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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:16:15 GMT -5
Claude A. Smith, 60, a black man housed in an Ohio prison, was in need of prostate surgery. Claude E. Smith III, 43, a white man who until recently was housed in another Ohio prison, is suing the state of Ohio for $3 million, claiming his prostate was removed in error when they sent for the wrong Claude Smith. He charges the operation left him impotent and without bladder control. (AP) ...Don’t ever get your second opinion from a guard.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:17:42 GMT -5
A Universal Studios Hollywood employee — an unnamed woman who normally works weekdays in the wardrobe department — discovered while leaving work on a recent Saturday that her regular exit gate was locked. Driving around the lot looking for escape, she started to follow a tour bus full of visitors, presumably figuring it would lead her to an exit. The bus then cut through the special passageway that was used to film Charlton Heston leading the Israelites through the parted waters of the Red Sea, and the woman followed. But upon reaching the end, the bus triggered a device to close the parted waters, trapping the woman and her car, much like the Pharaoh’s soldiers were trapped when they chased Heston and company through the gap. It took Hollywood’s Urban Search and Rescue unit an hour to rescue her. (Los Angeles Times) ...Better than being caught in King Kong’s grasp for an hour, I suppose.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:21:15 GMT -5
Paul Siemens, 18, of Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., graduated second in his class from Spring Valley High School. Despite having been accepted at Harvard to study biology, he has filed suit against the school district, calling their method of determining class rank “erroneous, arbitrary and capricious”, and claiming that he would have been number one based on straight grade point average. The suit demands that he be made class valedictorian because in the future, graduate school entrance and grant awards will take his high school class rank into account, and he would be placed at a disadvantage by being ranked number two. (AP) ...Biology? But he clearly would make a gifted lawyer.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:23:01 GMT -5
When Douglas Murphy bolted past the courtroom of Municipal Judge Donald Hoover and ran out the door, the Richland County (Ohio) judge knew what he had to do: he dropped his robe and ran after him. During the 20 minute chase, a team of roofers helped point the way for the judge and several police officers who had joined in the pursuit. Like his late namesake, Hoover got his man, finding Murphy hiding behind a bush. He’s not likely to get any awards, though: Murphy wasn’t an escapee, but had just finished a court appearance and was hurrying away, free on bond. (AP) ...“Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.” —H.L. Mencken.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:24:35 GMT -5
“Male rape” wasn’t illegal in Britain until this week, when the upper house of parliament passed a law that provides an equivalent maximum penalty for female rape: life. Previously, the only charges that could be brought were sexual assault or “non-consensual buggery,” which provided for a maximum 10 year sentence. The Reuter news service points out that the action “follows a vote earlier this year by parliament to lower the age of consent for male homosexuals from 21 to 18.” (Reuters) ...In other words, “easy come, easy go”?
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:27:00 GMT -5
According to Federal charges filed in Charleston, W.Va., businessman Denny Ray Gullett sent his partner, Masel Hensley, a gift, telling him he “would get a bang out of” it. Prosecutors say it was filled with dynamite. Hensley’s son was killed in the blast, and a nephew — the unwitting delivery man — severely injured. The intended victim had a $150,000 insurance policy on his life, with the company as beneficiary. Gullett allegedly had told the nephew the box contained a blow-up doll with Dolly Parton’s body and Ronald Reagan’s head. (AP) ...A product, no doubt, advertised as having three boobs.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:28:50 GMT -5
Mary Stiles says her husband, Grady, 55, a sideshow performer who went by the name “Lobster Boy” because of a genetic deformity which left him with ...well... lobster-claw-like hands, beat her and their children so severely that she had no other choice but to hire the next-door neighbor to shoot him. Since Stiles had been convicted for the 1978 murder of one of his daughter’s boyfriends and then released on probation, she believed him when he said he would kill her if she filed for divorce. The neighbor was convicted of murder and conspiracy, and sentenced to 27 years in prison. (AP) ...At 55, shouldn’t he have been called “Lobster Man”?
