"Clearly a Case of Lactose Intolerance." Groan.

Who says judges don't have a sense of humor? Or does the credit/blame go to the columnist?

I don't know what to make John Goff's seriously deranged Good Week/Bad Week column over at CFO.com. But I'm going to quote a piece of it anyway.

In one of the most bizarre cases of corporate fraud in U.S. history — and that's saying something — the CEO and CFO of now-defunct cheese maker Suprema Specialties Inc. were indicted Monday on charges that they perpetuated a massive scam. The swindle? They didn't actually have any cheese at the cheese shop (cue bouzouki music). "Suprema was essentially an illusion as a business and a lie for investors," said U.S. Attorney Christopher "Chris" Christie at a press conference. "It was in business to provide a means for fraud. There's not even an SIC code for that."

According to reports, Mark Cocchiola, the 49-year-old founder of Suprema, and Steven Venechanos, the company's former chief financial officer, were charged in a 38-count federal court indictment. Charges include bank fraud, securities fraud, mail fraud, and ruminant fraud. In addition, at the arraignment on Wednesday, the two former executives both acknowledged that deep down, they feel like frauds. "We don't like cheese, or milk for that matter,' Venechanos told a judge. "We won't even sit at the same dinner table with a carton of milk." The judge later classified the fraud as a hate crime, telling defense attorneys "this is clearly a case of lactose intolerance."

The defendents were cowed by the judge. "I couldn't have herd him correctly," one of them later said. "He was milking it for the spectators," remarked a baliff. A court analyst pontificated, "No whey do they get a condensed sentence. It'll go sour for them. But that's what they get for skimming." Rimshot.