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IF THEY ONLY HAD A BRAIN… July 23, 2010

 

 

It doesn't get any more ironic than this. 62-year-old John Venuti of Baltimore pleaded guilty to three counts of failing to file a federal income tax return. Authorities said he owes more than 789-thousand dollars in back taxes. Venuti faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison for each of the three counts. Here comes the ironic part… John is a former IRS agent.

 

 

Authorities in Villa Rica, Georgia have charged a 29-year-old man with aggravated assault and false imprisonment after they allege he held his mother hostage for failing to iron his clothes. Police say the man, who lives with his parents, wanted his mother to do some ironing because it was "woman's work." When she refused, authorities allege he pulled out a gun, and took his 51-year-old mother's keys and cell phones and refused to let her leave for at least six hours. The man remains in jail without bond. The unidentified mom was not harmed.

 

When suburban New York police discovered an abandoned suitcase in a Park, they knew immediately …it must be a bomb. X-rays showed three cylinders next to what appeared to be tools and wires. Yep… no doubt about it... it was a bomb. So they cleared the area and blew up the suitcase. Which turned out to contain only three cans of tuna, a can opener and a pair of pliers. No bomb.

 

Some creative employees of a leisure firm in Russia thought they could get some advertising attention by strapping a donkey to a parasail and sending it high over the Azov Sea. Well, they got attention, all right. But not the kind they were hoping for. The employees are being investigated for animal cruelty. Sunbathers were shocked to see the donkey flying overhead. The poor beast brayed in fear as they towed it around for half an hour. It’s a little shell-shocked, but it survived.

 

Coming up--“America’s Dumbest Criminal”

 

First, from upper New York State, Border agents noticed that Eugene Todie was wearing an ankle monitor as he came back into the US from Canada. People with ankle monitors aren’t supposed to leave the country at all. But Eugene told them it wasn’t a real ankle monitor. He said he was only wearing it …to show solidarity for Lindsay Lohan. Border guards didn’t believe him. The fact he was using someone else’s passport didn’t’ help, either.

 

 

 

21-year-old Abby Toll of BOULDER, COLORADO is headed to jail for a month after she taped her boyfriend’s dog to the refrigerator. She did it because she was tired of her boyfriend paying more attention to his 2-year-old Shiba Inu than her. The dog is fine and has been adopted by another family.

 

 

 

A 50-year-old man was arrested near CINCINNATI, OHIO while riding an electric scooter… almost a mile from where he allegedly stole it. Seems Roger Cordray hopped into one of those shopping scooters they loan out at grocery stores and just motored away.

 

 

 

Finally, from LOCKPORT, NEW YORK comes this week’s “America’s Dumbest Criminal”– 39-year-old Christopher Crego was supposed to do about a year for a DUI and assault charge. But he decided he didn’t want to go to jail, so he jumped bail and ran off to Terre Haute, Indiana. He was pretty proud of his accomplishment. In fact, he bragged about it, saying how he’d jumped bail and would never have to do any time. He made that boast... on Facebook. Where his profile page included information on the tattoo parlor where he worked and the city where he was living. Yeah, he’s back in New York, now. And had another six months added to his sentence. By the way, if you saw his Facebook post and clicked “like,” you can expect a visit from some guys in uniforms shortly.

 

24-year-old Brandon Farmer and some friends were walking around “Washington Court House”, Ohio when they spotted a semi-trailer truck stopped at a traffic light. On a dare, Brandon jumped onto the rear rail of the thing. He figured he’d get off at the next light. What he didn’t know was that the traffic lights are programmed to remain green unless there’s cross traffic. No traffic at that hour, so the lights didn’t change. Brandon held on for dear life as the truck barreled down the highway headed for the next town. He dug out his phone and called 9-1-1 for help. Cops eventually did manage to get the rig to stop and Brandon was taken into custody. Alcohol was involved.

There’s a sports car that’s so expensive, the Swedish boutique automaker that makes them only turns out 25 a year and only ten make it to the United States. The 806-horsepower Koenigsegg CCX costs a million dollars each. Some guy in New York owns one. Or did. He took it into an auto repair shop to have some work done and a shop employee with a lot of cajones decided to take it for a spin. Heck, nobody would ever find out, right? He hit the gas.. and promptly put the car into a guardrail. Worse, still, he took out a Porsche GT2 in the process.

