Articles Posted in Odd Cases

A fella in Palo Pinto County Texas, known as “Bayou Bob,” has been arrested for selling alcohol without a license. Not just any alcohol, mind you, but vodka with a rattlesnake in every bottle. It helps that Bob Popplewell is a rattlesnake rancher. When the police raided his ranch, they found 429 bottles of vodka with snakes in them. Bob’s defense? It’s an “ancient Asian elixir” that’s medicinal, so it’s not bootlegging.

How did he get busted? A complaint prompted an undercover buy. Who complained? Bayou Bob thinks it’s the “tree-huggers.” Why? Per the Star-Telegram:

Popplewell got crosswise with animal-rights groups last year when he shipped thousands of turtles to Asia, where turtle meat is considered a delicacy. He said the same “tree-hugging” activists are now pressuring the TABC to go after him.

Actually, Dayton, Ohio resident Tony Henderson only thought the woman he propositioned was a prostitute. Actually, she was a police officer. So what happened that fateful night in April 2006? As reported by the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Dayton Police officer Dyan Briggs was working as a prostitution decoy. She testified that

Mr. Henderson asked me if I was working, to which I replied I was. Mr. Henderson then stated, come on, and motions for me to follow him back across the street … And I said what do you want. And he said I want to make love. And I said, okay, you want to have sex. What do I get. He said what do you get. I said, yeah, what do I get.

A fair question, but it raised a red flag for Mr. Henderson.

“He’s like man, you sound like a cop. [Walk away, dude. Walk away.] I was like I’m not a cop. And he’s like, well, I got some candy. [Doh!] And I said you have candy. And he said, yeah, I got candy. And I said what kind of candy do you have. He said bubble gum. I said what flavor. He said bubble gum. I said is it grape or what. And he said it’s strawberry. I said is it sugarless.

Mr. Henderson apparently grew tired of the chit-chat.

“And he’s like, fuck you. And I said, you offered me candy. And at that point Detective St. Clair drove up in his car and I believe he placed Mr. Henderson in a set of handcuffs.”

Snap! Busted for soliciting a prostitute by offering a stick of gum! Fast forward: Mr. Henderson is before a Judge, and arresting officer Raymond St. Clair testifies:

I asked Mr. Henderson why he asked her, being Officer Briggs, for sex, and Mr. Henderson replied because she’s a whore. And I asked why did you offer her bubble gum for sex, and Mr. Henderson replied because I have no money.”

Click here to find out the judge’s decision.

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Nor would you want to be, because many folks have died with lower blood-alcohol levels. Would it surprise you if a fraternity was involved? Or pledges? Five hours of drinking? Me either. Pledges to Beta Theta Pi at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania kicked off the pledging season with a bang. The brothers made sure of that. As reported in The Brown and White, the school’s paper:

After dinner, all members of the pledge class were taken into the party room and offered shots of Old Crow whiskey for about one and a half to two hours. They were then taken into the chapter room and given champagne to drink out of the “loving cup,” which is a ritual at the fraternity, according to a police affidavit.

Shots of whiskey for 1.5 – 2 hours? It’s no wonder, then, that one of the pledges had a blood-alcohol level of .505, more than 6 times the level of legal impairment (.08) in Pennsylvania! Incredibly, the kid didn’t die, though he and another pledge (.31) were in the hospital, unresponsive and breathing through ventilators. (Last year a Rider University student with a .426 blood-alcohol level died.)

So Sheila Brooks of Indianapolis put her one and three-year-old children in a tub with 9 inches of water and left the room to get some clothes. Per The Indianapolis Star:

“Daesheana [Brooks’ seven-year-old daughter] stated that they were in her mother’s bedroom watching American Idol on TV for several minutes and her mother suddenly stated that she forgot and left the two youngest children in the tub,” Officer Gustavia Dodson wrote in the report.

Ms. Brooks then dashed into the bathroom, right? Wrong.

Brooks told Daesheana to take the children out of the tub, police said. Daesheana found Sirius submerged and called for her mother.

