A hilarious plot from “Seinfeld” found its way to a Michigan courtroom, with some not-so-funny consequences for the alleged suspect.
Fans of the series might remember “The Bottle Deposit,” where Kramer and Newman schemed to return 10,000 bottles and cans to a deposit in Michigan, where you can get 10 cents back instead of the 5 cents in New York.
Brian Edward Everidge, of Columbiaville, was on trial on Thursday for attempting a similar plot, after being caught with more than 10,000 bottles from other states while speeding through Michigan.
“I don’t think you could have put another five or 10 cans in there,” Officer Clifford Lyden, who pulled over Everidge on April 27, testified on Thursday, according to the Livingston Daily. “It was packed.”
The officer said Everidge mentioned he picked up the cans from Lexington, Ky.
While Everidge lives in Michigan, it’s illegal to return bottles that a person knowingly did not get in the state. Anyone who tries to return 10,000 or more bottles and cans faces up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines, according to Michigan’s Beverage Containers Act.
But Everidge’s attorney argues that he never actually specified where he would return the thousands of bottles, and that he never actually committed the act.
“They caught him too early,” defense attorney Marcus Wilcox said, the newspaper reported. “He attempted to attempt to return the bottles… this statute doesn’t fit.”
Michigan’s bottle return deposit, which has the highest refund value in the country, received a national spotlight after serving as a central plot in a Seinfeld episode.
In the episode, Kramer initially gave up on the scheme, not because it’s illegal and he would have been caught, like Everidge, but because the return on investment would not have been profitable.