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:30:37 GMT -5
Carol Cieslak charged her boyfriend, Dennis Amber, 44, with assault, saying he had reacted to their breakup by coming over to her house with a snapping turtle, which he tried to get to bite her. But Cieslak dropped the charges in the Coraopolis, Pa., court because media coverage of the assault “has made her life hell,” the judge said. (AP) ...Maybe Amber should get a new job. I hear there’s a sideshow performer position open.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:32:45 GMT -5
District Court Judge Daniel Sawicki had had enough: Gregory Wright, 22, in court under charges of assault with intent to murder in the shooting of a Royal Oak, Mich., police officer, continually chanted “Please don’t kill me” during his arraignment. Despite orders from the judge to keep quiet, Wright kept chanting. So, on orders from the judge, court officers taped his mouth shut with duct tape, wrapping it around his head several times. (AP) ...And quit squirming or we’ll pinch your nose.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:36:01 GMT -5
Four men, ranging in ages from 18 to 21, celebrated a long night of drinking and drugs by apparently deciding to lie down between the rails as a train passed over them. But a 144-car Norfolk Southern freight train made such a mess of them, authorities had to search for several hours to find one of their heads. “It appears ...they may have thought the train was high enough to pass over them,” said Prince William County (Va.) Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul B. Ebert. It wasn’t. (AP) ...Next week: wing walking on a 747.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:39:02 GMT -5
Debi Mercer, 42, the wife of the Yamhill County (Ore.) district attorney, pleaded guilty last week to charges of sexual abuse and official misconduct when it was discovered that she had kissed a 14-year-old boy she was supervising in school detention. The boy, who is now 16, told investigators that the two had engaged in sexual relations both on and off school grounds for the past two years, and that she had performed oral sex on him. In a plea bargained sentence, Mercer avoided jail time but is on 30 days’ house arrest, five years’ probation, must pay $2,500 for psychological therapy for the boy, and must stay away from boys under 18. (AP) ...Surely a 42-year-old man caught with a 14-year-old girl would have been Bobbitized.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:41:12 GMT -5
It has been recently revealed that Vickie Lynn Hogan Smith, 26, better known as supermodel Anna Nicole Smith (poser for Guess? Jeans ads and Playboy magazine), married J. Howard Marshall II, 89, a Houston, Texas, oilman. Smith has recently appeared in the film Naked Gun 33-1/3 while Marshall recently appeared in Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in the U.S. ($550 million in 1991). Meanwhile, Smith is the defendant in a lawsuit — her child’s nanny accuses her of sexual harassment, sexual assault and false imprisonment. Smith has countersued for slander. (AP) ...Slander? For saying Smith sleeps with old men or something?
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:43:14 GMT -5
The Kansas City (Mo.) chapter of the Public Relations Society of America is sponsoring a contest, circulating a pamphlet to solicit entries. The pamphlet uses a Nazi swastika on the cover as an example of attention grabbing public relations, with the slogan “Never Underestimate the Driving Force of Public Relations.” A spokesman for the PR firm that created the graphic for the association says the brochure was meant to be “provocative”. So far, it has provoked at least one PR firm to drop out of the awards competition. (AP) ...Next year, let’s let Saddam Hussein Images, Inc., produce the brochure.
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:46:15 GMT -5
The government of China has decided to let foreign firms invest in gold mining operations there, but only in mines that are difficult to get gold out of: those that produce less than 3.5 grams of glitter per ton of ore. And “according to the rules,” said the Chinese official news agency, all gold produced is to “be sold to the People’s Bank of China at the state-set price.” (Reuters) ...Or, “We get the gold, the investors get the shaft.”<br>
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Post by The Watcher on May 16, 2005 20:48:39 GMT -5
David K. Paro, the owner of a combination tanning salon and video store in Buffalo, Mo., was charged with using a hidden camera to make videotapes of underage girls. Police found tapes of at least 83 nude women, but didn’t bring charges against him because Missouri has no laws against secret taping. But when some of the subjects turned out to be under the age of 18, the case came under the state’s child abuse laws. Paro now faces 70 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. “I wasn’t really doing it for money or the thrill — it was just sort of a prank, you know. It was just to see if it could be done,” Paro said. (AP) ...And the D.A. wants to push for the maximum sentence, just to see if it can be done.
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