Tyler and Owen, taxed by government and horse-race loving bookkeeper.

Horse-racing enthusiast who swindled $1.5 million from world surfing champ Tyler Wright and her brothers Owen and Mikey pleads guilty to 749 charges of theft, “I’ve f’ed up and it got out of control”

Owen fleeced for 815k, Tyler for 526k, Mikey for 140k.

One year ago, the bookkeeper Shane Maree Hatton was charged with 749 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception totalling more than $1.5 million from Tyler Wright and brothers Owen and Mikey. 

Hatton, fifty-three, a family friend of the Wrights, although it was safe to assume that friendship had become somewhat strained, was a bookkeeper for the Wright’s plumbing biz.

When the kids started to rake in the sponsor cash, Hatton took on their finances, too.

World champ Tyler was celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday when she learned Strike Force Strathwallen, which was formed to investigate the case at the behest of Tyler’s manager Nick Fordham, had raided the svelte fashion-forward blonde.

In one of the greatest press releases ever issued, and which still delights one year later, police alleged Hatton spent $1.2 mill on gambling and poker machines “while the rest of it was wasted.”

The cop had tongue planted in cheek, of course, for it echoed perfectly the Irish soccer superhero George Best’s wonderful quote “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

Anyway, Hatton would slice a little off here and there, sometimes hitting four gees, disguising the transactions as “gardening” and “cleaning.” 

Owen was the first to notice the suspicious transactions. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve been gambling,” Hatton told Owen in May 2020. “I’ve f’ed up and it got out of control.”

Over the course of eight years, beginning in 2012, Owen was fleeced for $815,000 via 317 electronic transfers.

Hatton started ripping into Mikey and Tyler’s cash reserves in 2014, nailing Tyler for 526k, Mikey for 140k.

Last month, Hatton pleased guilty to four counts of obtaining advantage by financial deception and will face sentencing in the NSW District Court later this year.

Bookkeepers, accountants, whatever you want to call ‘em, are notorious for sticking their fingers in the honey pot, although their lifespans can be shortened considerably depending on the victims.

One man who ripped off Andy and Bruce Irons for a mill, as well as another thirty or so people for a total of fifty-mill, ended up at the bottom of a canyon after a mysterious car accident.

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Andy told me at the time.

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Come join the Kelly Slater-adjacent association that proves Groucho Marx’s oft repeated maxim “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member” false!

"Makes it all worth it. Years of fake accounts just so I can follow my hero."

Where would we be without the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater? What would we do? Try to dream Kelly Slater up, is what, but it would be impossible. His melange of ludicrous skill, abject handsomeness, lack of aging, celebrity friends is just too much to believe to say nothing of his robust social media engagement.

There is no one with whom the 11x champion won’t chat. Other celebrities limit their correspondence to other celebrities creating a circle of dull but Slater is different. Slater will chat with me, with you, with those who believe the earth is flat, with the President of the United States, with your mailman.

Slater, though, doesn’t suffer fools or those with inappropriate or appropriate questions or etc. and so sometimes this chatting leads to a swift block.

Our very own Karl Von Fanningstad actually dug into the books and discovered that Slater is the all-time blocks leader.

Wow.

Well, for those have been “posterized” by the aforementioned world’s greatest surfer, there is now an association for you to join. A club of sorts. If you have been rejected by Kelly Slater then you are afforded the opportunity to purchase an exclusive t-shirt. The front is the image you see when searching for Slater’s profile. The back reads “The world’s greatest surfer blocked me on Instagram.”

Messages are already pouring in with one blockee declaring, “He even wrote a comment (before the block) back and told me to ‘mind my own business.’ Sound advice from the GOAT.” Another adding, “Makes it all worth it. Years of fake accounts just so I can follow my hero.”

Admission requires that you email proof of your blockage to [email protected]. Once verified, you will be emailed a link to Oregon’s greatest surf shop, pay the dues ($30 + shipping) then be sent your tee.

Imagine the joy you will feel seeing a fellow club member out on the streets. The sense of sisterhood.

Extremely anti-depressive.

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Expert in the field of male public slappings weighs in on recent Will Smith vs. Chris Rock imbroglio: “It is ultra-confusing to be slapped by a grown man in front of others with basically all responses being mostly wrong!”

At the outset, let me clarify that my response to being slapped across the lower ear by then Stab editor-in-Chief Ashton Goggans at Surf Expo in Orlando, Florida was all wrong. I didn’t even know what had happened, at first, just knew that my vintage Ray-Ban sunglasses were no longer providing cool relief to the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead.

But something clearly had happened. I had stroked Goggans decidedly soft beard then lost my sunglasses. A slap. I had been slapped, deservedly but it should have been a punch, and the information was slow to process so I simply began dancing with him.

Wrong move and as an expert in the field of male public slappings, I feel uniquely qualified to weigh in on the Will Smith vs. Chris Rock imbroglio that is still gripping polite conversation.

Now, if Smith would have taken the stage and punched Rock in the mouth things would have been very different. A punch can only be responded to with a punch. But a slap? Dicey. Rock would have been very much in his right to sock Smith in the mouth but Smith had already turned around and returned to his seat. Rock would have had to chase him down and force a confrontation he wasn’t looking for in the first place. That would have been weird. He could have chased Smith down and slapped him back but that would have been weirder. He could have egged him on from stage, causing Smith to return to finish his business but that would have been awkward to the max.

See?

