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 [ BACK]  [NEXT]                       Issue #252 - 06/10/2001

SO DUMB, IT'S CRIMINAL!

More Funny Felons

Hi again, Crimestoppers,
     Crime is not funny.  A friend of mine was recently a crime
victim when his backpack  was stolen.  Apparently, some addled
thief must have believed there was something valuable inside. 
The crook must have been pretty disappointed to find  only a few
old papers and some slides.  My friend did get his stuff back,
for the most part.  It had been abandoned by the criminal. 
Apparently, the crook didn't see himself delivering a lecture on
the cultural influences of African architecture any time soon.
     But if crime isn't funny, but criminals can be.  Especially
the more incompetent variety.  There is something very satisfying
about bad guys who do bad to themselves.  The fact that this
happens as often as it does leads to the conclusion that crime is
not a good career choice for the terminally stupid.  But even a
cursory study is enough to convince you that most crooks don't go
into illegal professions while waiting for their Mensa membership
cards to arrive in the mail.  This also helps explain why almost
all career criminals spend most of their lives in rooms with
striped sunlight.
     A crook's worst nightmare is an effective and caring public. 
Folks who have helped take a bite out of crime this week include: 
Jerry Taff, Bruce Gonzo, Tim McChain, Chuck Maray, Kerry Miller,
Yasmin Leischer, R.J. Tully, Jan Michalski, Judy & Major
McCallum, Charles Beckman, Michael P. Miller, Larry Ford, Dan
Monaghan and Tom Hoelzer.  Thanks to all of you who contribute
and support SUNFUN.  
     And to any out there who do bad stuff, we just can't wait to
feature you when you do something stupid enough to be funny.
     Have A Strictly Legal Week,

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     "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short
     one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.'  And God
     granted it."
                            - Voltaire

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BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS...
--------------------
     Glenn Matthews, 43, is a big fan of comedian Rickey Smiley,
host of the show "Comic View" on Black Entertainment Television. 
We know that because, according to police, Matthews leapt onto
the stage during Smiley's January engagement at the Comedy Cafe
in Macon, Georgia.  Now, while most comedians would object to
losing the stage to an kibitzer from the audience that way, this
one was something different.
     According to witnesses at the sold-out club, Matthews
upstaged the comedian and cracked up audience members when he
confessed to Smiley while on stage, "I'm the guy who's been
robbing these banks around here.  And before I went to jail, I
just wanted to come see you."
     Many of the 300 patrons who witnessed Matthews' reported
stand-up confession believed it was all part of the comedy act. 
The audience thought this was pretty funny, especially when
professional joker Smiley went along with the illicit ad-libs.
     "That was funny as hell!" Smiley said.  "I was on the
microphone, and I pretended I was whispering.  But I said, where
the audience could hear me, 'where's the money?'  The audience
was dying!"
     No doubt Matthews stole the show.  But did he really steal
the money?  After further investigation, that's what police now
believe.  They've charged Matthews  with three counts of armed
robbery.  If a jury decides wasn't joking, his next gig could be
a permanent engagement in prison.
     While Matthews later denied everything when police
questioned him outside the club, police noted that his record
includes armed robbery and was on parole.  But he proved that he
was pretty good with an audience, so he might have a future in
comedy.  If he ever gets out.
     "They thought it was hilarious.  They wanted to know if
we'll do it again," said the club owner Mike Smith.  (Reuters/AP)
          [ Sure...  In about 5-to-life, with time off
          for good behavior. ]


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HERE'S WHAT'S LEFT...
------------------
     Bungling thieves in Medellin, Columbia made a huge haul of
footwear when they cleaned out a shoe store some time back - over
$16,000 of leather goods in all shapes, sizes and styles.  Police
say they stole every display model of shoe in stock.  All 756 of
them.
     Only one problem from the crooks' point of view; they are
all rights, with no matching lefts, which were locked away
separately.  (Reuters)


