When it comes to The Office main characters' involvement in illegal activities, not a single one of them is innocent. For some reason, the employees at the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company made a lot of legally questionable actions to the extent that fans could probably find some kind of misdemeanor in every episode.
And while some of the characters actually ended up being arrested, the majority got away with it; especially their boss Michael Scott who would probably, along with Creed, have the biggest criminal record. Here are some of the actions that would, if they happened in real life, almost certainly land these Dunder Mifflin employees behind bars.
10 Jim Riding His Bicycle Drunk
In one of the episodes, when he still worked at Stamford, Jim decided to join Andy for drinks. It got pretty late at night and, while heavily under the influence of alcohol, he tried to ride his bicycle only to end up in the nearest bushes. Luckily, Karen offered him a ride so he got home safely.
But, strangely enough, this is actually illegal and Jim could easily have been charged with a DUI for riding a bike while intoxicated.
9 Digital Piracy
Digital piracy in the workplace (as anywhere else) is never a good thing, but Dunder Mifflin's employees sometimes act like it's totally fine to illegally download stuff onto their work computers. For example, Kelly and Michael once admitted that they download pirated music along with Pam, Jim, and Andy who watched a pirated movie named "Mrs. Albert Hannaday" in season 5.
Although these "pirates" didn't get into serious legal issues, they would probably land in prison for up to a decade if they were caught. After all, piracy is considered a federal crime.
8 Creed's Fake ID Business
In season 3's episode, "Cocktails," there's a scene where a group of minors meet Creed in Poor Richard's Pub. As it turns out, he runs a side hustle from his car that could easily put him behind bars. Specifically, Creed was making false identification cards with a machine that he stole from the sheriff's station.
While it doesn't seem like such a big deal, compared to other things from his criminal past, manufacturing fake IDs and then selling them to teens can definitely result in some serious jail time.
7 Michael Leaving Without Paying
In season 7's episode "The Search," Michael Scott went to a Chinese restaurant and pulled what's referred to as 'dine and dash.' Naturally, the owner of the restaurant, Mr. Choo, wasn't too happy about it, and Michael tried to apologize for the situation by explaining that he would pay later because he doesn't have his wallet with him. But who would believe him? At the end of the day, he did order and ate a big meal, knowing that he couldn't afford it.
Eventually, Michael leaving without paying only placed him on the restaurant's "Thief Wall" in the show. However, if that were a real-life situation, it could have resulted in significant penalties such as serving time in jail and a fine.
6 Forging Michael's Signature
It's no secret that Michael tends to procrastinate – well, whenever he's at work at least. With that being said, one time he had to sign a bunch of documents, but it seemed like a too boring task for him to do. Instead, he prank-called Ryan and (among other things) ended up in a karate match with Dwight. Ultimately, it was obvious that Michael wouldn't finish this simple task, so several employees decided to forge his signature on the forms.
Pam, Angela, Stanley, and Toby surely knew that signature forgery is illegal. Still, getting finally home after a long day at work was, according to them, obviously worth the risk of landing in jail.
5 Stealing
There are numerous examples of thievery throughout the series, which means that certain characters would surely face a prison sentence. First on the list is Creed, who's seen many times stealing or selling office equipment - even presents from a charity box.
Furthermore, Andy once took a co-worker's computer from the Stamford office while Ryan stole bowling shoes before quitting his job at the bowling alley. Yet, probably the most bizarre theft happened when Meredith took Pam's breast pump in an attempt to use it later in the office's bathroom.
4 Reckless Driving
One thing that fans learned about the main characters for sure is that they are mostly terrible drivers. From Michael and Meredith often being reckless on the road and lots of failed parking attempts to driving into the lake, these guys should at least faced a license suspension.
Not to mention that Michael once hit Meredith with the car as well as him texting and falling asleep while driving. If he hit someone, he would get into some serious trouble. Not to mention how Creed doesn't even have mirrors on his car, which could get pulled over at the minimum.
3 Drugs
In Pennsylvania, marijuana is legal only for medical use and Michael Scott knew that well when he bought two pounds of it to set up Toby (who definitely isn't a medical cannabis patient). Although the weed wasn't real, it's still bad that Michael actually wanted to do it, because it could lead to imprisonment for one of them.
Other than that, it's known that Dunder Mifflin workers used cocaine in the '80s, and the situation didn't change much because Ryan and Meredith frequently imply that they use drugs like cocaine.
2 Dwight's Hidden Weapons
Nunchucks, throwing stars, a sword, knives, brass knuckles, a taser…whatever comes to mind, Dwight possibly has it all hidden in the office – and he's not afraid to use it. For instance, he pepper-sprayed Andy, threatened to kill Toby and fired a gun, which made some of his co-workers feel terrorized.
In Dwight's defense, he keeps all of that stashed to protect his office friends from any thinkable threat because: "it's better to be hurt by someone you know, accidentally, than by a stranger, on purpose." However, concealing these weapons might be against the law, even though having many of these in the open is not necessarily illegal.
1 Kidnapping The Pizza Delivery Boy
Finally, the last crime on this list belongs to Michael who kidnapped a minor and held him against his will in the episode "Launch Party" of season 4. Everything started when the pizza delivery boy rejected to give Michael a discount on the ordered food. That made Michael's blood boil, so he locked him in the conference room and threatened to keep him there until he received the discount.
Nevertheless, Michael eventually comes to his senses and the whole hostage situation is resolved by freeing the delivery kid along with paying for the pizzas. Surprisingly, no charges were pressed against him.
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January 22, 2021 at 04:30AM
