A Seattle nursing student has been sentenced to a hefty fine and more, for a brutal attack on another man and the theft of the victim's bicycle at the annual counterculture goodvibes festival in the Nevada desert, Burning Man. The disgraceful episode of aggression occured last year; the sentencing just last week. The perp was tracked down because he posted an anonymous e-apology after the victim's friends sought his identity in an online forum.

Dennis Hinkamp endured a beating at Burning Man last year that left him with a broken elbow, a black eye and ongoing nightmares. Late one night, someone jumped him, then punched and kicked him before stealing his bike. His assailant? A 6-foot clown weighing about 180 pounds, with sandy hair. Police were skeptical, to say the least, about the possibility of capturing a clown-faced bike-jacker.

But the Burning Man Internet community brought down that clown, known as Johnny Goodman of Seattle. On Tuesday, Goodman, 28, was sentenced in Pershing County Superior Court to three years probation, ordered to pay a $21,000 fine and told he can’t drink or use controlled substances and is subject to random urinalysis. In addition, he is banned from Burning Man for three years.

The judge should've added a community service component to Goodman's sentence: dress up in his clown suit, and clean up the trash outside Seattle's Hempfest.

Incidentally, the San Francisco Chronicle had a staff writer report on the Burning Man sentencing story a day before the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran an AP version. Can't imagine why the Seattle papers weren't all over this one right away.

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at August 23, 2005 03:33 PM