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CHECK OUT LINE...
--------------
     A couple in Woodstock, Georgia had the misfortune to have
their car stolen.  Worse, their checkbook was in the glove
compartment of the now-missing vehicle.  After the usual round of
police reports, the husband and wife went to the bank to close
their account.  You'd never guess what they saw in the line at
the drive-up window.
     Hmmm...  I guess you've been reading these a while, since
most all of you guessed that they saw their stolen car, which was
waiting in the drive-up line.  Complete with car thieves.  Car
thieves who were, according to police reports, trying to convince
the bank to cash a check forged against the stolen checkbook.
     Naturally, the car owners called police and the suspects
panicked and ran.  Police caught Roderick C. Chatman and Juli
Marie Levinge after a brief chase.
     The capture was made far easier by the fact that the forged
check was made out to Chatman in his own name and he had used his
own driver's license as identification - which he helpfully left
with the teller when he drove off.
     "Obviously, he was doomed from the start," a sheriff's
department spokesman said.  (AP)


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CAR JERKING...
-----------
     Two unsuccessful carjackers in Milwaukee had to shift for
themselves recently when they were unable to escape in either of
the vehicles they tried to nab.
     First the armed man and woman demanded the keys to a 1990
Toyota Tercel from a woman outside an East Side tavern.  The
22-year-old victim complied, and the crooks jumped into the
Tercel to speed away.  Except that they didn't do much speeding
or awaying.
     "Apparently neither of the suspects could drive a manual
transmission," Milwaukee police captain Joseph Purpero explained.
     Still PRNDL-less, the would-be carjackers next held up a
40-year-old man, turning their gun on him and demanded his
ignition keys.  The increasingly desperate crooks swiped his
pickup truck but were soon sorry they picked that pickup.
     It had a manual transmission, too.
     The pair fled on foot - presumably in search of a driving
school.  Police are looking.  (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
          [ The victims were lucky to slip through the
          clutches of these shiftless thieves. ]


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UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED...
-------------------
     Think a criminal couldn't get away slower than the hapless
yahoos who couldn't drive stick shift?  How about the stop and
start burglar.
     Police in Winona, Minnesota responded to a theft from a home
last winter.  One of the items stolen was a heavy safe.  Alert
officers quickly noticed bicycle tracks along with odd, square
imprints in the snow every few yards.  Easily following the
distinctive tracks, they had no trouble finding the thief.  The
officers arrested a 20-year-old man in his backyard, where they
found the safe.
     "The bike was stolen, too," Winona Deputy Chief Andrea Foss
said.


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BAGGED ANOTHER ONE!
------------------
     Police were looking for a woman who set off the anti-theft
alarm by shoplifting merchandise from a Family Value store in
Muskegon Heights, Michigan.  Store personnel gave chase but lost
the woman in the parking lot.  But only after she lost her purse.
     Obviously not clear on the concept of police looking for
her, the criminally inclined female suspect was arrested at the
police station when she showed up to recover her handbag.  (AP)


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MAKING WAVES?
------------
     How do you get in trouble by being friendly?  Ask parolee
Christopher Ciotoli of Milton, New York.  He just waved a
friendly hello out the car window at a Broome County sheriff's
deputy he recognized from his time in jail.  His friend Scott Van
Bergen, who was driving the car, even slowed down as he passed
the officer to let Ciotoli greet the officer.
     All of which allowed Deputy Matt Bomysoad time to get a
really good look at the license plates on the car the pair was
riding in.
     As a result, Van Bergen has been charged with criminal
possession of the stolen 1998 Mercury, and Ciotoli is back in
jail on parole violation charges for riding around in stolen
cars.  So much for keeping a low profile.


