DOCUMENT: Fail, Crime

Minor Iowa Arrest Makes Headlines

Arrestee is human billboard for defunct radio station

93 Rock

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Radio Station Tattoo

SEPTEMBER 27--Meet David Jonathan Winkelman.

The Iowa man, 48, was arrested Thursday night by Davenport cops on a warrant for failing to appear in court to answer a misdemeanor charge of operating a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent, according to a jail booking sheet.

But enough about Winkelman’s criminal entanglements, it’s his forehead tattoo that is worth further discussion. Winkelman is pictured at right in a mug shot snapped after his bust last week (click to enlarge).

Winkelman became a human billboard for the radio station KORB in late-2000 after a disc jockey offered listeners a six-figure payout if they tattooed the FM station’s call letters and logo on their forehead. Winkelman and his stepson, Richard Goddard, went to a local tattoo parlor and each emerged with forehead ink promoting “93 Rock,” the “Quad City Rocker.”

Of course, when the men came calling for the cash, station brass explained that the offer was a practical joke, just a wacky radio stunt. Winkelman and his relative sued, claiming that the station sought to have listeners permanently marked so that they “could be publicly scorned and ridiculed for their greed and lack of common good sense."

Within months of the lawsuit’s filing, Winkelman dismissed his complaint against the DJ and Cumulus Broadcasting, KORB’s owner. Goddard’s case was later dismissed by a judge when he failed to appear for court proceedings.

Since Winkelman got the tattoo KORB’s format and call letters have changed. The former hard rock station is now known as KQCS, Star 93.5. The adult contemporary station advertises itself as playing “Today’s Best Variety!” (2 pages)

Comments (7)

The story here on the Smoking Gun is PACKED with factual errors. I know because I was there. There was NEVER a promise of money. There was NEVER a "wacky radio stunt." Representatives from the station went to the tatto parlor and BEGGED these two dopes not to do it and it was made very clear to them they would recieve nothing. What sucks is The Smoking Gun rehashes this old story with all of these errors and a ton of other media outlets just copy and paste it and present it as "news'. Let me assure you, the REAL story is ten times more hillarious/tragic than this. At one point he claimed the incident was causing him to go into frequent cardiac arrest which was a problem because doctors had given him a monkey heart. I can't do the entire story here justice, but please do some fact checking before you give these to dopes an additional 15 minutes.
This father and step-son team keeps loosing on all those get rich quick ideas.
Second!!!!!! and boy what a looser to be tricked by a radio station and to bring his kid into the tourcher.... just sad
Very sad indeed. Although your spelling ability is almost as ridiculous. Tourcher? Are you kidding me?
Not to mention looser=loser And his stepson surely isn't a kid.
It's the French spelling.
First!!!