Is it really a robbery if there’s nobody there when you hold up the place? Three guys decided to rob a grocery store in Joliet, Illinois. Two of them stood guard while the third went in wearing a ski mask and armed with an air pistol. After a couple of minutes, he came back out empty handed and said, “What the [heck]?? No one’s in the store.” There weren’t any visible customers in the store, so the registers weren’t manned when the guy went in. However, a neighbor saw what was happening and called cops.

41-year-old Steven Poole was arrested for shoplifting some butter and a sofa cover at a Wal-Mart store in West City, Illinois. Cops say he was using the self-scanner and purposely didn’t scan the two items. They also say he switched the tags on a memory foam mattress so it would ring up 31 bucks instead of 145. Did we mention that Steve Poole is a Roman Catholic Priest? I so want to say “cops collared a priest” but I’m not in the mood for the resulting groans.

 

 

In honor of Independence Day, Tim Childress of DALLAS, TEXAS bought an American flag at the Dollar Tree store.  But when he got it home, he noticed something odd.  The flag had 61 stars. He counted several times just to make sure. He went back to the store to tell them to correct the problem or at least inform the Chinese supplier how many stars are on an American flag.  The assistant store manager explained that the flag is sold as a “patriot banner” not as an American Flag.

         

In PADUCAH, KENTUCKY – a 44-year-old woman heard that her son’s bail would be reduced if he could produce written evidence that he had a job. His employer refused to issue a letter, so mom wrote the letter, herself, pretending to be an official with Wagner Moving and Storage.  Which might have worked had she not misspelled… Wagner Moving & Storage.  Now they’re both in jail and there’s no bail for either one.

                 

A GAINSVILLE, FLORIDA mother is in trouble after she posted a photo on Facebook that showed her 11-month old son apparently smoking a marijuana pipe.  The 19-year-old woman claims there was nothing in the pipe at the time, and that her son didn't inhale any smoke.  She says she posted the photo as a joke to show her friends. However, the picture eventually landed on the desks of Florida child protection officers, who didn't think it was so funny. She’s blaming the media for getting her into trouble.

 

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – 57-year-old Jose Luis Avila is going to jail after pulling a gun during a traffic altercation.  He’s a former priest. It gets better. He’s an anger management counselor.  It gets better. The men he was having the traffic dispute with… were US Marshals.  Avila gets a year in jail …and he has to attend anger management classes.

 

Police say a 26-year-old man shoplifted a bottle of booze and some cough drops from a grocery store in Riverton, Wyoming. He ducked into a nearby building hoping he wouldn’t be caught. Except that the “nearby building” he chose... happened to be the police station. When he realized this, he ran back out, but a dispatcher had already seen him on surveillance monitors and alerted cops. He has Gotta get a Garmin.

On the other hand, he won’t make that mistake, again. Because now he knows where the police station IS.

Audrey Scott of ALLIANCE, OHIO is going to do a little jail time for calling 9-1-1 five times in an hour. No, she wasn’t being robbed. Her house wasn’t on fire. She didn’t fall and couldn’t get up. She called and demanded help in finding a husband. The operator made it clear she’d be arrested for misuse of 9-1-1 and Audrey said, “Let’s do it.” Alcohol was involved.

Sometime in the middle of the night in PERHAM, MINNESOTA, a car thief discovered what he thought was the Holy Grail: a car parked in a driveway with the keys right there inside. So, he hopped in and took off. Wasn’t long before the thief discovered just WHY the owner had left the keys in the car. It’s because he’d been working on the brakes and had removed the master cylinder. The thief only got a short distance when he attempted to put on the brakes… and ended up wrapped around a tree.

 

Corpus Christi, Texas cops spent hours bagging and tagging plants in a city park in what officials called “one of the largest marijuana plant seizures in the police department’s history.” Just one small problem: wasn’t marijuana. The plants they were patting themselves on the back for discovering and destroying were actually harmless prairie plant known as Horse Mint. Worse, still… it doesn’t look anything at all like marijuana. Some 7-year-old kid had phoned in the tip.

 

We try to NOT disappoint—so here we go again—it’s YET ANOTHER “All Florida Edition”

Take-your-daughter-to-work day is a fun and educational idea.. unless, of course, you’re a crack dealer. Then, it’s not a good thing. That’s what 29-year-old LaToya Smith of Crestview, Florida discovered. Police busted her making a deal in a convenience store parking lot with her daughter waiting in the car. She tried to convince cops that she was only selling crack to help make ends meet and that she’s also pregnant, again.

