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‘Freddy Got Fingered’: Man Arrested For Not Returning VHS Tape Rented In 2002

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 08:38 PST, Mar 24, 2016

A Concord, N.C., man was recently arrested for not returning a VHS tape he rented from a local store back in 2002. The tape featured the failed comedy Freddy Got Fingered.

James Meyers was reportedly driving his daughter to school on Concord Parkway on Tuesday morning when a police officer pulled him over due to a tail-light fault. The big surprise came when the officer ran his license and around 25 minutes later, asked Meyer to please step out of the vehicle. Reportedly, Meyer’s daughter was worried, but he reassured her, saying it couldn’t be anything serious.

Meyers told Channel 9, “The officer said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this but there’s a warrant out for your arrest from 2002. Apparently you rented the movie Freddy Got Fingered and never returned it.’ I thought he was joking.”

Apparently, the police officer was not joking and Meyers was arrested for failing to return the 2002 VHS rental of the movie Freddy Got Fingered to a store that no longer exists.

According to Meyers, the police officers were very polite and professional and let him take his daughter to school and go to work, on condition he promised to turn himself in at the police department later that day.

Meyers reportedly showed the arrest warrant to Channel 9 on Wednesday, which shows he is charged with failure to return rental property. The misdemeanor is reportedly punishable by a fine of up to $200.

According to Meyers, he does vaguely remember renting Freddy Got Fingered from J&J’s Video in Salisbury, which has since closed. However, he still received an April 27 court date for failing to return the VHS rental tape.

The 2001 movie Freddy Got Fingered starred comedian Tom Green and tells the story of a cartoonist who returns home to live with his parents. The film received very bad reviews and nowadays has an 11 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.5 rating on IMDb. The film also got the 2001 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Movie, plus nominations for Worst Supporting Actor and Actress, along with a nomination for Worst Picture of the Decade.

According to police officials in Concord, the warrant was active in NCAWARE, the North Carolina electronic warrant repository. J&J Video signed the warrant back on February 28, 2002, and despite the fact that the business has now closed, it was still a valid Rowan Country arrest warrant for not returning the VHS tape of Freddy Got Fingered.

Meyers visited the police department after work, thinking everything would get straightened out, but was shocked when officers placed him under arrest and took him to the magistrate’s office. Meyers says this was the “first time I got put in handcuffs.”

When questioned about this, the Concord police department told Channel 9 they are required to handcuff anyone in custody before entering the secured area inside the magistrate’s office.

Meyers was even more surprised on Wednesday night to receive a call from Tom Green, the writer, director, and star of Freddy Got Fingered. Reportedly, Green wanted to reach out to him after Meyers’ friend shared the story of his arrest on Twitter.

Green is reportedly currently on a stand-up comedy tour in Australia, but told the New York Daily News he is always happy to support fans of his film, even if they did keep a rental VHS tape for 14 years.

Freddy star Green, 44, said he hopes to put in a good word with the court on behalf of Meyer or even help him out financially, as long as it doesn’t involve a huge sum of money.

“If it’s 200 bucks of course I’ll pay it for him, just for the principle of the thing.”

However, Meyers says he can only hope the charges get dropped, adding that he had been pulled over on occasion since the warrant for the VHS tape was issued in 2002, but had never previously heard anything about the missing tape. According to Meyers, they are not focusing on the crimes they should be focusing on.

“That hour the cops sat out there with me, the hour and a half I was down in the magistrate’s office, could have been spent somewhere else.”

Meyers tells the whole story in the video included below.

[Photo via Flickr by Ryan Hyde, cropped and resized/CC BY-SA 2.0]

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