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I SEE A LONG JOURNEY...
--------------------
     Thirty-four-year-old Michael Anthony Silver was arrest in
Leesburg, Virginia after robbing a home.  Silver got away clean
and police were baffled, until the victim got his phone bill.
     On the bill was a $250 charge to a psychic hotline on the
same night and time as the burglary.  The hotline gave police the
caller's name as Michael Silver and Hi-Ho suspect, away to jail.
     Silver admits to making the calls, but says he made them
from somewhere else.  (AP)
          [ Yeah, his Psychic Advisor never mentioned
          that he'd be caught. ]

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THE ART OF NEGOTIATION...
----------------------
     After a while doing these stories, you begin to wonder just
how dumb some of these crooks can be.  An armed robber in
Bordeux, France threatened the clerk at a post office and
demanded $13,700 in cash.
     When the clerk informed him that the postal savings bank had
nowhere near that much money, the crook lowered his demand to
$6,800.
     Still too high, said the clerk.
     The dimwitted felon shrugged, then asked to make a modest
withdrawal from his own account.  He even gave the clerk his
identity card to complete the transaction.  Having his real name
and address, French police had no trouble locating the
financially challenged - and stupid - felon.  (Reuters)


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THE COLOR OF MONEY...
------------------
     A man appeared recently at the Humane Society in Boulder,
Colorado and tried to adopt a cat.  To pay the $75 adoption fee,
he pulled out four, $20 bills unlike any ever seen before.
     For one thing, they all had the same serial number.  And
they were on bright yellow paper.
     "He pulled out the money, and we both started laughing,"
said shelter worker Briana Rooney.  When his homemade cash was
rejected, he reluctantly pulled out a real $100 bill to pay for
the kitty.  The staff managed to stall him at the counter until
police showed up to arrest Oeters on suspicion of counterfeiting.
     Oeters told officers that he must have received the bills
from the bank when he cashed a check.  But when the cops searched
his wallet, they found 42 copies of the odd, yellow $20 bills -- 
and the two real bills they were copied from.  (The Daily Camera)


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IS THAT YOUR FINAL ANSWER?
-------------------------
     San Antonio, Texas is probably a bad place to try
negotiating with a judge.  When Frank Gurlin was convicted of
robbery and sentenced to seven years in prison, he became very
upset.  He begged the judge not to give him seven years because
seven was an unlucky number for him.  The judge was sympathetic
to his complaint and listened carefully.  
     Hope Frank likes eight years better.  (AFP)


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LIGHT WORK...
----------
     The owner of a Fort Worth, Texas tanning salon was more than
a little suspicious when a 17-year-old came running in the door.
     "Are you being chased?" she asked him. 
     "No, I just want a tan," he replied.
     She showed him to a tanning booth, but called police as soon
as he was inside.
     It turned out that police did happen to be looking for a
bank robber of that description, having lost a fleeing bank
bandit in the area.  They suspected the suspect was the same guy
who was taking some rays.  Quickly identified, the newly-bronzed
flight-risk was arrested, still in his underwear.  (Reuters)


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THAT'S GOTTA HURT...
-----------------
     A new - and pretty awful - comedy movie asks the title
question, "What's The Worst That Could Happen?"  It's exactly the
query police think Myner Santiago Martinez, 22, of Anaheim,
California must have asked himself before a burglary.  He found
out.
     Martinez was arrested as a suspect after allegedly breaking
into Luis Gasca's house.
     That's Los Angeles Police Officer Luis Gasca, by the way. 
Who was home in bed at 3 AM.  Who was also armed with his service
revolver.
     Seeing an object in the suspect's hand, Gasca grabbed his
gun and shot at the burglar, who fled into the yard - and fell
into the cactus garden.  Now full of needles, the suspect then
tried to vault over the decorative iron fence to get away. 
Unfortunately, he only half cleared the fence, injuring himself
on the protruding iron bars.
     "First he was shot at, then he got stuck in cactus and
impaled in the groin.  It wasn't a good night," Anaheim police
Sgt. Joe Vargas said, rather gleefully.
     Though the burglar escaped the scene, police arrested
Martinez later when he appeared at the hospital seeking treatment
for cuts, abrasions and a groin injury that he couldn't explain. 
He's in jail.  (AP)
          [ The cops think they'll have little trouble
          pinning him to the crime. ]


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© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.