NEW PORT RICHEY, FLORIDA, The caller to the 9-1-1-dispatch center was very distraught. Why? His mom took away his beer. Charley Dennison said he wanted his mom arrested for taking his beer. Charley, by the way is 32. And, according to deputies, was quite intoxicated. They didn’t arrest his mother. They DID arrest him. For making a false 9-1-1 call. 

Meanwhile, ALSO in New Port Richey a woman called to report that her husband tried to strangle her. When cops arrived, 39-year-old Christopher Bukowski said, “Arrest me.” When asked why he tried to strangle his wife of five years, Christopher told the arresting officer, “If you were married, you’d understand.”

In TAMPA, Police mailed letters to a whole bunch of fugitives promising them 650-dollars in federal stimulus money.  All they had to do to get the free money was to set up an appointment at this storefront office set up by police. One by one they showed up to get the money, only to be handcuffed and hauled away by cops. Including one woman who, after being arrested, wanted to know if she still got the money

Here’s a little tip if you’re planning to commit a burglary. Make sure your license plate is securely attached to your car. Otherwise, it could fall off leaving a valuable clue for cops. Just ask 49-year-old Gary Browder of Jacksonville, Florida. Security video shows him pulling up to a gas station after-hours, smashing a window, stealing some cigarettes, and then driving off. As he takes

off, the license plate falls off. By the time they tracked him down, he was already in jail on some other charges.  

What do you get when you combine a rock band, a lot of alcohol and a third-floor balcony. Yeah, someone’s going over. In this case it was 21-year-old Nick Blossom of CHELSEA, NEW YORK who’s the drummer for a band called Alaska Alaska.  People say Nick was drunk and angry when he sat on a rooftop ledge at a party. Police said he sat alone screaming that he 'hated everybody' before falling one story onto a fence, which was attached to the second-floor balcony of the adjacent apartment building. His head wound up impaled on the fence. Rescuers had to use an electric saw to cut him loose - and a section of the railing was still attached to his scalp when he arrived at hospital. For you musicians listening, He fell in the key of B flat.

DETROIT, OREGON – (near Salem, population 262, named for Detroit, Michigan in the 1890s because of the large number of people from Michigan in the community.) 42-year-old Trena Fiels likes a little sugar in her coffee. So, she wiggles the little packets, tears off the top and dumps it into her cup. Which is fine at home or in a restaurant. Much harder when you’re doing fifty down Highway 22 near Big Cliff Dam. Trena’s Lincoln Navigator drifted off the highway as she was sweetening her java. She noticed that and yanked the steering wheel back to the left. Too hard, it turns out, as the SUV went clear across the highway, past the scenic overlook and down the embankment into the Santiam River. Trena’s okay.

And now--*WAFFLE HOUSE IN THE NEWS*

Three teenagers decided to walk out of a Waffle House in MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE without paying for their meals. What they didn’t count on was employee Andrew McKnight.  He decided nobody was getting free food on HIS watch, so he ran into the parking lot to stop them, but the teen driving the car wasn’t about to stop. So, Andrew jumped onto the hood and held on as the car sped off reaching speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. At some point, Andrew managed to fish his cell phone out of his pocket and call 9-1-1. The 18-year-old was hauled off to jail on a number of charges.

When dog bites man, it’s not news. When man bites dog, it is news. When man bites another man in a fight over a dog, it’s “IF HE ONLY HAD A BRAIN.” In New York City one man didn’t like the way another guy’s dog was playing with his dog at a local dog park. So, the two guys got into it. A third guy tried to break up the fight and got bitten for his efforts. And they didn’t like the way the DOGS were playing.

In Shoreline, a suburb of Seattle, officers say a 39-year-old felon burglarized a home, taking the usual things… digital camera, laptop computer, iPod, DVD player… but he also took something else: clean clothes. Hey-why do laundry when you can just take someone else’s clothes?  Trouble is, he left his dirty clothes behind. That included underwear with enough DNA for the CSI people to get a hit.

Cops say a man broke into a Des Moines, Iowa Subway sandwich shop through the drive-thru window. He helped himself to some cold cuts and cookies… and even made some sandwiches to take home. But he left the store’s money untouched. Police have no suspects.