No good options and always the messy threat of law intervention. The only way it could have worked is if Smith would and punched Rock or slapped him later out of camera view then leaked to the tabloids that he had taken care of business. Or do you consider yourself more an expert in being publicly slapped by a male than me?

Is there another way that I’m too cockeyed to see?

David Lee Scales and I discuss in length alongside Zoltan Torkos’ return to fame and bodyboarders being the most progressive of our brethren which actually turned out to be an April Fool’s joke.

Enjoy here.

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Boukhiam, centre, with his Moroccan flag and Magen David trophy. | Photo: WSL

Beacon of hope: Moroccan Muslim Ramzi Boukhiam poses with Jewish shield of David following historic surfing contest win as Israeli streets redden with blood following “pitiless slaughter” by jihadists in multiple attacks!

The win comes on the 20th anniversary of Hamas' Passover Massacre when thirty Jews were murdered by a suicide bomber at Netanya's Park Hotel…

Maybe y’didn’t hear or read about the multiple jihadist attacks turning the streets of Israel red with blood over the past week:  eleven dead as jihadists used machine guns and knives to keep true to their long-held promise, to rid the world of the dirty Jew. 

As Hamas’ Fathi Hammad put it so delicately in 2019, “There are Jews everywhere. We must attack every Jew on planet Earth! We must slaughter and kill them, with Allah’s help. We will lacerate and tear them to pieces.”

The holiness of hatred etc. 

Anyway, after a two-year hiatus the World Surf League returned to Israel, the Netanya Pro finishing on Sunday with Moroccan-born Muslim Ramzi Boukhiam scooping up the win and eight thousand American dollars. 

The win was historic for a few reasons. 

First, Boukhiam flew to Israel…directly… from Casablanca on a Royal Air Maroc flight, the first from that country since relations were normalised a couple of years back.See, it ain’t the done thing for an Islamic country to allow the Jewish pig on his soil, even to fly over it, as evidenced by the zig-zagging an El Al flight gotta do to get anywhere. 

Second, when Boukhiam won the event a bunch of local Jewish kids swiped a Moroccan flag for the champ to hold on stage, along with his “Magen David” trophy, literally shield of David, or what we call the Star of David. 

Hitler and his Nazis made Jews wear the six-pointed star so they could be easily be identified, rounded-up, slaughtered. Hence, it’s since become a symbol of heroism, strength and solidarity.

Third, when Boukhiam was being chaired up the beach, the DJ threw on Arabic music. Flip the scenario and y’can’t exactly imagine a Jewish surfer being carted up the sand to the sound of Hava Nagila in Indonesia. 

“A Muslim Arab being carried to the sound of Arabic music on Israeli soil, it was the most positive vibe ever,” says Surfing 4 Peace’s Arthur Rashkoven. “I was fucking hooting and screaming. It was truly special.” 

The win came on the twentieth anniversary of Hamas’ Passover Massacre when thirty Jews were murdered by a suicide bomber at Netanya’s Park Hotel just up the road from where the contest was held.

Rashkoven, who lives by Doc Paskowitz’s maxim that “people who surf together can live together” says, “I was in tears when he was waving his Moroccan flag. It was unbelievable. For a moment time stood still for me. I shed a lot of tears on the podium.” 

Boukhiam was gone by the time the jihadists started to run wild and now Rashkoven is waiting, fearfully, for what happens next. 

“It’s ISIS-style terror. The authorities don’t know how to deal with it. It caught us by complete surprise. It’s never easy.”

Rashkoven is talking to me from outside his kids’ school. I tell him it must be wild leaving his kids alone when he knows there are men and women out there who’d be celebrated if they were to murder his children. 

“It’s hard, we never feel safe. People don’t know whether to go out. And what is the government going to do? Are we going full throttle against it? Escalate into another war? Such a delicate situation, really hard to understand what is going to happen.” 

In New York City, there are calls to “globalise the intifada”.

 

Meanwhile, in Gaza, West Bank etc, delicious candies are handed out in the streets to celebrate the murders. 

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Happy place.
Happy place.

World’s fifth richest man Mark Zuckerberg opens up about toll low-integrity journalists take on his emotional health, shares secret to dealing with pain: “When you’re on the board, you’re focused on making sure you stay on the board and don’t mess something up.”

Living the surf-adjacent life.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, by all appearances, lives a gilded life. The world’s fifth richest man has a palatial Kauai spread, a best friend in Kai Lenny and a Caesar haircut that shows no sign of recession. But Zuckerberg is still human-adjacent, still leaks oil, has been programmed to feel like you or me and sometimes those feelings get hurt.

In a recent interview with Tim Ferriss, the popular podcaster and lifestyle guru, Zuckerberg responded to the question “how have you become comfortable with discomfort” thusly according to Business Insider:

The Meta CEO said he wakes up each morning to emails about what’s happening internally at Meta, along with the news of the day — all of which often includes “a fair amount of bad news and new things that I need to absorb,” he said.

If he goes straight into his day after that, “it’s almost like getting punched with a ton of new context,” Zuckerberg said.

To avoid that feeling, he’s started surfing or foiling — riding a hydrofoil board, which lifts you above the surface of the water — to take his mind off things for an hour or so.

“When you’re out there in the water, it’s pretty hard to focus on anything else,” Zuckerberg said. “When you’re on the board, you’re focused on making sure you stay on the board and don’t mess something up.”

When he returns to work afterward, he feels like the news has settled in and he’s ready to deal with whatever’s going on that day — stewing in bad news makes him less productive, he told Ferriss.

What in the world does “getting punched with a ton of new context” mean?

Mark Zuckerberg is almost people.

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