Unusual News 12/21/06

Dead Cat Thrown Through Drive-up Window
Dec 21, 10:26 PM (ET)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - An employee working the drive-through window at a McDonald's will have a tale to tell. When the worker went to the open window thinking the car pulling up had already ordered, the people in the car threw a dead cat through the window, police said.

Cedar Rapids Animal Control officer Matt McAtee said the black domestic shorthair appeared to have been dead for a while.

"It looked like somebody had picked it up off the road," McAtee said.

Police were called to the restaurant about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday.

The people in the car drove off. A description of the car was not available, but employees knew the people in the car, police said.

No charges had been filed. The investigation was continuing.

McDonald's officials declined comment.

Dec 21, 9:28 PM (ET)

Woman forges Documents to Have Sex With Inmate

BALTIMORE (AP) - A 29-year-old woman allegedly forged documents and assumed the identity of an Annapolis attorney, apparently for the sole purpose of having sex with an inmate at a Baltimore prison.

"It was an elaborate scheme," said Maj. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the prison system. "I'm not aware of something like this ever occurring before."

Police charged Tiffany Gwen Weaver, of Reisterstown with seven counts stemming from the alleged incident, including forgery, fraud, and false use of government identification. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

On Nov. 13, police allege in charging documents filed in Baltimore District Court, a woman appeared at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center, claiming to be an attorney for inmate Jason Moody, who is serving 30 years for manslaughter. She had a Maryland State Bar Association Security Identification Pass with photo, identifying her as Amanda Sprehn of the Annapolis law firm Hyatt, Peters & Weber. She also gave jail officials a business card with Sprehn's name.

Once alone with Moody, the court documents allege, the two began engaging in sexual intercourse. Corrections officials assigned to monitor such visits for safety and security observed their behavior and cut the visit short.

Annapolis attorney Amanda Sprehn, the real Amanda Sprehn, told The Baltimore Examiner she was on leave when her firm received a letter banning her from the jail.

"I was out on maternity leave," she said. "They informed me they received a letter saying I had been caught having sex with an inmate - which was a real laugh."

"I haven't a clue how she got onto my identity," Sprehn said, adding that she has never represented Weaver. "I certainly feel like a victim. My reputation is at stake. There were already rumors circulating about me in Annapolis. My colleagues had to squash the rumors."

Prison investigators met with Sprehn's firm, and realized the business card and security pass were fakes. Further investigation led them to Weaver, authorities said.

Liar Brought to Justice
Dec 21, 9:27 PM (ET)

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (AP) - As he marched up and down a busy road wearing a placard proclaiming "I AM A LIAR," Craig Breuwet endured a painfully public punishment for lying to police. "I've learned my lesson," said Breuwet, who added that he had never been more embarrassed or humiliated.

The 33-year-old Warner Robins man submitted to the court-sanctioned penalty on Wednesday in lieu of facing trial for filing a false police report.

Breuwet told police last August that he had been kidnapped by two men in a Warner Robins parking lot, driven to nearby Macon and beaten up. Two days after the incident, Breuwet admitted that he had fabricated the abduction part of his story, police said.

Authorities said they don't know what really happened, and Breuwet wouldn't discuss it with a news reporter.

Pooping Peasant Popular IN Spain
Dec 20, 8:33 PM (ET)

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - The Virgin Mary. The three kings. A few wayward sheep. These are the figures one expects to find in a traditional Christmas nativity scene. Not a smartly dressed peasant squatting behind a rock with his rear-end exposed.

Yet statuettes of "El Caganer," or the great defecator in the Catalan language, can be found in nativity scenes, and increasingly on the mantelpieces of collectors, throughout Spain's northeastern Catalonia region, where for centuries symbols of defecation have played an important role in Christmas festivities.

During the holiday season, pastry shops around Catalonia sell sweets shaped like feces, and on Christmas Eve Catalan children beat a hollow log, called the tio, packed with holiday gifts, singing a song that urges it to defecate presents out the other end.

These traditions, in the case of the caganer dating back as far as the 17th century, come from an agricultural society where defecation was associated with fertility and health.

While the traditional caganer is a red-capped peasant, more modern renditions have gained popularity in recent years.

Honey I X-rayed the Kid
Dec 20, 4:06 PM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A woman mistakenly put her 1-month-old grandson through an X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said.

A startled security worker noticed the shape of a child on the carry-on baggage screening monitor and immediately pulled him out, the Los Angeles Times reported for a story in Wednesday's editions.

The infant was taken to a local hospital, where doctors determined he did not receive a dangerous dose of radiation.

"This was an innocent mistake by an obviously inexperienced traveler," said Paul Haney, deputy executive director of airports and security for the city's airport agency.

The incident happened early Saturday, airport officials said.

Haney said in 1988, an infant in a car seat went through an X-ray machine at the Los Angeles airport.

