What with a Nazi Orgy and somebody with a knife and some anger issues perhaps. While the smart one has the girl. Ah the good old days! Grumpy
Category: A Victory!
Senior citizen sentenced to 4-years after shooting mugger faces the grim truth: ‘I might not come out’
Yes, New Yorkers, we can finally rest easy. We got him. And by him, I mean a 67-year-old man who poses no danger to society.
Foehner is a retired doorman with the gift of gab, a devoted wife, and a habit of saying “groovy.” He spends his time watching naval history videos on YouTube.
While there are many violent criminals with rap sheets the length of a CVS receipt walking our streets, Queens DA Melinda Katz decided to throw the book at this senior citizen, after he pleaded guilty to owning unlicensed guns.
“The only way I can get out of bed in the morning is to not think about [going to prison],” Foehner told me as we sat in the living room of his Pennsylvania townhouse, where he moved a year ago.
As sun sets on his freedom, Foehner is trying to summon the energy to call the prison consultant, who will prepare him for his grim next chapter.
“I’ve got to really give him a buzz, but I’m so shut down that it’s hard to get anything done. You think, ‘okay, I am going to call’ and the day goes by and I haven’t done it.”
Instead, he’s spending time with his devoted wife Jenny Foehner-Speed and his 8-year-old dog, Biscuit, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. He’s making plans to see loved ones and friends. One of whom is suffering from various maladies.
“I don’t know if he’s going to be here in three, four years when I get out. I have friends in Queens who might move. Or they might be dead. I mean, I might not come out,” he said.
He doesn’t know where he’ll be serving his time, but he has one objective: “Survive.” He’s trying to make a plan for his imminent confinement.
“I wouldn’t mind learning to weld. I’d like to become a tutor. I always thought I would be a good teacher.”
Well, the way his case has been handled by Katz has certainly been instructive. And it should enrage anyone with a sense of justice or proportionality.
Foehner first collided with our criminal justice system in May 2023 when he went out for a pack of cigarettes in the early hours of the morning. Crime in his Kew Gardens neighborhood became a problem after a now-shuttered seedy hotel had opened up in 2017, so Foehner took a revolver with him as protection.
In an eerie twist, Foehner had complained to this very paper about the disorder in 2020.
“This isn’t our nice little neighborhood anymore,” he told The Post at that time, noting the brazen drug deals taking place.
But on that fateful night, he returned from buying smokes and saw an unhinged man banging on the door of his building. It was Cody Gonzalez, who then menacingly approached Foehner, demanding a cigarette and his phone.
“He kept coming closer and clearly he was going to attack me.” Foehner said he pulled out a gun and pointed it at the ground. But Gonzalez didn’t stop. He motioned toward Foehner’s neck with an object and his instincts kicked in. Foehner shot the man dead. The ordeal was caught on security camera.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. He left me no choice,” said Foehner.
He called 911 and cooperated with authorities.
Gonzalez had at least 15 priors dating back to 2004 and a history of mental illness. Conversely, Foehner had no criminal history. But he is a lifelong gun enthusiast and a doomsday prepper, who had amassed a stockpile of approximately 26 weapons the police found. Only a few were licensed.
“Until that night, I never pointed a gun at anybody. I never had to. I’m not a gun bully…I don’t want power over anyone,’ Foehner said, adding “I believe in the social contract.”
He wasn’t charged in the death of Gonzalez, which was deemed justified, but the DA threw the book at him for criminal weapons possession.
Instead of undergoing a costly and ultimately risky trial that could have sent him to jail for 25 years, he took a plea deal.
Foehner’s attorney Thomas Kenniff, who also represented acquitted subway hero Daniel Penny, blamed the city’s “draconian” gun laws that made it difficult for law abiding citizens to legally obtain guns for protection.
Clearly, Katz insisted on exacting maximum pain onto Foehner.
In fact, she heartlessly requested he spend the last few months in Rikers, but the judge granted one last mercy and allowed him to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home.
I cannot imagine how anyone in that office believes justice is being served here. Why are we spending tax dollars to let this good man rot in jail? Give him an ankle bracelet, probation or community service.
Foehner acknowledges he should receive some sort of punishment.
“I said to Tom [Kenniff], If they want me to, I’ll start at the Triborough Bridge and I’ll clean to Grand Central Parkway all the way to the Nassau border. As long as I don’t have to go to jail.”
He calls it a political case. A checkmark for Katz that will allow her to boast about getting guns off the street.
Meanwhile, “They’re ignoring the dangerous people committing crimes every day.”
People like David Mazariegos, who beat Nicola Tanzi to death in October after he kindly held a door open for him in the subway. Despite having two open felony cases, Mazariegos was given taxpayer-funded art “diversion” program for repeat criminals.
Or William Credle, who in 2023 sexually assaulted a 14-year-old but was ordered to undergo mental health treatment, only to go on to allegedly rape a 15-year-old in eerily similar circumstances in November. That case is yet to come to trial, but the examples could easily fill this page.
Even worse, Foehner’s social security benefits will stop while he’s in jail, and his wife of 20 years was just laid off from her job at a publishing company after 12 years. They have an online fundraiser to help defray the cost of his defense, but everything still feels so uncertain.
