WhiteBoard News for Friday, December 19, 2003
Oslo, Norway (Ananova):
A Norwegian man had his car confiscated after he turned up drunk for a driving test.
The 50-year-old was taking a written exam to expand his driving licence to cover him to drive lorries.
"I noticed that there was a suspicious smell of alcohol coming from where he sat. I wanted to investigate and so chose to notify the local police," said Hogne Skjervheim at the Norwegian public roads administration.
The man managed to finish his exam just before police officers arrived to breathalyse him, reports Aftenposten, quoting Hordaland newspaper.
"The light went red as soon as he blew," said officer Ivar Hellene.
The man had driven roughly an hour to get to the test centre so police also took a blood test and confiscated his car, leaving him to take the bus home.
The man has been charged with drink driving and faces losing his driving licence.
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Orlando, Florida (Orlando Sentinel):
A Florida man has been arrested for driving a stolen car to a police station - four days after being released from prison.
Ronald A Mahner had served time in Seminole County Jail for drink-driving, car theft and driving while suspended.
He was arrested after showing up at the Sheriff's Office to claim his personal property, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
When asked to provide identification, Mahner showed his driving licence. Deputy Sheriff Teri Cresswell did a routine check and found it was revoked for life.
She asked Mahner to drive the car to a rear car park because she needed to see him behind the wheel. When he did reach the car park, he left the car in a lane used by fire engines.
While he was collecting his property inside, a check on the car showed it had been stolen on the day he was let out of jail.
Officers arrested Mahner as he was about to drive away and charged him with car theft and driving while suspended.
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Alamogordo, New Mexico (AP):
A bank robber has lost his bid to overturn his conviction by arguing the stupidity of the crime proved he was too drunk to be responsible.
Raymond Hernandez's robbery conviction stemmed from a September 2000 Tularosa bank heist.
Hernandez, 57, argued in his failed appeal that trying to rob the same teller who, moments earlier, had refused to cash his check was stupid enough to show he was inebriated.
Witnesses said they saw Hernandez leaving the area with the money when an anti-robbery dye pack exploded, scattering some of the bills, District Attorney Scot Key said. A total of $2,717 was taken.
Hernandez cited the fact that state District Judge James Counts, who had presided over the robbery trial, did not instruct jurors that drunkenness can sometimes be a defense. Counts said Hernandez presented no evidence of drunkenness.
Hernandez also argued on appeal that there was no robbery since he made no threat.
To an additional charge of disposing of property, Hernandez argued that money is not property, so he couldn't have been disposing of it.
However, Court of Appeals Judge Cynthia Fry's written opinion said Hernandez provided no evidence that foolish acts necessarily result from drunkenness. She also wrote that state law defines property as anything of value, so money qualifies; and that Hernandez did commit the September 2000 robbery.
The state Supreme Court let the lower court rulings stand; it declined last month to hear the case.
Hernandez was sentenced to 41 years in prison in the case, which included time for four forgery counts consolidated with the robbery case.
Assistant Attorney General Arthur Pepin said drunkenness only works as a defense if it can be shown it diminished a defendant's capacity to form intent to commit a crime.
Pepin said Hernandez acted rationally while choosing "not the wisest course of action."
"Perhaps a better planned robbery would have been more successful," he said.
Key put it this way: "He, and you can quote me, gets the dumb crook of the year award."
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Manchester, England (Independent Online):
Wharton, 61, caused damage of more than $30,000. A Manchester court ordered him to pay $8,825 in compensation and imposed a year's community rehabilitation order, after he had been found guilty of causing criminal damage.
Wharton thought he was removing a thin partition with his claw hammer, but attacked a supporting wall instead, as he tried to extend the ground-floor living room in his rented flat without the owner's permission.
He fled as a double bed and large wardrobe came through the ceiling from the room above.
Steve Hodson, of the housing trust that owns the devastated flat said: "Mr Wharton was lucky to get out alive."
The handyman declined to comment after the hearing. "I'm saying nothing. I'm moving house," he told journalists.
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Valencia, Venezuela (Ananova):
A gang of kidnappers has freed their captive - a former Miss Universe runner-up - after getting her to autograph 15 calendars featuring nude pictures of her.
Venezuelan model Veruska Ramirez, a former Miss Venezuela, was robbed of a large quantity of foreign currency and personal belongings and then kidnapped from her car for three hours in Valencia, said her manager, Luigi Ratino.
The thieves saw a box in her car containing the 15 calendars of naked photographs of the beauty queen.
They asked her to autograph the calendars and made off with them, leaving her on a city street, said Mr Ratino.
"They were surprised when they asked her name and discovered that it was the famous Miss Venezuela," said Ratino.
The brunette, who won the Miss Venezuela title in 1997 and was a finalist in the Miss Universe pageant the following year, was not mistreated by the thieves, Mr Ratino added.
"They didn't harm her, didn't touch her," he said.
Police are investigating.
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Bakersfield, California (AP):
A 140-pound rapist met his match in an angry, 275-pound prostitute, police said.
Adrian Castillo Ramirez allegedly tried to sexually assault a 24-year-old Bakersfield prostitute who was nearly twice his weight.
But she took his knife, stripped him naked and paraded him in front of other prostitutes, after asking how many of them had ever been forced into sex at knifepoint. Then she tried to take him _ still naked _ to the police station, reports said.
Castillo was charged with failing to register as a sex offender, and with committing forcible sex acts on the 24-year-old and on a 37-year-old woman in a previous incident. He was convicted of four counts of rape in 1988.
Castillo pleaded innocent Wednesday, and is being held on $250,000 bail, police said.
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