You know how it is. One day you're in college, jamming with your band and doing bong hits while listening to the Flaming Lips and thinking, on some level, that even as you inevitably grow older you will always be punk rock. Then the next thing you know, you're a twentysomething lawyer working inside the system and going to wine bars in Dumbo. Most people make this transition without really noticing, the West Elm furniture replacing the stuff they found on the street piece by piece until the only thing really punk about them is what's in their iPod, and well, yeah. Others have a more difficult time. This is what we suspect happened to Matthew Knouff, a 28-year-old Chapel Hill grad who prosecuted narcotics crimes in the district attorney's office in Brooklyn. Matthew was arrested last month for stiffing his cab driver, pretending to be a cop and then trying to pay the real police $50 each to let him go. As this came on the heels of his arrest at the office Christmas party, where he threw a brick through the window, the D.A's office let him go yesterday.

Before the trouble, Matthew seemed like a pretty nice guy — he had his own record label in college, he worked with a number of nonprofit organizations and was even recognized by the City Bar Justice Center for his commitment to volunteerism a few years ago. Quoth his Friendster profile (yes!):

Do your drugs, be a hipster, be chill … I don't care, whatever you gotta do, just be passionate about something and get it done. Just make sure you do it without screwing up everyone elses good time, disrespecting peoples' opinions, and being an all 'round close-minded dipshit … Fo' real.

So how did he get to this terrible place? The fact that he seemed to be restarting his college record label, Venge Records, seems like a foreshadowing of rebellion. And why else would someone who works within the justice system try to bribe the cops, other than the fact that he was completely jaded and disappointed by "the system"? So maybe he was just like, PUNK ROCK! Maybe he was in the midst of a profound quarter-life crisis!

Of course, he also lists "hard drugs" as an interest on Friendster, so that could be an alternate explanation.

Un-Fare Assist D.A. Axed [NYP]
Matthew Knouff [Friendster]