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How to get $8,000 for taking a photo of a woman "laying on her stomach with her skirt pulled up over her butt."

Key step: Get arrested.

[From a distance of 15 feet,] Actor Robert Kabakoff snapped a photo of a woman's bottom as she sunned herself in Central Park...

[H]er friend saw and admonished him with a wag of her finger.

Before he knew it, the woman was talking to cops and Kabakoff was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser.

During the next 18 hours, he was charged with "unlawful surveillance," a felony, and spent the night in jail. The charge was later dropped, and Kabakoff sued.

The city settled the lawsuit for $8,000, getting off cheap, I'd say.

What makes people ? even cops ? think photography is a crime? It's one thing to manipulate a camera into a position to take a photograph up under a woman's skirt, quite another to respond to a woman who lies down with her skirt hiked up to sun her ass in Central Park.

Finally, credit is due to The Daily News for: "It was a bum rap."

Full post as published by Althouse on February 08, 2009 (boomark / email).