Who used Board of Ed. Cable for Porn?

Apr 7, 10:49 PM (ET)

UNION CITY, N.J. (AP) - School district officials are trying to identify who watched $250 worth of pay-per-view pornographic movies using a school cable television box, officials said. Someone after business hours used one of the five cable boxes in the Board of Education building to order the films, priced between $4.95 and $9.95.

The cable provider, Cablevision, has refunded the school district the money, and is helping to investigate the purchases.

School officials have since gotten rid of three of the cable boxes. A board official said the building had cable in case there was an emergency.

Cincy Sandwich named for Poor Pitch

Apr 10, 11:48 AM (ET)

CINCINNATI (AP) - The mayor's errant ceremonial first pitch on baseball's opening day has inspired a sandwich with a fitting name: The Mark Mallory Screwball. The ingredients for the sandwich at Izzy's deli will be "any two meats tossed in the general direction of a bun or two pieces of bread." The Screwball will be served with a potato pancake and pickles for $7.75.

"This is wonderful," Mallory said Monday. "Who wouldn't want a sandwich named for them?" Mallory's pitch in front of a sold-out crowd April 2 at Great American Ball Park didn't go great. It was several feet to the first-base side of home plate, making him the butt of jokes among some late-night comedians. Video of the pitch has been played repeatedly on Web sites.

"There's so much negativity that you hear about the city of Cincinnati all the time," said John Geisen, president of Izzy's, which is a block from City Hall. "But the mayor has brought some fun to it. So we wanted to, too."

PURSE THIEF PINCHED IN PORT-A-POTTY

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. (AP) - Police looking for a purse snatcher were able to flush the suspect out from the portable toilet where he was hiding.

"A Port-A-Potty is not a good place to hide," police Chief James Kudlak said Wednesday. "There's only one way out."

Johnny Snodgrass, 21, apparently matched the description of a man caught on videotape at a store where an 89-year-old woman's purse was stolen in March and from a nearby video poker establishment where her wallet was found, police said. The thief got away with about $45.

Acting on a tip, police went to a construction site where Snodgrass was working on Monday to question him, but he ran into the portable restroom. Officers yelled for him to come out and he soon complied, police said.

Snodgrass was being in jail on $5,000 bond on Wednesday. He's scheduled to appear before a magistrate on April 25.

Kudlak said Snodgrass claims he is innocent.

Court officials said Snodgrass did not yet have an attorney.

MAN SENTENCED FOR LEWD STICKERS

MANTORVILLE, Minn. (AP) - A Byron man, who distributed sexually vulgar stickers featuring his ex-girlfriend's name, phone number and address, has been sentenced to four months in jail after pleading guilty to a felony harassment charge.

Thomas Carl Tiedeman, 62, who appeared in Dodge County District Court on March 21, was also ordered to serve five years on probation, perform 32 hours of community service and pay a $100 fine.

The stickers included a photo of a woman, along with the phrase "call me now for the best," according to the criminal complaint.

The Kasson Police Department received reports in September that someone was placing the stickers on vehicles and buildings in Kasson.

On Sept. 28, Kasson police searched Tiedeman's home and found the photo used on the stickers. Tiedeman admitted to police that he had printed about 20 stickers and placed them on vehicles.

ELIOT NESS PLAQUE STOLEN FROM POLICE

CLEVELAND (AP) - Famed crime-fighter Eliot Ness' plaque is missing, stolen right from the Cleveland police headquarters.

Ness, who earned his tough-on-crime reputation by taking on the mob and successfully prosecuting gangster Al Capone in Chicago, came to Cleveland in the 1930s to be the city's public safety director.

His plaque, worth about $225, was in the police museum on the first floor of the city's Justice Center. There's no security check to get into the museum, operated by the Cleveland Police Historical Society. The only thing securing the plaque was the screw that it hung on. Volunteers staff the museum and guide visitors through antique police uniforms, photographs and relics of policing technology past.

When museum volunteers first noticed that the bronze on walnut plaque was missing from the Wall of Fame, they didn't report it stolen. They thought perhaps someone had borrowed it because the museum lends out its materials.

A blurb asking for help finding the plaque recently ran in the Vindicator, the newsletter of the Fraternal Order of Police.

A replacement plaque is in the works.

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

More cops arrested, a dispatcher, too, and yet another prison guard goes to prison. Let's get to it:

In Wallace, North Carolina, a Wallace Police officer was arrested April 3 on a raft of drug and robbery charges. Officer David Brown Jr., 31, was charged with conspiring to sell cocaine, conspiring to deliver cocaine, conspiring to sell marijuana, conspiring to deliver marijuana, robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiring to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. The following day, he was also charged with receiving a bribe. Brown was arrested after an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, and the Wallace Police Department. At last report, he was jailed on bonds totaling $350,000 at the Duplin County Jail.

In Clarksville, Indiana, a Clarskville police officer was arrested April 3 for peddling morphine pills. Officer Franklin Mikel, 34, got busted after allegedly trying to sell 30 pills to an Indiana State Police undercover officer at a local skating rink. He was last reported to be in jail awaiting arraignment.

In Oglesby, Illinois, a police dispatcher faces charges she tipped off the suspect in a drug raid that police were on the way. Kara Kamin, 22, was fired and charged after a February 22 drug raid came up empty-handed. She faces a May trial date. The case was in the news this week because the man she allegedly helped elude police was arrested on more drug charges in Minnesota.

In Saranac Lake, New York, a state prison guard was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to selling heroin to inmates after he was busted on videotape. Michael Bradish, 43, a guard at the Bare Hill Correctional Facility in Malone, was sentenced to one-to-four years in prison after pleading guilty in February to first degree attempted promotion of prison contraband and fifth degree possession of a controlled substance. Bradish had small packets of heroin mailed to him, then took them into the prison and sold them. He was caught on tape receiving 37 bundles and arrested as he carried the drugs to work the next day.