truesee's Blog

Elizabeth man arrested after he returns to crime scene to say sorry

The Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk

RAHWAY -- An Elizabeth man returned to the home he allegedly burglarized two weeks ago in an attempt to apologize to the homeowner Wednesday, and was arrested shortly after, according to a report by Central Jersey

The report said 35-year-old Craig Fletcher was charged in the June 29 break-in on Egolf Drive and another burglary on Inman Avenue the day before his arrest.

Fletcher allegedly rang the victim's doorbell Wednesday morning, the report said, apologized for committing the June 29 robbery and then fled on foot. The victim quickly called police, who arrested him a short time after, the report said.

According to the report, the victim came home on June 29 to find Fletcher in his backyard, carrying the victim's backpack, which was loaded with three laptop computers and an XBox video game console.

Fletcher was also charged with taking $200 in cash and a camera from a home on the 600 block of Inman Avenue Tuesday between 8 a.m. and 10:20 a.m., the report said. He was charged with two counts of burglary and is being held at the Union County Jail in lieu of $60,000 bail, according to the report.

Waynesville man calls 911 before trying to rob bank     

Jon Ostendorff

July 15, 2009 06:04 PM

Waynesville — A 52-year-old Waynesville man called 911 on Wednesday to tell police that he was about to rob a bank.

Terrence Joseph Germani, who investigators believe walked to the Wachovia on Russ Avenue from his house on Parsley Street, was on the line with a dispatcher as he opened the bank's front door.

He calmly told the dispatcher he was wearing a black shirt and white shoes and was not armed.

“I've got a note, I am going to rob the bank,” he said. “I need to go to prison. I can't live like this anymore.”

Germani, police say, handed a teller a note saying he was there to rob the bank.

Patrol Officer William Benhart arrived shortly after Germani walked in.

The officer, in his report of the incident, said he reached for his gun and considered drawing the weapon and ordering the man to the ground but decided against that because the bank was full of customers.

Instead, he walked up to Germani and asked him what was going on.

“You got me,” the officer recalled Germani saying in his report. “I'm robbing the bank.”

The officer told Germani he wasn't under arrest at that point but he was being detained for questioning.

The man then demanded to be arrested.

“Arrest me,” he said. “I did it. I robbed the bank. I just handed her a note.”

The officer escorted Germani out of the bank, placed him under arrest after consulting with another office and took him to the police station.

Det. Ryan Singleton said Germani, in an interview, noted that times were hard for people with the bad economy but that he did not rob the bank for the money. He said he was a danger to himself and needed to be locked up.

“I want to go to prison,” the detective recalled him saying as his reason for committing the crime.

About an hour before calling 911, Germani had walked out of his job at Whitman's Bakery on Main Street where he was the head sandwich maker. He left a note at his home giving his possessions to his housemate, police said.

Singleton said this is the first time in his 11 years as a police officer that someone has called ahead before breaking the law.

Germani is charged with felony attempted common law robbery. He is in the Haywood County jail under a $15,000 bond.

His criminal record includes charges of felony larceny in Macon County and Florida.

Terrence Joseph Germani

Colorado revenue worker stole for love

Former state Revenue Department supervisor Michelle Cawthra appears in court on May 1, 2007. (Pool | GEORGE KOCHANIEC, JR.)

Love motivated Michelle Cawthra to steal $11 million from the Colorado Department of Revenue and funnel the tax returns into her ex-boyfriend's bank accounts.

Cawthra testified Wednesday that she falsified documents and created fake businesses so that her former lover, Hysear Randell, could receive millions in tax refunds in order to pay for his business ventures, delinquent child support, land deals, diamond jewelry and expensive cars.

Some of the transactions, which took place over more than two years, were in the thousands of dollars and included money from unclaimed taxpayer refunds.

Cawthra told the jury that she often used her co-workers' computer passwords to adjust tax returns so that the trail did not come back to

Hysear Don Randell (Special to The Post)

her.

"I did things I don't think I otherwise would have done had I not been in love with him," Cawthra testified.

Prosecutor Kandace Gerdes asked Cawthra what Randell needed in exchange for love.

"Money, I guess," Cawthra said, and began to cry.

Cawthra also told Gerdes that except for a few pieces of jewelry and a couple of trips, she did not live a luxurious lifestyle and did not share in the money she stole for Randell.

"I did what I was told," she said.

Randell, 42, is on trial in Denver District Court on multiple criminal charges including violations of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, theft by receiving, forgery and computer crime.

Randell's defense lawyer, Scott Reisch, said that his client did not know Cawthra, 32, was stealing money from her employer, but thought the money was coming from her family trust fund.

