Guy Robbed Woman, Then Friended Her: Cops

(Newser) – Ah, Facebook, that repository for high school friends, college friends, friends of friends, people you wish you'd never met ... and the dude who robbed you the other day? Police in Washington state say that a woman was sitting at a ferry terminal with headphones on when a guy knocked her on the head from behind, grabbed her iPod and purse, and took off. Police say the woman didn't recognize the man, but the AP reports that she saw a triangle tattoo on his neck. Lo and behold, the next day she received a friend request from—you guessed it—a guy with a triangle neck tattoo. Twenty-eight-year-old Riley Allen Mullins, who police traced to the Facebook account and tattoo in question, has been charged with second-degree robbery.

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Bread Truck Thief Showers NYC With Bread

(Newser) – Maybe he was shooting to be the Robin Hood of carbohydrates? Police in New York City have charged 29-year-old David Bastar with criminal possession of stolen goods and driving without a license, reports the Journal News, and this is how they say it went down: A driver for Grimaldi's Home of Bread was making a delivery to a pizzeria when Bastar, who does not have a license or apparently like to wear clothes other than his skivvies, hopped into the still-running truck. Then the would-be Good Samaritan kept right on making deliveries, only since he didn't know the route, "He was delivering bread at random places," says bakery owner Joe Grimaldi. "It was very bizarre. They were finding bread in front of their doors."

But wait, it gets a little weirder: After Bastar apparently delivered the entire $8,000 worth of bread, he spotted a shiny Cadillac Escalade limo, which cops say he proceeded to tailgate—at times by a matter of inches, says the Escalade's driver, adding, "I was getting a little scared because I thought if I stopped he was going to hit me." He eventually called cops, who pulled the bread truck over and escorted Bastar, who was wearing only his briefs, to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. (It hasn't been a kind news cycle for Cadillac Escalades.)

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Woman Leads Cops on 100mph Chase —to Preferred Jail

(Newser) – So maybe you've been drinking and maybe you're speeding a little, but what to do when a cop tries to pull you over—presenting you with the very real prospect of doing a little time in a less-than-desirable county jail? Step on the gas, and lead police on a merry little car chase to the county that houses your preferred incarceration facility. That is the alleged tale of 34-year-old Oklahoman and prison connoisseur Luz Avilla, who police say was 5mph to 10mph over the limit when an officer in Grady County tried to pull her over.

Says a police spokesperson, "Instead of pulling over, the driver accelerated to speeds approximately 90 to 100 miles per hour." Apparently, Grady County jail is the worst. "She wanted to go to jail in Caddo County was her explanation as to why she did not pull over," the spokesperson says. Avilla also apparently did not want to get out of her vehicle, reports News9 via Gawker, and it took an officer with a drawn gun and a bunch of backup to persuade her. For posterity, the entire incident was recorded on the cop's dash cam. Avilla is facing a raft of charges including DUI and eluding police.

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Would-Be Carjackers Should Have Learned to Drive Stick

(Newser) – Kids these days can't even jack an old lady's car correctly: KIRO brings us the tale of three teenage would-be carjackers in Seattle who were thwarted by a lowly manual transmission. Nancy Fredrickson, 70, was getting something out of the trunk of her Kia Saturday when three kids waved a gun in her face, demanded her keys, and hopped in the car. But their getaway turned less than glorious when none of them could drive the stick shift—causing no small amount of glee for Fredrickson and her neighbors.

"I got a five speed in there," she laughs. "They couldn't figure out how to get it going!" The teens fled, albeit on foot; cops have pulled DNA evidence from the car and are looking for them. And while Fredrickson admits the incident was scary at the time, now she says, "It was quite an interesting day. Let’s put it that way."

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Cops: Burglar Logs In to Facebook Mid-Burglary

(Newser) – It's generally not OK to log into Facebook during work. It's definitely not OK if you work as a burglar, and you're a little absent-minded about logging out. Police say Nicholas Wig, 26, broke into a home near Minneapolis and stole money, credit cards, and other valuables, reports ABC News. When homeowner James Wood surveyed the damage later that night, he noticed that his burglar had left behind some wet jeans and shoes (it was raining) and that his computer had been used. It was still displaying the Facebook profile of a "Nick Dub."