Sounds to me like Jared has fallen on hard times.

Carlos Mitchell of Bartow, Florida, is charged with robbing a Bank. Police say they're pretty confident he's the guy.  He was apprehended while driving his mother’s 2001 gold Chrysler Concorde, which matched the getaway vehicle.  Inside it, they found his cell phone… which held photos

he'd taken of himself wearing… a brown ski mask, and photos of him holding… a large amount of money.  He was also charged with possession of marijuana. But you probably already guessed that.

Oh Boy! It's Another ALL FLORIDA EDITION

Marathon Florida Sherrif Office said a man was charged with theft and drunken driving when his vehicle became stuck on the beach. Deputies responded to reports of a truck stuck in the sand at Coco Plum Beach where they found Brian Splain, 46, with his 1989 Ford F-150 loaded with sand from the beach. Splain was booked on charges of grand theft of the sand, criminal mischief and driving while impaired.

Cops in JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA arrived to investigate a burglary at a Veterinary clinic and were surprised by what they found: An 18-year-old guy asleep under a blanket. From the evidence at the scene, they figure he broke into the place, shot himself up with horse tranquilizers and watched some “adult content” on a clinic computer. He’d also helped himself to food from the office refrigerator.

Employees at a Wendy’s restaurant in Daytona Beach, Florida had to call 911 after a customer chased one of them around the restaurant with a Taser. Reason? She was unhappy with her order. Jason Hill says two women at the drive through got very upset that their order wasn’t correct and started cussing him out. One of the women got out of her car, came into the restaurant and started chasing Jason around the place with a pink stun gun. 20-year-old Melanese Asia Reid claimed she used the Taser in self-defense. Police tracked her down later after she called in to complain about the service.

St. Lucie County Florida authorities said an 80-year-old man was arrested after residents called 911 and reported they were awakened by a "loud banging at the door" that turned out to be neighbor Gene Edward Chambers hitting the door with a garden hoe. Chambers told a deputy his neighbors had stolen 7 boxes of "Little Debbie Oatmeal Cookies." The deputy searched Chambers' home and found 5 boxes of the cookies and a Walmart receipt confirming he had purchased 5 boxes.

OKALOOSA, FLORIDA – 19-year-old Tasha Lee Cantrell needed a ride home after the car she was in was pulled over and the driver cited for DUI. Deputy Mitchell Landis volunteered …but as he was giving her a ride home, he heard what sounded like someone opening a soda can. Only it wasn’t a soda. Tasha was drinking a can of Steel Reserve malt liquor…in the squad car. She was immediately arrested for underage drinking.

A clerk was restocking the beer cooler at a gas station in Clarksville, Tennessee. As she came out of the stockroom, she noticed some of the cases she’d just put in the cooler... were gone. During the brief time she was in the back room, some savvy thief had come into the station and swiped a few cases of beer. Then.… lo and behold… the thief came back into the gas station and asked to exchange the beer because… it wasn’t cold enough. When she asked if he’d paid for the beer in the first place, the guy got nervous, asked for directions, then left.

 

23-year-old Ben Kuzelka was mixing up some homemade explosives in his home in Riverside, California when something went wrong and he blew off his hand. Authorities went to the house and discovered he was also growing marijuana in the home. Wait, there’s more. The house had also been licensed as a day care center.

 

In Montreal a 29-year-old Canadian woman was on extended sick leave for depression and had been receiving benefits for several months… well, she has now had her benefits yanked. Seems her insurance agent visited... her Facebook page. That’s where he found pictures of her vacationing, hanging out at a bar and at a party.  

 

It was around 11 p.m. Monday night in Santa Fe, Texas when police pulled over Matthew Creel for a defective headlight. He was arrested when they discovered he had a suspended license. Then the cop searched Matt’s car and found some marijuana. Upon further investigation, the officer noticed that the marijuana was wrapped in a court document – Matt’s deferred adjudication order for a possession of marijuana charge.

 

I think that’s the police equivalent of an unassisted triple play.

A lot of people get nervous before a test. 61-year-old Dana Seaman of BELLEVIEW, FLORIDA was so nervous about the test he was about to take that he decided to have a shot to calm his nerves. Which might have worked except that the test he was taking.. was a Breathalyzer test. Cops pulled him over for DUI. He’d admitting to drinking, but then took another swig from a cup and threw it under the passenger seat before blowing into the tube.