Reisch tried to show the jury that Cawthra was a woman obsessed with making Randell her "Prince Charming" by luring him away from his wife, Trudy Randell, with money. Trudy Randell was also charged in the case and has pleaded guilty to theft but has not yet been sentenced.

Cawthra's testimony is part of a plea deal with prosecutors. She later hopes to reduce the 24-year prison sentence she is serving.

Cawthra testified she did not have a family trust fund and that while she did try to lure Randell away from his wife, he knew the money was coming from the state of Colorado. The two met in 2002 at the Department of Revenue, when Randell briefly worked in the mailroom as a temporary employee.

She told Gerdes that before they were arrested in 2007, Randell again asked her to take money, but this time he wanted her to try and get $13 million to $14 million in one shot.

"As this went on over time there was more and more pressure to get more and more money and it was hard and the pressure was making me crack," Cawthra said.

ORIGINAL STORY

Ex-Revenue supervisor gets 24 years in theft

Trucker Stops For Shower; Thief Nabs Cargo Worth $8.8 Million

Posted: 12:22 pm EDT July 15, 2009

WSB TV

Bank robber: The economy made me do it

The economy made him do it.

That's the excuse an armed robber reportedly gave tellers at a Houston bank as he demanded they empty their cash drawers. According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle, the thief lamented that he couldn't find a job and needed to steal to put food on the table.

"I'm only doing this to eat," the robber said as he brandished a pistol, according to FBI statements cited by the Chronicle. "They're not letting me work."

Crime typically rises during times of economic stress and high unemployment. As people can't find work and unemployment benefits run out, some folks resort to drastic, harmful measures.

Police say they have already seen a sharp rise in crime. In February, the Police Executive Research Forum, a nationwide association of police chiefs, said crimes associated with recessions have risen 44% across the country. Of the 233 major police departments surveyed by the group, about 39% saw an increase in robberies, 32% saw a rise in burglaries and another 40% saw a jump in vehicle thefts.  

The survey was taken in January. By now, things have likely grown worse.

In anticipation of higher crime, municipalities typically increase the police presence in their communities. But not this time. Cities are cutting their law enforcement forces in order to manage sharp declines in tax receipts. On average, about 63% of agencies cut about 6% of their budget, according to PERF. Many of these cuts took effect July 1 because most major police departments operate on a fiscal year that begins this month.

"The fact that most police departments currently are being asked to make cuts is an indication of how badly this recession is affecting local tax bases," said Miami Police Chief John Timoney in a Feb 2 statement accompanying the survey's release.

Cuts were deepest among large cities facing the greatest budget shortfalls. Unfortunately, it is those same cities that typically have larger crime problems.

California's city of Oakland, for example, is eliminating about 140 officers from its 800-man police force.  The cuts will take effect in September, according to the Wall Street Journal. Chicago's police department has more than 400 unfilled vacancies.

Theft isn't the only kind of crime that rises during a recession. Police typically see an increase in identity theft, particularly credit card theft, and other types of fraud.

Do odd names make boys go bad?

Walter Pacheco

Sentinel Staff Writer

July 2, 2009

Last updated 7/14/09

Boys growing up with popular names such as Michael, Joshua and Christopher have a good chance of leading law-abiding lives.

But young men named Kareem, Walter or Ivan could run afoul of the law.

That's according to a recent study that claims the more unpopular, uncommon or feminine a boy's first name, the greater the chance he will end up behind bars.

While Shippensburg (Pa.) University professor David Kalist's report in Social Science Quarterly shows that "unpopular names are likely not the cause of crime," he explains that factors often associated with those names can "increase the tendency toward juvenile delinquency."

Boys with unpopular, girlish or uncommon names often are ridiculed by peers, come from families of low socioeconomic status and face discrimination in the workforce based on a preconceived bias about their names, according to the study, which analyzed more than 15,000 names.

Jay Corzine, chairman of the University of Central Florida's sociology department, said he finds the study "fascinating." He said family tradition often plays a part in naming a child and that the environment could affect a boy's upbringing.

"Some kids could have a name that leads to teasing and being picked on and, in return, that child could become aggressive with others," he added.

While academics are intrigued, others are skeptical.

"That's ridiculous, but I do remember a kid in high school named Ezekiel, and we would call him 'Zeke the Geek,'" said Cynthia Bezeer of Orlando. "He wasn't so little and would always get in fights with other kids in the hallways. Maybe the teasing over the name really got to him."