Wood says he posted something to the page about its user being a thief and left his phone number. To his surprise, he got a text, reports CBS Minnesota. “I replied, 'You left a few things at my house last night, how can I get them back to you?" They arranged an exchange, and Wood called police as soon as he saw Wig, whose photo he recognized from Facebook, on his street. Cops charged him with second-degree burglary. “I’ve never seen this before,” says a Dakota County attorney. "Might even make the late-night television shows in terms of not being too bright.”

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Woman Tries to Kill Spider, Ends Up With Arson Charge

(Newser) – Listen up, arachnophobes: You do not fight spiders with fire. Or so goes the cautionary tale of 34-year-old Kansas woman Ginny Griffith, who has been charged with aggravated arson after she apparently tried to kill a spider—by using a cigarette lighter to set fire to some towels, reports the Hutchinson News. The fire department responded to the small fire at her duplex early Friday, and put it out within minutes. No one was injured and the building suffered only light smoke damage, notes the Hays Post, but officials were apparently unamused. Griffith was taken into custody and was being held in lieu of $7,500 bond.

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NYPD Chopper Nearly Downed —by 2 Guys With Drones

(Newser) – An NYPD helicopter nearly collided with two drones over the George Washington Bridge yesterday, resulting in a matching pair of felony reckless-endangerment charges for two men. The chopper pilots said in a police report that they were patrolling just after midnight when they "observed flying object[s] at 2,000 feet in vicinity of the bridge," reports the New York Post. After swerving to avoid a collision, the pilots trailed the drones north and alerted NYPD officers, who found Remy Castro, 23, and Wilkins Mendoza, 34, near Fort Tyrone Park.

Castro and Mendoza, who paid between $500 and $700 each for their drones, dismissed the seriousness of their offense. "It's just a toy," Castro said in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday afternoon. "The copter came to us." Mendoza, meanwhile, called the incident "crazy," and the men’s lawyer said that their drones can’t even go above 300 feet, adding, "They did nothing more than fly a kite." But a friend of the pair says they've bragged about flying at least at 5,000 feet and have been posting Instagram photos of their nightly flights.

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Phone Thieves Send Selfie, Get Busted

(Newser) – A pair of thieves managed to steal a teen's phone during a party—and they promptly incriminated themselves by sending a selfie to the kid's friends. One of the thieves has now turned himself in, and he's been charged with petit larceny, police say. Khayyam Alexander, 16, and his partner in crime took 14-year-old James Pugliatti's phone during a party for under-18s in New York, officials say, per the New York Daily News.

On the subway afterward, the thieves took a picture of themselves, the New York Post reports. They cleverly sent it to all Pugliatti's friends via the photo-messaging app Snapchat, the Post notes. One friend got a screenshot and forwarded it to Pugliatti's mom. Annette Pugliatti also reportedly received a vulgar message from the thieves: "Mom I'm so horny." She relayed the information to police. James Pugliatti's view of the thieves: "They're pretty stupid."

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Cops: Cuffed Woman Steals Her Pot Back, Eats It, Forgets Crumbs

(Newser) – Tavish Smith was having quite the night by the time she landed in the back of the cop car: Florida police say she was driving her truck the wrong way down a highway, crashed it, continued on, then crashed again—all while allegedly more than a little tipsy. But as Gawker notes, what happened next was truly inspired: Sitting in the back of the car, Smith slipped out of her handcuffs, and swiped a sandwich bag full of pot that police had confiscated from her vehicle. She then proceeds to eat its contents, thus destroying the evidence, right?

She forgot about the backseat camera filming her little snack, and something even more basic: Wiping her mouth. Cops finally noticed the missing weed when they saw "pot on her hands and face" and "crumbs everywhere," reports WPLG. Unfortunately for Tavish, the charge of destroying evidence means that she's now facing a felony. Turns out, she also works for a Brevard County judge; she's currently been suspended from those duties.

