Peter Erlinder escapes Rwandan jail only to be mugged in St. Paul

​Peter Erlinder is having a rough summer.

The William Mitchel law professor, freshly released from a Rwandan prison after being charged with minimizing the country's genocide, has only been back in Minnesota for less than a week. But his luck doesn't seem to have changed.

According to St. Paul police spokesman Paul Schnell, Erlinder was standing in front of his home Thursday night when one of a group of teenagers across the street came over, flashed a handgun, and demanded money. Erlinder threw some cash on the ground, and the robber grabbed it and ran away.

The joke was at least partly on the robbers, though: Schnell says that the money Erlander took from his wallet and threw on the ground was only partly U.S. currency. To spend the rest of their ill-gotten gains, the stick-up kids may have to go to Rwanda.