Looks like everyone is keeping up. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer name-dropped Kim Kardashian and mentioned her recent Paris robbery when using the incident as an example in questioning during a case on Tuesday, October 4.
According to CNN, Breyer, 78, was hearing oral arguments in the case Lawrence Eugene Shaw v. United States — which involved an attorney for California resident Shaw (who drained another man’s bank account) attempting to argue that he didn’t commit bank fraud because the bank was insured and didn’t lose any money.
This argument prompted Breyer to jump in with a Kardashian-related analogy. “Even Kardashian’s thief, if there is one, believes that all that jewelry is insured. Indeed, over-insured. So it’s not theft?” he asked the petitioner’s attorney Koren Bell, according to a transcript quoted by CNN.
Though he cast doubt on the severity of the reality TV queen’s frightening episode — in which she was robbed at gunpoint — he continued to reference it as he pressed Shaw’s attorney about whether insurance nullifies theft.
“If he defrauds him out of the money, he defrauds her out of the jewelry, says, ‘Here I am, your local jewelry cleaner.’ Gets the jewelry. Wouldn’t you think that was fraud?” Breyer stated, per CNN. “Even if she’s insured. Even if he thinks she’s triple insured. Even if he thinks that, in fact, this isn’t even her jewelry, that it was just loaned her on the occasion by a good friend, the necklace.”
He continued: “If the local person comes to the door and says, ‘Dear Miss Kardashian, I am your local jewelry cleaner. Please give me your jewelry.’ She does. And that’s not fraud. He wanted to get the jewelry … He also believed that the friend had just loaned it for the evening, that she’s triple insured, that she won’t even lose any money because the publicity will be worth it.”
“I would have always thought from first year of law school, criminal law, that that was fraud, but perhaps I was wrong. So I would like you to explain it,” Breyer added.
The Selfish author, 35, was held at gunpoint, tied up and locked in the bathroom of her private Paris residence in the early hours of Monday, October 3. As previously reported, five robbers disguised as police officers took two iPhones and millions of dollars worth of jewelry. Among the stolen pieces was a sizable diamond ring worth an estimated $4.5 million.
After the assailants left Kardashian’s apartment on bikes, the mom of two — she shares daughter North, 3, and son Saint, 10 months, with husband Kanye West — filed a police report with French officials and then flew to New York City to reunite with her family.
A source close to the E! personality previously told Us Weekly that she feared she would be raped during the violent heist.
“She thought there was going to be a sexual assault or that she was going to be killed in the bathroom,” the insider explained. “Kim was hysterically crying, begging for her life, telling them about her babies.”