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Cops: Laptop Thief Busted After Customer Service Call

(Newser) – Calling customer service for help with your laptop is generally a fine idea, but maybe not if you stole the thing in a home burglary. Police in New Hampshire say they made an arrest on Monday and recovered a computer stolen in February 2013 thanks to that very scenario, reports WMUR. The break came when Apple emailed the original owner and thanked him for calling customer service. Except he hadn't.

Someone else had done so, using the long-gone laptop's serial number as a reference. "It then took us a while to track down the individual who made the phone call, but we were able to put that together and ultimately come up with enough evidence to charge him with the original burglary and recover the computer," says a detective. It might be "the only example of when a broken computer is a good thing," observes the Consumerist.

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Cops: Man Freed After 15 Years Robs Same Store

(Newser) – Christopher Miller robbed the Stride Rite shoe store in Toms River, NJ, in 1999, got caught, and served 15 years in state prison. Police say he became a free man on Friday and celebrated by catching a bus to Toms River and, yes, robbing the same Stride Rite shoe store, reports the Star-Ledger. Though he had 15 years to stew over what went wrong the first time, authorities say this robbery didn't go so well, either. Two employees were so slow in handing over cash that the "agitated" robber grabbed the register drawer himself and fled on foot, reports the Ocean County Signal. (The employees refused to hand over their keys, scotching any hopes for a getaway vehicle.)

They called the cops—the apparent plan was to tie them up in a storage room, as happened in the 1999 robbery, but the employees refused to go—and within minutes, a police K-9 unit tracked down Williams and recovered the stolen $389, reports the Daily Record. Miller is charged with robbery and is being held on $100,000 bond. The 40-year-old is from Tulsa, Okla., and police aren't sure what his connection is to Toms River, besides maybe nostalgia.

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Cops: Arby's Burglar Gets Stuck in Ventilation Shaft

(Newser) – It probably seemed like the perfect plan on paper: Climb up on the roof of the local Arby's after it closed for the night, zip inside through the ventilation shaft, and then plunder the store's vast riches. Except police say a would-be burglar in South Carolina ended up stuck in that ventilation shaft for about 10 hours—until the morning crew opened up and heard him shouting for help, reports CarolinaLive. Rescuers had to cut him out of there, and he suffered dehydration and a possible broken arm. Laquain Deshawn Guy, 22, will face second-degree burglary charges as soon as he's out of the hospital. Advises the Consumerist: "Take that as a lesson, bad consumers: You are not in Mission: Impossible and the universe has its own way of dealing with you if you forget that fact."

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Man Caught Growing Pot, Thanks to Own Home Alarm

(Newser) – It's generally a fine idea to set up a secure alarm system at your house that alerts police at the first sign of trouble. Unless, of course, you happen to be growing marijuana illegally inside. Such is the fate of 53-year-old Marlon Gene Kelley of Muskegon, Mich., reports MLive. Kelley's home alarm tripped one day when he wasn't home, and officers arrived at the scene and walked inside through an unlocked door. They found eight plants, five guns, and a bunch of grow equipment. For Kelley, it all added up to three to 12 years in prison.

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Feds: Con Sent Obama Threat to Wrong Address

(Newser) – President Obama might currently have one of the better-known addresses in America, but that piece of trivia was apparently lost on the Pennsylvania inmate charged with trying to send him a threat. Joseph Savage gets his latest day in court today, and prosecutors allege that, while cooling his heels in Fayette County lockup in late 2012, the 34-year-old convicted child molester sent Obama a letter threatening "to kill and to kidnap and to inflict bodily harm" on a member of the president's family and to "torture and murder the president upon being released from prison." Problem? He mailed it to 1400 Pennsylvania Ave., and Barry lives a couple of doors up the street. Delivery challenges aside, the letter arrived and was promptly turned over to authorities, the AP reports.

