Hows a guy who sleeps in a tent supposed to pay $101 million?
He isn’t. Instead, he’s expected to pay a tiny bit every month until he dies. The man, Steven Emory Butcher, currently receives $1,000 a month in Supplemental Security Income, which is basically welfare for the elderly, disabled, or blind. The federal court ordered Butcher to pay $25 to Los Padres National Forest four times a year while in prison, then $50 a month once he’s released. No one expects him to deliver the entire $101 million—even a spokesman for the prosecutor acknowledged that the odds of Butcher paying it off were “extremely slim”—but they do expect him to pay what he can. If Butcher gets a job when he’s out of prison, the probation officer can modify the amount of monthly payments—the criminal equivalent of refinancing your mortgage. (For more on why a homeless man is given such an unrealistic fine, read this Explainer from 2008.) Witnesses have described “thick clouds of gray-black smoke” blotting out the sun. Others have seen “orange-white plumes.” What determines the
