A letter from Toodles Pelkington

When you're a young lawyer who does something astonishingly stupid, like auction a forged Richard Diebenkorn painting on eBay for $136,000, get exposed on the front page of the New York Times., and get indicted by the federal government, strange people come out of the woodwork.

For instance, I started hearing from a lot of oddballs who thought I might take their cases when no one else would. One guy wanted to sue a woman's-only tattoo parlor for sexual discrimination after they refused to ink him up.

I also got a few anonymous -- mostly just strange, but in a couple of cases threatening -- phone calls.

But by far, the strangest of these strangers was Toodles Pelkington, who sent a letter to my law office. I just stumbled across this letter today, and thought I would share it with you. It is, in hindsight, bizarre and hilarious, perhaps bordering on genius. At this time, I found it very disturbing, as I was still afraid I might actually have to go to prison for what I'd done on eBay, and Toodles' satirical characterization of federal prison didn't soothe my nerves.

It's best if you just click the letter below and read it. One of the best parts is the "You brought COLOR to my life" stamp at the bottom.

It appears to have been hand-typed, as well. Imagine the effort that went into it.