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What Not to Do When Angry About Pot Dealer

(Newser) – Two strange marijuana-related arrests from the police blotter: Bad strategy: A woman in East Texas got herself arrested after she called police to complain that a dealer had sold her low-quality marijuana, reports the AP. Evelyn Hamilton spent $40 on the pot and says she called the cops when the dealer refused to give her a refund. She was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia—after pulling the pot she had left from her bra as proof.Bad strategy, II: When police pulled over a driver in Maine and found marijuana in the car, he told them it couldn't possibly be his. The reason? He fessed up to having just stolen the vehicle, reports the Franklin Sun Journal. Police say Douglas Glidden was telling truth about the stolen car, but he still faces charges of theft, driving under the influence, and, yes, possession of marijuana.

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Dumbest Thing Ever Said to a Cop During DUI Stop

(Newser) – He was pulled over with glassy eyes, slurred speech, a boozy smell, and he blew well over the legal limit on his BAC test, so 61-year-old Michael Moore probably couldn't say much to help his case. But this? He "told me that his wife told him that he (had) been drinking too much so he decided to go out and 'drive it off,'" writes his arresting officer in Stuart, Fla., reports UPI. Also, Moore (not the filmmaker), who was pulled over for speeding just after midnight on Feb.13, mentioned that he was headed to a bar for a few more drinks after the spat with his wife, reports TCPalm. Despite his reasonable explanations, Moore got busted on DUI charges.

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Police Find Mom Hiding in Bedroom at Teen Party

(Newser) – Not that unusual: Cops show up to bust a teen party involving booze, and find someone hiding in a bedroom. Unusual: That person is the home's 56-year-old owner, and mother to the 18-year-old who threw the bash. Police say they arrived at the home in Naples, Fla., just after midnight yesterday, to find beer cans, bottles, and pot in the yard; as they approached, the partiers went inside and shut lights off, reports ABC7. Mariel Weinand, 18, answered the knock on the door—with the assistance of the two girls who were keeping her upright, say police—and passed along her mom's cell phone number. Police rang Carolyn Weinand, who said she was unaware of the party and out of town.

She also gave them the OK to break up the party, which they moved inside to do. And that's when they say they found people hiding in a number of rooms and closets—and Carolyn Weinand hiding in a bedroom. She then changed her tune: The Naples Daily News reports that Weinand kept making "statements trying to justify having the party and allowing alcohol," per police, among them that she thought they'd be safe if they didn't have to drive. She says she didn't buy the booze, but she's charged with 26 counts of selling, giving, or serving alcoholic beverages to persons under the age of 21 all the same. Both mother and daughter were hit with one count of having an open house party. (Weinand certainly isn't the first parent to get caught at a teen party.)

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Suspect's Giveaway: He Was 'Walking Awkwardly'

(Newser) – Pro tip: If you're going to smuggle heroin in your underwear, try to walk like a normal person while doing so. Bernard Charles apparently couldn't manage that, so when Customs and Border Protection officers spotted him "walking awkwardly" at New York's JFK Airport on April 1, they patted him down—and found a "hard object in [his] groin area" that ended up being two clear packages holding 1.79 pounds of heroin, according to US Homeland Security.

Charles, a 42-year-old citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, was initially detained when he disembarked Caribbean Airlines Flight 520 and appeared "visibly nervous," avoiding eye contact; customs officers were examining his suitcase at the time, CBS New York reports, and they brought him to a private search room. That's when they noticed his gait and patted him down, the New York Daily News reports. The drugs he was allegedly carrying are worth more than $70,000 on the street, according to authorities. He faces 10 years in prison for drug smuggling. (A celeb recently confessed to smuggling cocaine onto planes, for her own personal use.)

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Calif. Man Pulls Gun on Girl Selling Cookies

(Newser) – No more Thin Mints for this guy: A California man has been arrested for allegedly pointing a gun at a young girl who was selling cookies door-to-door. Police say that when the girl knocked on the door of John Dodrill, 59, he answered with a gun pointed at her, the Los Angeles Times reports. The girl's father witnessed the incident and called police, who arrested Dodrill and confiscated the weapon. Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio issued a statement saying the incident is the first of its kind in its 90-year history in the area and stressing that girls are trained to never sell cookies without an adult present unless they are senior scouts, ABC7 reports.