“We’re just sad and devastated,” Jenny told me. “It’s hard to grasp.”
Indeed, Foehner’s cruel and usual punishment is extremely difficult to wrap one’s head around.
Governor Hochul could pardon him, but Foehner has no hope in that. He does, however, still feel guilt.
“Whatever the circumstances are, a guy is dead because of me. Maybe I should have taken the beating [that night], but who knows where the beating stops.”
Let’s be honest, Foehner has been taking a beating from the system since he was arrested in 2023.
This isn’t justice. Sending a man like Foehner to prison is a crime in itself.
The Man is just amazing and the next time I am in the UK. I am going to buy a bottle and see how good it is! Grumpy
Categories
Made my day that’s for sure!
The Spartan kick pic.twitter.com/rolELKpLa3
— Washingtons ghost (@washghost1) December 9, 2025
I took this photo myself. Those Alaskan brown bears can become absolutely enormous.
I spent my last three years in the Army stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. For a substantial portion of that time, I was the operations officer for a CH-47 Chinook helicopter unit.
I picked flight crews and assigned mission responsibilities. That also meant I got to do some really cool flying all across the last frontier. If you were paying taxes back in the 1990s, sincerely and from my heart, thank you for that.
Megafauna
When you encounter moose while flying out over the vast Alaskan muskeg, they typically either ignore you or run. These things are as big as Clydesdales and quite deadly up close, but they’re herbivorous ungulates. They don’t hunt people for food. Alaskan brown bears, by contrast, will gladly make a meal of you.
One fine day, I was piloting a Chinook helicopter north to south just east of the Salcha River on the far side of Eielson Air Force Base. We were flying nap-of-the-earth right above the trees at maybe 160 knots (about 185 mph). In this configuration, I serendipitously happened upon an absolutely enormous cinnamon grizzly bear.
I wasn’t trying to molest the wildlife. He just happened to be right in my flight path. I popped the cyclic back and cleared him by scant feet.
A CH-47 tops out at 50,000 pounds, and it makes the devil’s own racket. Most animals are rightly terrified of it. In this case, my flight engineer reported that, as we passed over this big gentleman’s head, he stood up on his hind legs and swatted at us. Human beings are not the apex predators in this space.
The Monster
In 1923, along the Unuk River near Cripple Creek north of Ketchikan, Alaska, a young fur trapper named Jess Sethington struck out to make his fortune. He packed a .38-caliber revolver and a .33-caliber rifle for personal protection and subsistence. He was never heard from again.
For years afterwards, trappers reported a particularly large bear in the area that regularly stalked them and molested their camps. The bear was unique for the strange groaning sound it seemed to make. Locals named the beast “Old Groaner.”
Old Groaner operated mostly at night and showed little fear of man. Several prospectors and trappers had fired at him, but none had connected in the dark. With all this in mind, in November 1935, two grizzled prospectors struck out into Old Groaner’s territory to stake a claim, accompanied by their dog.
The Attack
One of the miners ventured out alone with the dog and his rifle to post signage establishing his claim. Setting his rifle aside to erect the sign, he was surprised when his dog rushed past him barking furiously.
Grabbing his weapon, he saw a massive grizzly swat the dog away effortlessly and charge. With no time to shoulder the weapon, he fired from the hip instinctively. The muzzle was mere inches from the animal at the time.
The impact threw the man backwards, but his shot had connected. As the bear struggled to rise, the prospector gauged his angles and shot the enormous beast two more times. Old Groaner was done.
The Aftermath
The massive bear’s paws were more than ten inches across. However, that wasn’t what made the animal memorable. Once they got the big bruin dressed out, they found its jaw and skull to be grossly deformed. This accounted for the weird groaning sounds.
The two miners dug three .38-caliber pistol bullets out of the animal’s jaw along with a pair of .33-caliber rifle rounds. It seems that Jess Sethington had connected five times before the monster bear killed him. That was the sole physical evidence of Sethington’s gory demise that was ever discovered.
This was my bear gun while I was stationed in Alaska. It took a BATF Form 1 to build it legally, but when stoked with sabot slugs it was easy to carry while offering some proper downrange thump.
Ruminations
Alaska plays home to some 140,000 bears of all sorts. That’s an estimated 100,000 black bears, 30,000 brown/grizzly bears, and a further 4,700 polar bears. However, Alaska is a really big place. If you split Alaska in half, Texas would be the third-largest state.
Despite the space over which these animals are distributed, they are hardly rare. Attacks on humans are quite unusual, but I met two men during my time there who had been mauled while out hunting.
I never left the confines of the Army post without a serious gun. More often than not, that was a registered short-barreled 12-bore stoked with sabot slugs. I still felt underequipped at times.
An adult male brown bear can reach 10 feet long and weigh 900 pounds in the summer. What purportedly determines whether you survive a violent encounter with one of these creatures is the relative size of your head to his jaws. If he can get his teeth around your skull, he will pop it like a grape. If not, you only get scalped.
There is an amazing series of books that were required reading for those of us planning to spend any time in the bush, titled simply, “Alaskan Bear Tales.”
There are three volumes, and you can find them on Amazon. Be forewarned, these stories can be pretty gruesome. However, they serve as a reminder that there are some places where man is not always at the top of the food chain.