They say, no good deed goes unpunished, and such is the case for a Palm Beach, Florida man. 68-year old Josef Schneider says he was simply trying to stop a burglary, but he’s the one who ended up behind bars.
Billionaire, Jeff Greene, a property developer, had a building in the process of being burgled, according to Schneider, who called Greene to report the intruders.
Schneider told the Palm Beach Post that he called Greene and told him, “Jeff, I’m outside the gate, I’m here with a couple of fellows who were walking a dog. People broke in and they pulled the boards off a window and there’s a plume of smoke coming out the windows like marijuana.”
Schneider now claims that the developer told him to ‘stay on the site’ and ‘watch the building’, which he says he did until a worker arrived. Schneider pointed out the points of entry where he says the alleged burglars broke in and where the fence had been damaged.
However, there are always at least two sides to a story and the stories from Greene and the Palm Beach police officer at the scene differ from that of Schneider. The officer says he saw Schneider leaving the building brandishing a firearm.
Greene says that he told police that Schneider has been doing this for quite some time, and that if he was in the building, Greene wanted him arrested for trespassing. Greene says he never told Schneider to go into the building. And in fact, the 68-year old had been warned to stay off of the property.
There is always the chance that in trying to do a good deed, you can break the law. It is yet to be seen whether Schneider will be prosecuted for trespassing.
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