Related Story

10 Strangest Names EVAR!

This Bizarro comic inspired me to look for bad (but real) names on the Web - and boy was I floored with the result that Google returned for the search terms "bad names" (6 million results!) and "worst names" (499,000 results). It seems that some parents are either cruel or mad when they name their kids.

Here are a few that are particularly strange:

• Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K. Yes, that's right: a baby named after the illicit drug ketamine. Oh, and that's pronounced "Your Highness," by the way.

Urhiness Kendall was born on Saturday, February 15, 2003, weighing 8 pounds 8 ounces. The baby shared birthdays with another guy with a weird name: Galileo Glilei, who went on to become a famous mathematician and astronomer.

• GoldenPalaceDotCom Silverman. In 2005, the Internet casino GoldenPalace.com paid $15,000 to name a baby after itself and got more than it paid for in media attention. Sure most people condemned this sort of outrageous publicity stunt - some even calling it a form of child abuse - but the good news was that GoldenPalaceDotCom Silverman was born healthy at 7 pounds, 10 ounces on May 19, 2005.

Actually, baby Silverman wasn't the only human in the world named after the casino: In the same year, a 33-year-old mother of five named Terri Ilagan auctioned off the right to her name on eBay, which the casino won for a mere $15,199. The re-branded Mrs. GoldenPalace.com said: "To my kids and to my husband, I will always be Terri. My husband is real supportive. He thinks it's funny. As long as they get to call me Mom, they don't care. They are already starting to tease me and call me Goldie."

These two will join a GoldenPalace's branding of a Glaswegian woman's cleavage and their purchase of a decade-old "Virgin Mary" grilled cheese in the annals of the company's publicity stunts

• Joker Arroyo. Don't laugh: Mr. Arroyo is a Senator in the Philippines

His name "Joker" is derived from his father's fondness for playing cards. His brother is named "Jack." No words if there are any other siblings named Queen or King.

Update 5/29/08: Joker has a daughter whose name is also Joker Arroyo! Thanks Gabor Debreczeni!

Unusual names are pretty common in the Philippines: Bing, Bong, Ping, Ting, Led Zeppelin, Mick Jagger, Nirvana, Jejomar (yes, a combination of Jesus, Joseph and Mary) and Hitler Manila, whose sons are named Himmler and Hess. And no, Hitler Manila is a peaceful guy who doesn't share his namesake's Nazi ideology.

• Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (Pronounced "albin"). In 1991, Elisabeth Hallin and Lasse Diding wanted to protest the naming law of Sweden, which states that the court can diapprove of names that "for some obvious reason are not suitable as a first name." They were fined 5,000 kronor (about $680 at the time).

The parents claimed that the 43-character name as "a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation." The court didn't buy it and upheld the fine. Then the parents tried to resubmit the name as "A" (yes, one letter - also pronounced "albin"). The court didn't buy that either, saying that one letter names are prohibited.

The baby finally went with "Albin Hallin" though in his passport his name was given as "Icke namngivet gossebarn" meaning "unnamed little boy."

• KentuckyFriedCruelty.com. Well, technically, this is not his parents' fault but what Christopher Garnett did was pretty strange so we'll include him on this list.

In 2005, Christopher, a youth outreach worker for the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) agreed to change his name legally to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com to protest animal abuse by the food chain KFC. (Yes, and he's got a driver's license to prove it).

He did promise his mom that he'd change his name back when PETA's campaign against KFC was over in 2006. Throughout all this time, his parents continued to call him Chris (how unsupportive!

• Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-ed Barbon (1640 - 1698). Nicholas' shall we say "unique" name apparently ran in the family: his father was Praise-God Barbon. No, I'm not kidding - Nicholas was a real guy. He was an English economist, physician and financial speculator. He took part in the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666 and even founded the city's first fire insurance company. By all accounts, he went by Nicholas throughout his life.

• God Shammgod. God plays professional basketball, currently for the Portland Chinooks of the International Basketball League. He played in the NBA for one season (with the Washington Wizards in 1997).

He even invented a streetball move, called The Shammgoduseful for creating space between you and your defender. And yes, God is on MySpace. (Photo: Hoops Addict)

• Batman Bin Suparman. This young Javanese man is blessed with being named after not just one, but two superheroes: Batman and Superman. And he's got an identity card to prove it ...

• Dick Assman. Yes, you read that right. Dick is a gas station owner in Saskatchewan, Canada, whose name made him a minor celebrity when David Letterman found him in 1995. Dick pronounced his German lastname as "uzman," but we all know better...

