So you think you’ve seen everything? Maybe you have, if you watch the TV news in Cleveland.

NPR reported earlier this year that when a former county commissioner and others were charged with a bribery scheme lasting ten years – trips, appliances, meals, even visits from prostitutes exchanged for millions of dollars in county contracts for, of all things, a juvenile justice center – the trial judge barred cameras from the courtroom. Not unusual.

The local TV station decided the usual still shots of drawings made by courtroom sketch artists weren’t enough. They used finger puppets to dramatize actual dialogue.

Call it “The Puppets’ Court.” Watch some of the video from Ch 19 , WOIO, or on You Tube. Kinda odd to hear expletives, bleeped, from puppets. 

The former commissioner, Jimmy Dimora, was convicted of 33 counts, including racketeering. Not sure how writers can use this — after all, truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. But I thought you’d want to know.