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Would-Be Crooks Stymied by Door, Stick Shift

(Newser) – Two stories this week of would-be criminals thwarted by ... themselves: In Massachusetts, a delivery driver was delivering a food order when three men, one with a knife, approached him. They took the food and his keys, but when they got into his car ... "not one of them knew how to drive a stick-shift car," an aide to the police commissioner tells the Springfield Republican. They argued, then ran off; the incident is still under investigation.In Chicago, a man managed to pry the lock off the front door of The Shambles bar in Wicker Park early Friday. But he failed to open the door ... because he was pulling it, despite the fact that there is a sticker on the door clearly marked "PUSH," DNAinfo reports. He gave up; the incident, which was caught on surveillance video, is under review.

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Woman's DUI Leads to Ridiculous Chain of DUIs

(Newser) – It would be comical if it weren't so pathetic: Police in Readington Township, NJ, have reported the most bizarre chain of events, beginning with a 1:45am stop on Monday. A patrolman pulled over a car that was swerving, and smelled alcohol emanating from it, reports the Express-Times. The driver, Carmen Reategui, 34, failed the field sobriety tests he administered. So she was hauled off to police HQ, where she made a phone call ... to Nina Petracca, 23, who came to collect her.

Except the patrolman Petracca spoke to thought she seemed a little intoxicated, and after learning she had driven herself to the station, administered the same sobriety tests to her in the lobby, reports the Hunterdon County Democrat. She failed. And the story gets wackier, first, because Petracca was carrying seven Vicodin in an unlabeled container, so her DUI charge has now been married with a possession charge. Second, because she and Reategui decided to call Ryan Hogan, 33, to pick them up. And, yes, the patrolman smelled booze on him, and he failed his tests. The Democrat reports that someone sober ultimately picked all three of them up. They have January court dates.

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Woman Drives to Jail Drunk to Bail Out Drunk Husband

(Newser) – Lots of idiots drove drunk on New Year's Eve. But not many of them were driving to a police station to pick up a husband who had been arrested for, you guessed it, drunk driving. But that's what police allege a Pennsylvania woman did, according to the Erie Times-News. After police arrested 53-year-old Steven Flick (an arrest that involved him attempting to flee and being caught), Kimberly Flick called police around 2am on New Year's Day to arrange a pick-up. They warned her not to come if she, too had been drinking—but she allegedly ignored the warning. When she arrived, she, too was charged. (Amazingly, their story is a little less wild than this chain-of-DUIs story.)

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Wanted Man Posts Mugshot, Gets Captured Immediately

(Newser) – Note to those wanted by police: If your goal is not to get caught, it's probably not a good idea to "share" your mugshot on Facebook after the police department posts it. That's what Anthony James Lescowitch did Monday, police say; not surprisingly, the move led to the Pennsylvania man's arrest. The Freeland Police Department initially posted Lescowitch's mugshot asking anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts to alert authorities. Lescowitch then shared the mugshot and mocked police on his Facebook page ... and was arrested 45 minutes later.

Lescowitch was wanted on multiple charges, including aggravated assault, that date back to the summer, but he's been evading authorities since charges were filed in November. After seeing his Facebook post (which he shared within three minutes of the original post, according to the Scranton Times-Tribune, and which included the commentary "lol i f­--n love it A----E," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer) an undercover officer posed as a "fictitious attractive woman," as the Times Leader puts it, who wanted to meet up with Lescowitch. After about 30 minutes, Lescowitch told "her" where he would be; cops arrived, and he was taken into custody. (Click for another tale of dumb criminals.)

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How Not to Rob a Pizza Delivery Guy

(Newser) – A tough-to-beat entry in the criminal genius files: Police in Tuscaloosa say a 20-year-old man robbed a pizza delivery driver after phoning in the order from his own address, reports AL.com. The driver says he showed up at the home, knocked, and got immediately surrounded by armed men who stole his money and pizzas. Police canvassed the neighborhood armed with descriptions, and people kept pointing them back to the original house. Inside they found 20-year-old Michael Antonio Long, the stolen pizzas, and even the bag they came in. More arrests are expected to follow.

“We don't typically see a suspect call a delivery driver to their actual address to commit a robbery,” an officer tells the Tuscaloosa Times.

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