Stupid Criminals

Stupid Crimes
By: Freeman Klopott and Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writers
04/23/09 6:30 PM



The love that binds
A Florida man tied himself up and lied to police as part of an elaborate way to woo his girlfriend back.
Investigators found Derick Culberson sitting next to his truck in Palm City with his ankles and wrists bound with plastic “zip ties.” Culberson said he’d been robbed by two gunmen and gave descriptions of the suspects and their car. Police started a search but soon found inconsistencies in his story. They also found in Culberson’s truck zip ties of the same type used to bind him.
Culberson eventually admitted to tying his own hands and feet, and inventing the entire tale to make his girlfriend feel bad for leaving him, police said.
Culberson apologized for wasting law enforcement officers’ time. He was arrested on charges of filing a false report.

You know times are hard when ...
A 52-year-old Ohio woman who took a job as an exotic dancer to help make ends meet was attacked on her first day by a jealous co-worker.
Police said the victim needed extra money because of the hard economic times. As she walked into the dressing room, the other girls started yelling, “We don’t need any more dancers around here,” police told the Akron Beacon Journal. One of them attacked her with a high-heeled shoe, striking her in the face.

Hot pants
A bank robber in Houston was hospitalized after the loot he stole exploded in his pants.
The teller gave the robber some cash bundles with exploding dye packs in them. The suspect stuffed the money down his pants and ran out of the bank.
Police arrested Daniel Duran a short time later, after the dye packs exploded while still down his pants. Duran was taken to a hospital with second-degree burns to his genital area.

Thank you ma’am, may I have another?
Police in Lincoln, Neb., are investigating a series of hazing incidents, including one accusation that a stripper used a sex toy to abuse a fraternity pledge.
The University of Nebraska Sigma Chi fraternity pledge went to police after he said the hazing had taken a toll on his well-being, according to documents unsealed this week.
Pledges were forced to drink Tabasco sauce and vodka until they vomited, the pledge said. In another instance, he said he was handcuffed, blindfolded and assaulted with a sex toy by a stripper even though he told the stripper to stop.

Sticky notes
There’s got to be a better way to track thousands of stolen documents.
A former state tax worker who stole the identity of thousands of New Yorkers and racked up more than $200,000 in bogus credit card charges kept his records on thousands of Post-it notes around his home.
Prosecutors said Walter Healey, 63, opened up accounts using the Social Security numbers of his victims, including a 4-year-old boy.
A search of Healey’s home found copies of more than 700 tax forms, more than 1,000 Social Security cards and 2,000 Post-it notes with Social Security numbers on them. The notes had comments such as “good prospect” or “had money” written on them.