32 Baby Jesus Dolls found in Curchyard
Dec 19, 4:28 PM (ET)

CHICAGO (AP) - Dozens of people looking for Jesus can find him at a church on Chicago's South Side. Thirty-two plastic baby Jesus dolls were stolen last week from nativity scenes in people's front yards. Then on Saturday morning a woman found all the missing Jesuses lined up along the fence on her lawn and she gave them to St. Symphorosa Church.

The Rev. Marcel Pasciak said the woman was one of his parishioners at St. Symphorosa and "panicked" when she saw the dolls.

Fourteen of the dolls' rightful owners had claimed them by Tuesday morning.

Pasciak said he thinks teenagers took the baby Jesuses as a joke and not as a religious statement.

I Thought You Had The Baby!

Dec 19, 9:41 PM (ET)

MIDLAND, Texas (AP) - A 3-month-old baby was left unattended in a shopping cart for about an hour Sunday when her parents accidentally left her behind, police said. Shoppers noticed the abandoned baby at a Toys "R" Us store, Midland police Sgt. Alfredo Grimaldo said.

"It was a misunderstanding among family members," Grimaldo said in Monday editions of the Midland Reporter-Telegram. "One man took the kids home and left the ladies to shop. But when he took the kids, he didn't take the baby from the cart."

The family members, who were traveling in different cars, didn't realize what happened until they all got home and nobody had the baby, he said.

"We don't think it was really a child abandonment issue. It was just a misunderstanding," Grimaldo said.

Police spokeswoman Tina Jauz said Child Protective Services is looking into the case.

Cops Ice Frosty Stabbers

Dec 19, 4:56 PM (ET)

CINCINNATI (AP) - Two Christmas grinches were arrested Monday, accused of stabbing a 12-foot-tall inflatable Frosty the snowman with a screwdriver. The Hamilton County Sheriff's office said two 18-year-olds were charged with criminal damaging, and the investigation continues to snowball.

The assault on Frosty was caught on tape when homeowner Matt Williquette set up a motion-sensitive video camera in a tree in his yard because the snowman had fallen victim to two earlier attacks.

The inflatable, the biggest figure in his Christmas display in suburban Colerain Township, was punctured with a screwdriver Sunday night, for the third time.

Williquette had used white masking tape to patch over Frosty the first two times.

"The question I have is, 'Why me?' And why Frosty?" Williquette asked. "I had more (decorations) to put out there but with Frosty going down, I wasn't going to chance it."

Police said they arrested one young man at his Colerain Township home and the second turned himself in.

At one point Monday, the sheriff's office, which investigated with the Colerain Township police department, said in a statement: "The investigation continues to snowball."

In a separate act of holiday vandalism, a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy were charged Monday with criminal damaging. Authorities accused the two of taking a decorative candy cane from another Colerain Township yard early Saturday morning and smashing it on the owner's vehicle, causing $1,000 in damage.

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Storieshttp://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/466/police_drug_corruption

A Virginia drug-fighter gets caught selling drugs, so does a retired NYPD officer, and yet another jail guard goes down. Also this week, an interesting update on Operation Lively Green, the FBI sting that nailed dozens of military and Arizona law enforcement personnel for protecting the drug trade. Let's get to it:

In Portsmouth, Virginia, a Portsmouth police lieutenant was arrested Tuesday on cocaine distribution charges. Lt. Brian Keith Muhammed Abdul Ali, a 21-year veteran of the force who heads the department's drug-fighting unit, was arrested along with his nephew, a civilian. Both face charges of felony conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Ali was in jail with no bond set as of Wednesday.

In New York City, a retired NYPD officer was one of nine men arrested on charges they peddled drugs at a city-owned Manhattan marina. The arrests last week at the Dyckman Street Marina were the culmination of a six-month investigation in which undercover officers purchased heroin, crack, ecstasy, and marijuana on at least 48 occasions. Jeremy O'Rourke, 42, who quit the department in the late 1980s, is accused of brokering deals between large-scale dealers and the buyers who turned out to be narcs. He faces multiple counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy. His bail is set at $500,000.

In Albany, New York, two Montgomery County Jail guards have been arrested for selling marijuana to inmates. Luis Morales Jr., 26, was arrested last week, while Alvin Hoyt Jr., 20, was arrested earlier this year. Hoyt's arrest during the summer for promoting contraband led to an investigation that has now also netted Morales. Morales was arraigned December 13 on federal charges of marijuana possession with intent to distribute, but the charges against Hoyt were reduced and the judge has sealed his case. I wonder which one cut a deal to testify?

In Tucson, the Arizona Daily Star dug into the Operation Lively Green corruption scandal and found that a dozen US military recruiters were allowed to stay on the job, sometimes for years, after the FBI knew they were involved in drug-running. Operation Lively Green was the two-year FBI sting that has so far netted guilty pleas or verdicts from 60 members of the military and Arizona law enforcement agencies who took bribes from undercover agents to traffic cocaine. The ten recruiters who so far have pleaded guilty netted $180,000 between them.