Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer references Kim Kardashian's jewelry heist

Crimes against architecture? Design blunders of the hundreds of McMansions that litter suburbia after Nineties construction boom
Preparing for the worst: Floridians clear supermarket shelves and board up their homes while South Carolina is ready to evacuate one MILLION people as deadly Hurricane Matthew kills 11 in the Caribbean and barrels toward US
George W Bush tells people to vote - but won't say who for in latest of his family's Trump snubs
Belgian police shoot terror suspect in the leg after two officers are stabbed and Brussels train station is evacuated in bomb scare
Do YOUR joints creak and crack? Expert reveals exactly what's behind the noises and if it can lead to arthritis
Derrick Rose's rape trial to begin with text messages revealing the NBA star's desire for group sex - but his attorneys are complaining about lack of black jurors
The surprising household items that you never knew had an expiration date (and why you should throw away your bra after just EIGHT MONTHS)
'A fool, a maniac, and a man who loves Russia': Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine goes low with a flurry of personal attacks on Donald Trump as the vice presidential debate turns ugly
'Kaine looks like an evil crook out of the Batman movies': Trump live-tweets his musings on the vice presidential debate, and doesn't miss the opportunity to troll Megyn Kelly
Battle of the network stars: Rival CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz feud as they prepare to co-host upcoming presidential debate
Clinton 'can't recall' if she joked about getting rid of Julian Assange with a drone - as she holds a press conference in a secretive shrine
Meet the man who's going to get millennials to vote for Hillary - Al Gore, 68, will hit the trail to woo voters who will barely remember him in office
First poll shows Mike Pence WON the debate - but voters insist their performances won't affect the way they vote in November
Debate moderator Elaine Quijano under fire for cutting off Pence during Hillary email attack while Trump campaign calls Kaine 'sexist' for ignoring her questions
Trump campaign manager: Bill Clinton is now 'our best surrogate' after Obamacare slam - as she admits Miss Universe attack not 'our highest and best' use of Trump
Tim Kaine wore a 'blue star' pin at the vice presidential debate to honor his Marine son
Tim Kaine brings up running mate's trustworthiness in debate - my wife and I trust her 'but the thought of Donald Trump as commander in chief scares us to death'
Revealed: How Bill Clinton plotted to 'bushwhack' attorney general on airport tarmac and got a promise that Hillary wouldn't be prosecuted over classified emails
Pence bashes Catholic Kaine for partial birth abortion and says his own evangelical faith won't allow him to take the life of an almost-born baby
Trump says Hillary Clinton put Bill 'through hell' after he bashed Obamacare - and jokes about 'many nights when he's gone through hell with Hillary'
'He came off as a jerk': Tim Kaine's 70 interruptions of Mike Pence during VP debate gives Clinton's running mate low marks from viewers
'When Tim Kaine talks I just want to die': Mike Pence comes out on top in the battle of the #VPdebate memes - but some viewers are too bored to stay awake
Kim Kardashian's robbers are caught on 'million-to-one' CCTV image: Gang were spotted in nail salon MIRROR as they crept past sleeping guard and escaped on push bikes
French police chief blames Kim Kardashian for flaunting her jewellery on social media for robbery as it emerges thieves left no trace of DNA

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer referenced the recent robbery of Kim Kardashian during oral arguments on Tuesday in a bank fraud case
The lawyer in the case is arguing his client did not commit fraud while stealing from the bank because their money is insured
Justice Breyer then suggested that whoever took Kardashian's jewlry would still be committing fraud, even if they knew it was insured

Published: 16:53 EST, 4 October 2016 | Updated: 21:12 EST, 4 October 2016

e-mail

View
comments

Stephen Breyer is a graduate of both Stanford and Harvard Law, a Quaker, and apparently a huge fan of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

The 78-year-old Supreme Court Justice created quite the stir on Tuesday when he referenced the recent robbery of the reality star during the oral arguments of a bank fraud case - meaning her name will become part of the highest court's history.

The defense lawyer in the case, Lawrence Eugene Shaw v. United States, is arguing that a man convicted of draining over $300,000 from another man's account is not guilty of bank fraud, because the bank was insured and didn't lose any money.

That is when Justice Breyer jumped in and said: 'Suppose someone shows up at Kardashian West's door and says, "Here I am, your local jewelry cleaner."

'Gets the jewelry. Wouldn't you think that was fraud? Even if she's insured.'

Scroll down for video

Pop culture maven: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (left) referenced the recent robbery of Kim Kardashian (right) during oral arguments on Tuesday in a bank fraud case

Crime scene: Police officers stand guard outside Kardashian's apartment in Paris on Monday (above) just hours after the heist

Justice Breyer was questioning the attorney for Shaw over whether nullifies theft.

The jurist did not stop there either, going on to say: 'Even if he thinks she's triple insured.

'Even if he thinks that, in fact, this isn't even her jewelry, that it was just loaned her on the occasion by a good friend.'

Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in the early hours of Monday morning inside her Parisian apartment, with a group of masked man tying her up and covering her mouth with duct tape as they ran off with $11million in jewelry.

The robbers remain at large.

The dispute being argued on Tuesday involved a California man who illegally siphoned about $307,000 out of a Taiwanese businessman's Bank of America bank account.

Lawrence Shaw seeks to overturn his conviction, saying he's not guilty of bank fraud because the bank suffered no monetary loss.

A federal appeals court rejected that argument and it appeared most of the justices were equally skeptical.

Nearly every justice seemed to indicate that it was enough for the bank to have some interest in preserving the money in the customer's account.