Game Blotter - A roundup of crimes, legal cases, and when "the law" gets involved with gamesAn Idaho state magistrate is under fire for his roleplaying activities. Two parties with civil cases before the judge complain that he has been distracted by a divorce and bankruptcy, as well as hobbies. An article in The Spokesman-Review, however, focuses on his participation in online roleplaying communities and devotes significant attention to his posts in Paizo’s online forums. Other court personnel, judges, and attorneys defend the magistrate’s professionalism both in the article and accompanying comments.

A man in Malda, India bet his daughter on a game of cards. That is, she was the stakes, not his opponent. Of course the reason we know about it is that he lost the bet. Now he’s following-through. He’s arranged a wedding between the girl, about 13 years of age, to a man in his mid-20s.

While unable to prove that Borislav Ivanov is cheating, the Bulgarian Chess Federation is confident enough, or is at least comfortable enough with his failure to comply with its various requests, that the organization has banned him from official events. FIDE announced that it is aware of the situation and assigned the case to a committee. While this was going on, Ivanov was at a tournament in Spain, where he was searched, accosted by an opponent who claimed Ivanov was hiding an electronic device under his jacket, and then asked to leave when he refused to continue with a second search. That second search was performed by an experienced police officer, who states that he thinks he saw a device strapped to Ivanov’s body.

On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the recent World Chess Championship, held under the auspices of FIDE, copied a major element of its logo from the logo for a Russian soccer team.

A Russian toy store chain is under investigation for selling a board game that allegedly promotes “homosexual seduction” to children.

Sweetpea Entertainment renewed its request for summary judgement against Hasbro in the dispute over rights to produce a Dungeons & Dragons movie. Sweetpea claims that it can’t be sued for copyright violation because it isn’t the entity that wrote any script.

Ed Kramer, co-founder of Dragon Con, finally pleaded guilty to child-molestation charges.

In China, a man killed himself after first strangling his neighbor so that he’d have a Chess partner to play with in the afterlife.

The United States National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency have been collecting data on gamers and infiltrating MMOs in an effort to track down terrorists. The program has cost millions of dollars but is only based on a speculation that terrorists could use such virtual environments to communicate, no evidence that they actual have.

In Tennessee, a man told police that he sneaked in to another man’s house and shot him to death because that man had cursed at his father during a Dominoes game earlier that day.

Three men were shot, one of them killed, at a Dominoes game in Manchester, Jamaica.

A federal judge has ordered Mattel to pay up, $137 million that is, to MGA Entertainment for attorney’s fees in the Bratz doll intellectual property dispute.

Blind Chess players in India complain that they are not being treated fairly with regard to educational and employment quotas in comparison to similarly accomplished sighted Chess players.

The United Arab Emirates denied a visa to the parents of a young Vietnamese Chess player, one of the leading contenders for the under-12 category of the World Youth Chess Championships. At only 11 years old, he was unable to attend without his parents accompanying him. A Peruvian competitor traveling alone was detained during a layover in Spain because the Peruvian government had not provided him the proper documentation.

Prison Chess, which I’ve mentioned several times recently, doesn’t always go smoothly. A Pennsylvania inmate was recently stabbed during a game.