She was so busy watching “American Idol” that she sent her seven-year-old daughter to get her one and three-year-old kids out of the tub. The three-year-old child, Sirius, is in critical condition. Needless to say, Ms. Brooks’ other four children were removed from her custody

Damn! As reported by the AP:

A man fighting with his girlfriend clung to a car roof and punched her through the window as she drove more than a mile on a busy road, hitting several other cars, police said.

Both were hurt in the brawl Saturday and were arrested, police Sgt. Manfredo Figueroa said.

The man, William Kremer, apparently jumped onto the car and held on as girlfriend Stacey Sperrazza wove along Route 202 with the car’s air bag inflated, police said. She eventually stopped the car and hit him with it, police said.

Sperrazza, 37, of Stony Point, was arrested on a felony charge of reckless endangerment. Kremer, 42, of Haverstraw, was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge.

He was treated for a foot injury, she for eye and head wounds, police said.

I’m guessing there won’t be any make-up sex.

Yup, according to a Staten Island judge. As reported by the AP:

The ruling this week lets stand charges that a 16-year-old broke the law when she sent friend requests on the social networking site to a woman and her two daughters.

Criminal Court Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr. ruled that even though MySpace users can ignore, deny or block friend requests, “that request was still a contact, and no contact was allowed” by the temporary order of protection.

The defendant is charged with misdemeanor second-degree criminal contempt; a trial date has not been set. Her attorney has declined comment.

So this 52-year-old dude was growing pot in the loft of a house he owned with a 59-year-old woman. She dropped by the house to tell him to kill the weed. An argument ensued, after which she tried to tear down the wall that partitioned off the weed room. Uh oh. The dude [the couple is not identified “for legal reasons” per the Bundaberg NewsMail] went ballistic.

The woman testified that he grabbed her from behind and “… picked her up and dangled her over the loft’s staircase before throwing her down the stairs.”

“All of a sudden my body was looking down (from the top of the stairs). I was terrified,” the woman told court. “He smashed my body with full force down the stairs. There was nothing I could do.”

Anthony Rentas, husband of Attorney Kathy Brewer Rentas, was sentenced to 90 days house arrest for violating his probation. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think Ms. Rentas was thanking Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenifer Keene when she shook her hand after the hearing. Here’s what went down, as reported by the AP (and brought to the Juice’s attention by Ms. Cindy Hill):

A court security officer reported that Brewer Rentas shook Keene’s hand so forcefully that the prosecutor’s arm was nearly ripped out of its socket.

“With Keene in hand, Brewer made an upward, then a quick downward motion and pulled Keene toward the ground moving her forward, almost causing Keene to fall to the ground,” Deputy U.S. Marshall Robert Kremenik Jr. wrote in an arrest report.

The consequences?

Brewer Rentas spent a night in jail and was freed Friday on $100,000 bail. She was ordered to stay away from Keene and undergo a psychological evaluation to determine whether she needs counseling.

“Assaulting a federal officer is something that we will take very seriously and prosecute vigorously,” said Alicia Valle, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman. “As a member of the bar, she should know better.” Indeed.

Especially if you’re doing it with a random nude body and your ex-girlfriend’s head. Rustan Ang now knows this. As reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

The Court of Appeals has affirmed a four-year prison term, P100,000 fine ($2,470 U.S.) and mandatory psychiatric treatment for a man who threatened to spread a pornographic picture with his ex-girlfriend’s face on it after she rebuffed his attempts to rekindle their relationship.

… On June 5, 2005, Ang sent her a picture through her cell phone of a nude woman with her legs apart. The face was hers. The day before, Ang, who is married, asked her to be his textmate but she refused.She said her face was apparently lifted from a photo taken with Ang when they visited Baguio during their three-month relationship.

Ang warned her in a subsequent text message that it would be easy to post the pornographic picture on the internet, and asked if she wanted him to send more lewd pictures of her.

So she went to the police, and Ang was busted. He was found guilty of violating the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act. Four years in prison! To read more (just a little) click here.