A motorist was arrested and charged with drunk driving in a Cincinnati, Ohio suburb after police say he dozed off in line at the drive-through window at a Skyline Chili fast food restaurant. 52-year-old Thomas Tauscher also had an open can of Budweiser in his car as well as a flask.

*If there is a chance you will fall asleep while waiting for food in a “fast food” drive-through, it is definitely not a place to stop for the munchies!

Morning MIX listener Paul called our attention to this story from IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – where a SkyWest Airlines flight from Helena, Mont., to Salt Lake City was diverted after a passenger began banging on the cockpit door, saying he was a space alien and wanted to fly the plane. Passengers on the flight helped restrain 32-year-old Matthew Kleindorfer of Las Vegas who faces misdemeanor counts of disturbing the peace and resisting arrest and a felony count of battery of an officer. …and when he banged on the door, a voice from inside the cockpit said “Dave’s not here man!”

Sherwin Shayegan, 27, a convicted felon, with arrests for burglary, theft, trespassing and criminal impersonation, has been arrested again, this time on a drug-related charge in Mt. Vernon, Wash. But that’s not the weird part. Sherwin has a bizarre behavior problem wherein he attends high school sporting events, makes his way into the team’s locker rooms and tries to get autographs from student team members. That’s not the weird part either. After the games he finds players in the parking lot, jumps on them and demands piggyback rides. He has been asked to please not come to any more school functions.

Man robs convenience store. That’s not really news. But in this case, it’s what he stole that’s news. The man officers arrested in ROGERSVILLE, TENNESSEE allegedly stole

42 containers of assorted energy drinks

82 chocolate bars

23 packs of gum

80 lighters

20 packs of a “male enhancement product”

22-year-old Matthew Messina has been arrested and charged with the thefts…

MARYVILLE, TENNESSEE – A 21-year-old woman tried to tell the cop who pulled her over that the white substance she stuffed in her mouth was sugar from a powdered doughnut. Cops tested it. Cocaine. She was arrested with possession of that with intent to sell or distribute, driving on a suspended driver’s license, driving without proof of insurance, failure to maintain her lane of traffic and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Congratulations are going out to Dani Hamm, who has earned the honorary title of STORY, INDIANA Village Idiot for 2010. As this year’s idiot, Dani gets a 100-dollar bar tab at the Story Inn restaurant and bar... which is where the idea for the award originated. So, what did Dani do to deserve this? She lit a cigarette. Right after soaking her hair with hairspray. Dani heard a whoosh as her hair went up in flames. She wasn’t injured because she was able to beat the flames out with her bare hands.

Sara May Ward is going to jail for running down a man with her car in Canberra, Australia . Why did she do it? Because he threw cheese-flavored snacks at her car. Before the incident Sara had put away two bottles of wine and smoked some weed …and took some amphetamines ..and some anti-depressants. The man and his brother threw the cheeseballs at her as a joke. Apparently, she’d seen the commercials. She knew the snacks were “dangerously cheesy.”

When they say don't get behind the wheel drunk in Colchester, England, they mean it. 40-year-old Paul Hutton was pulled over by police for doing about 40 miles per hour.. UNDER the limit. That’s because his “vehicle” …was an electric Barbie car, which moves slower than an electric wheelchair. Yeah, alcohol was involved. Paul was given a mandatory three-year ban because it’s not his first DUI. As for driving a Barbie car, Paul said, "You have to be a contortionist to get in, and then you can't get out."  

Cops say the owner of a convenience store in NORTH EAST, MARYLAND was opening up, Wednesday morning, when he spotted a pair of feet dangling from a heating duct. The 20-year-old would-be burglar had removed a ventilation cover and crawled through the ductwork.. but got stuck. But wait ‘till you hear his explanation. The crook claimed he had been playing hide-and-seek on the roof with some friends and decided to hide I the ventilation system. He says his friends couldn’t find him, so they must have stopped looking.

TAVARES, FLORIDA – Cops found a woman passed out in her car in a hospital parking lot. She’d apparently hit a speed limit sign before pulling into the parking lot and passing out. Inside her car, they found Kalua, Bailey’s Irish Cream and prescription drugs. She failed a field sobriety test and was arrested. Did we mention the woman ..is the mayor’s wife?

Am I the only one having an “Animal House” flashback, here?

IF THEY ONLY HAD A BRAIN!