Photo: Frame enlargement of the short film, "Saskatchewan Part 2 (That's My Wonderful Town) by Brian Stockton

• @. And finally, let's go full circle to "@," pronounced "ai ta" or "love him" by an unidentified Chinese couple:

The unidentified couple and the attempted naming were cited Thursday by a Chinese government official as an example of bizarre names creeping into the Chinese language.

"The father said 'the whole world uses it to write emails and translated into Chinese it means'love him'," Li Yuming, the vice director of the State Language Commission, said at a news conference.

Man's Debit Card Charged $23 Quadrillion, $15 Overdraft Fee

Mysterious Bank Debit Leaves Josh Muszynski Bewildered

POSTED: 12:24 am EDT July 15, 2009
UPDATED: 11:05 am EDT July 15, 2009

"If it were to be true that someone actually compromised that money and got that money, they could do some severe damage with that amount of money," he said.

 Muszynski expected to see a couple hundred dollars in his account, but a 17-digit number that rivals even th national debt confronted him instead. The mistake alarmed Muszynski, who has downsized to an apartment in efforts to save money to buy a house.

"I thought my card had been compromised. I thought somebody had bought Europe with my credit card," Muszynski said. "It was very concerning."

What Did He Buy?

 Muszynski swiped his debit card at a local Mobil gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes for a few bucks, Instead, his Bank of America account indicated he spent $23,148,855,308,184,500 at the gas station -- an amount for which he probably could have used to buy the entire company.

No One Could Answer Mysterious Charge

Hours later, after checking his account, Muszynski rushed back to the store but it appeared no one knew what to tell him. He wondered whether to call a debt relief company or how he'd pay it all off.

"The cashier says she couldn't help me at all. She didn't know anything about it," Muszynski said. "It's a lot of money in the negative, something I could never ever afford to pay back -- my children couldn't afford, grandchildren, nothing like that."

Muszynski called the bank about the string of numbers on the screen and a $15 overdraft fee the bank tacked on to his mysterious debt. After two hours on the phone, Muszynski said, the representative on the line had no idea what to say.

"She just tried to assure me that everything would be fixed, and I couldn't see something like that being fixed," Muszynski said.

Nearly 24 hours after the hole formed in his bank account, Muszynski checked his statement again. The bank corrected his statement a day later.

"It was back to normal. They reversed the negative balance fee, which was nice," Muszynski said.

WMUR News 9 contacted Bank of America about the statement mishap, but representatives said the card issuer, Visa, could only answer questions. Visa, in turn, recommended that WMUR News 9 contact the bank.

http://www.wmur.com/video/20057080/index.html

He's not laughing now: Children's doctor found giggling faces being struck off for inhaling anaesthetic

James Tozer
Last updated at 12:29 AM on 15th July 2009

Dr Jonathan Chahal arrives at the hearing where he was found guilty of misconduct

A doctor could be struck off for inhaling laughing gas while on duty in a children's A&E ward.

A General Medical Council disciplinary panel yesterday found Jonathan Chahal guilty of misconduct and said he had potentially put the safety of patients at risk.

The 33-year-old doctor also persuaded nurses to inhale the anaesthetic gas, Entonox, and staged an 'Entonox party', the hearing heard.

Dr Chahal was told his behaviour had been 'unacceptable' and now faces a range of sanctions, including being suspended or struck off the medical register.

He was a senior house officer at Ormskirk District General Hospital in Lancashire when he inhaled the anaesthetic - given in childbirth to alleviate pain - from a canister and was heard giggling in the resuscitation room.

He encouraged colleagues to try the drug, telling them it was 'fun' and 'made you feel floaty'.

Dr Chahal took the drug on four separate occasions in the summer of 2007, the disciplinary panel heard. He even talked seven nurses into joining him and held a party which lasted two hours and had 'elements of pre-planning'.

The Manchester hearing was told that using an intoxicating drug like Entonox while working could put patients at risk, particularly in such a high-pressure unit.

Dr Peter Burdett-Smith, a consultant emergency physician at Royal Liverpool University Hospital, said: 'When you are on duty in the emergency department you never know what is going to turn up next.

'You have to be ready to deal with any emergency, especially if you work in a paediatric emergency department where children become very sick very quickly.

'He not only would be seeing patients as soon as they came in, but he would be supervising the other staff as well and giving advice to their management of children and so on.

'I think it is clear that it is not appropriate for any doctor to be taking drugs which can intoxicate or impair your mental functions while on duty.'

Dr Chahal transferred to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool later in 2007, but was sacked after the allegations came to light.

He told the hearing he had been 'incredibly foolish' and was lucky he did not harm any of his patients.

