expensive
bah...forget Assassin's Creed!
does it run Crysis?
@avconsumer: Those cables cost 5 dollars. They spend more of our money on gum for road trips. What he should have done is bought the PC with his own money and then written it off as a business expense. I definitely see the misappropriation of tax money but this is downright minuscule compared to some of the other ways tax money is wasted.
"A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million. Even worse, the Pentagon never bothered to get a refund for these fully refundable tickets. The GAO blamed a system that relied on department personnel to notify the travel office when purchased tickets went unused.
Auditors also found 27,000 transactions between 2001 and 2002 in which the Pentagon paid twice for the same ticket. The department would purchase the ticket directly and then inexplicably reimburse the employee for the cost of the ticket. (In one case, an employee who allegedly made seven false claims for airline tickets professed not to have noticed that $9,700 was deposited into his/her account). These additional transactions cost taxpayers $8 million."
That 1-2k dollar computer doesn't look that bad anymore.
I never understood the glowy lights phenomenon for PC rigs. My PC is in my room and sometimes I leave it on at night for "stuff". I'd hate the lights to bug me when I'm sleeping, the power, HDD light and blurtooth light are annoying enough already (I put tape over them).
So they'll go after misappropriation of funds for this guy but Spitzer refuses to step down? Impeachment folks! It's not just for presidents anymore! Besides, could Spitzer really hold his office from a jail cell?
Seven fans and UV glowing cables don't make you a gamer, they make you a douche.
@LoopyChew:I went to the web page and had my comuter scanned to see if it would play Assassins Creed, and I passed everything completely. I was so far in front of recommended specs, that it was pegged at the end of the chart.
If anyone else thinks that the game has insane requirements you should go to the site 'can you run it' and that will prevent the rampant FUD about computer specs required to play modern games. Crysis is an anomaly.
On topic. This guy should really get it being the DA and busting people for doing less than he apparently is doing in a position of authority.
our tax dollars at work?
@icepick314: yeah, that's what i want to know too.
It better not be for WoW... you can run WoW on just about any old junker.
@KilllerBee: Another good point.
Similar to running lights and a large muffler doesn't make you a racer. More of a jackass.
SEVEN fans!?! THAT'S a guy that's serious about his gaming!!!
So...at tops, he spent, what? $2,000?
Our Governor here in California spends more on his daily commute in his private jet.
We spend more during 1/10th of a second in Iraq.
My high school loses more a day from students who ditched that day.
if spending a couple of grand on a computer is the worst thing he's ever done, I'd vote for him in a second.
High-end video card. World of Warcraft. HAHAHA! Yeah, that is a waste of money.
The prosecutors do know that wireless Internet connections doesn't have to have anything to do with gaming, right? Or do they just see a fancy word and file it under gaming peripherals?
That's despicable. Politicians -shakse head-
come on, he's a gamer, cut him some slack.
The guy does require a computer to do his job, right? What I'm trying to figure out is how they figure this is a dedicated gaming machine if there are no games on it! Personal emails, ebay, and a game cheat sheet on a work computer doesn't equate to gaming machine.
Here are the things I guess they could accuse him of:
A) Using funds to buy a computer for personal use (only if this is in addition to his office computer)
B) Spending a lot more on a computer than needed for the work. (But that's merely wastful, not fraud.)
C) Using work resources for personal use. (they'd have to bust everyone else who browses the web at work)
D) Just goofing of instead of working. (Really more of a performance issue than a crime)
E) The heinous crime of wasting a gaming rig on emails and web browsing!
I'm not against throwing the guy under the bus if he's a criminal, but all this seems pretty nitpicky (except for E; that's a capital offense)
@Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB:
So because Swartzenegger legally takes a jet to work, and we happen to be in a war right now makes it OK for a D.A. to to spend money that isn't rightfully?
I love to rationalize, but..................this guy puts people in jail for a living.
DA, you should have just waited for Fallen Legions. That's pure, under-the-radar gear right there.
thats very subjective. Truly this man just wants to run several instances of microsoft word at one time.
@homernoy: *Rightfully his? . If it was some other guy in another branch of the government I would be inclined to cut the person some slack.
Clearly this guy just wants to run several, several instances of MS word at the same time. Nothin wrong with that.
damn you kotaku post system!!!!!!
just wait till you get home from work before getting your game on
Ray be kickin' it Crysis style!
Is it me or did someone take his red stapler?
But does it play Doom?
@Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB: Your logic really fucking fails here bucko.
Theft is still theft if he is proven guilty.
Do you even know what a District Attorney does for a living son?
@SigmundTheSeaMonster: No the building would be up in flames if that happened.
You know, somehow I simply cannot seem to blame the guy. Sure, I'd vote him guilty, but I can't say I wouldn't consider doing the same in his shoes.
If not for the forgery, theft and records tampering charges against him I could give him the benefit of the doubt for having a higher spec rig. In fact, we'd probably all be better off if more attorney's inspected game content firsthand for themselves instead of acting on opinions from Jack Thompson or Fox News.
@Setzer IIDX:
@DasKonstruct:
@Kirbytheslayer: In-Kirby XMB:
There are no degrees. He misappropriated funds through excessive and unnecessary purchases for either personal use or vanity (UV cables? wtf?). That's unacceptable for a person in his position, acting as a leader, role model, and primarily a prosecutor, and executor of the law. Pitiful.
Now if he used his own money, I've got no problems at all...except...how do you see the cables through the case?
;-D
@godot: Indeed that is a good point.
@godot: Good points, all.
@Witzbold:
@Homernoy:
@Scipher:
I'm of the opinion that all politicians and government workers are corrupt, and regularly commit illegal acts. That doesn't even factor into my opinion of them anymore.
Now, for me, it's how extreme what they did is.
And honestly, petty theft is pretty, well, petty. Like I said, compared to most of the assholes we have in office, this guy, from this alone, seems pretty morally righteous.
@Homernoy, again: "So because Swartzenegger legally takes a jet to work, and we happen to be in a war right now makes it OK for a D.A. to to spend money that isn't rightfully?
Becuase it's legal it's okay? I say that logic fails a lot more than my logic fails. Legality means jack shit to me. It depends on whether or not it's morally wrong. And while stealing moeny to buy a computer is morally wrong, there's a hell of a lot more out there that's worse, and we don't seem to care about that.
@Scipher:
haha, well.. my pc glows blue and has a window on the side.. so you can see my two bfg 8800 gtx 768 mb video cards chug away are crysis at 20 fps on vista.
What gamer use wireless?, so always that some dude open his microwave, you will get a huge ugly lag spike?.
But could it run Crysis at full spec is the real question ;)