But while Dr Chahal admitted his conduct had been irresponsible and inappropriate, he denied his fitness to practise had been impaired.

He promised never to do it again, and the panel heard evidence from his GP and a psychiatrist who treated him that they believed there would be no repetition.

Chairman Ralph Bergmann told Dr Chahal: 'The panel is of the view that there was a potential danger to patients under your care, that such behaviour cannot be tolerated and that it must send a message to the profession and to the public that your actions were wholly unacceptable.'

Allegations that Dr Chahal took cocaine and made misleading and dishonest statements in health assessments were dropped.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199665/Childrens-ward-doctor-caught-giggling-inhaling-laughing-gas-faces-struck-off.html#ixzz0LJqZYsTD&C

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8070410

Prenuptial Cohabiting Can Spoil Marriage

Jeanna Bryner

Senior Writer

14 July 2009 01:01 pm ET

Couples who shack up before tying the knot are more likely to get divorced than their counterparts who don't move in together until marriage, a new study suggests.

Upwards of 70 percent of U.S. couples are cohabiting these days before marrying, the researchers estimate. The study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, indicates that such move-ins might not be wise.

And it's not because you start to get on one another's nerves. Rather, the researchers figure the shared abode could lead to marriage for all the wrong reasons.

"We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting," said lead researcher Galena Rhoades of the University of Denver.

Couples might also be nudged into nuptials because of a joint lease or shared ownership of Fido — along with other practicalities.

Relationship dynamics

Rhoades and her colleagues did telephone surveys with more than 1,000 married men and women between the ages of 18 and 34, who had been married 10 years or fewer. Survey questions included measures of relationship satisfaction, dedication to one another, level of negative communication and sexual satisfaction. To measure the potential of a couple to divorce, participants were asked "Have you or your spouse ever seriously suggested the idea of divorce?"

Overall, about 40 percent of participants reported they didn't live together before marriage, 43 percent did so before engagement, and about 16 percent cohabited only after getting engaged.

Those who moved in with a mate before engagement or marriage reported significantly lower quality marriages and a greater potential for split-ups than other couples. For instance, about 19 percent of those who cohabited before getting engaged had ever suggested divorce compared with just 12 percent of those who only moved in together after getting engaged and 10 percent of participants who did not cohabit prior to the wedding bells.

"We think there might be a subset of people who live together before they got engaged who might have decided to get married really based on other things in their relationship," Rhoades told LiveScience, "because they were already living together and less because they really wanted and had decided they wanted a future together."

So a joint lease or shared ownership of pets could nudge the nuptials for these folks, more than a life-long commitment to one another.

Why move in?

While this research suggests cohabitation in itself can result in lousier marriages, the initial reasons for moving in together could impact the relationship quality.

In another study led by Rhoades published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Issues, cohabiting couples ranked a list of reasons for cohabitation. More than 60 percent of participants ranked spending more time together as the number-one reason for moving in, followed by nearly 19 percent who put "it made most sense financially" at the top of their list, and 14 percent ranking "I wanted to test out our relationship before marriage" highest.

Those who listed "testing" as the primary move-in reason were more likely than others to score high on measures of negative communication, such as, "My partner criticizes or belittles my opinions, feelings, or desires." Such testers also had lower confidence in the quality and stability of their relationships.

Overall, those who want to test the commitment might want to think again, according to the February study.

"Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships," Rhoades said. "Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time."

By JEFF GEARINO
Southwest Wyoming bureau

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 1:02 PM MDT

Female officer accused of prison sex

Alex Shebar

The Cincinnati Enquirer

July 13, 2009

LEBANON - A female corrections officer was indicted Monday for allegedly having sex several times with a male prisoner at the Lebanon Correctional Institute

Authorities said Iona D. Cowan, 51, of Forest Park, had four different sexual encounters with a male prisoner at the Lebanon Correctional Institute.

The encounters happened between May 12 and June 11, according to Matt Nolan, spokesman for the Warren County Prosecutor's Office. During that time, Cowan was employed by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Cowan was caught by the people who monitor the prison surveillance system, Nolan said.

"There were video cameras that showed not the acts themselves but things related to the acts. Precursors to the acts," he said.

Cowan was indicted Monday on one count of sexual battery. Her court date has not been set.

It is unclear if Cowan still works at the Lebanon Correctional Institute.

"Every year we have a couple instances of this occurring," Nolan said. "I wouldn't call it common, but it does happen."

http://snafu-ed.blogspot.com/2009/07/pastor-admits-to-praying-for-president.html