Stupid criminals of the week

Ex-sheriff’s deputy sent to prison for child pornography, stealing from drug takeback program

A former Osceola County [Michigan] sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to prison on child-sexually abusive activity and drug charges.

Andrew Wernette, 39, of Reed City, was sentenced this week by Osceola County Circuit Judge Scott Hill-Kennedy after pleading guilty to multiple charges.

“This defendant took advantage of the position he held as a law enforcement officer to obtain various drugs for his personal use and engaged in extremely disturbing acts that exploited minors,” state Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement.

“We must not stand for this immoral behavior and this office will continue to take action to enforce the law and protect children in this state.”

Acting on a tip, police used a search warrant and found over 100 images and videos of child-sexually abusive material on Wernette’s computer and cellphone. It also led to the discover of drugs in his possession, authorities said.

Wernette, in charge of the sheriff’s drug-takeback program, kept medications that were supposed to be disposed of, police said.

State police arrested the former deputy on Sept. 14. The attorney general was asked to prosecute the case because of a conflict of interest with Osceola County Prosecutor’s Office.

Wernette pleaded guilty to nine charges, including two counts of aggravated child-sexually abusive activity, using a computer to commit a crime, aggravated possession of child-sexually abusive activity, and possession of controlled substances – morphine and OxyContin.

He was sentenced to three years, four months to 25 years on the most serious charges which involved child-sexually abusive activity. He received lesser sentences on other charges with terms to be served concurrently.

Wernette has to register as a sex offender.

Source; Mlive.com

New Hampshire gender reveal explosion felt as far away as Maine

A gender reveal celebration that involved more than 80 pounds of explosives rocked a New Hampshire neighborhood and beyond Tuesday night.

The blast was felt as far away as northern Massachusetts, the Union Leader reported. Kingston police responded to a Torromeo Industries quarry where they found people who acknowledged holding a gender reveal party involving explosives and thought this would be the safest spot to hold it.

The police found a container with chalk and Tannerite — an over-the-counter explosive target used for firearms practice sold in kit form — at the quarry. The man who detonated the explosive reportedly surrendered to authorities.

“Obviously, depending on the amount (of explosives) they were using, it could be extremely dangerous,” Kingston Police Chief Donald Briggs Jr. told the newspaper.

Briggs did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.

Amy Owen told the newspaper she was watching her young daughter when she heard a loud explosion.

“We live in a four-family townhouse in Plaistow, and it shook our house so bad that we thought someone drove into our building. The kids all scrambled, saying ‘earthquake,’ before asking me what it was,” she said.

Source; Fox News

The Union Leader reminds us of all the recent gender reveal parties gone wrong;

Gender reveal party accidents — some deadly — have made headlines as they’ve grown in popularity among expectant parents over the past decade.

Last year, a device from a gender reveal celebration sparked a massive wildfire in California that resulted in a firefighter’s death. In February, a New York man died after the device he was creating to reveal the gender of his baby exploded. His brother also was hurt.

His death came two weeks after a man attending a gender reveal party in Michigan was killed when he was hit by shrapnel from a cannon.

Two pilots died in March when their plane crashed into the Caribbean Sea during a stunt they were performing for a gender reveal.

Macon teen arrested after trying to rob convenience store with toy gun

Bibb [County Georgia] deputies arrested a teen suspected in an armed robbery at the Mercer Food Mart located at 3737 Mercer University Drive Tuesday night.

According to a news release from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, 17-year-old Javon Tyrek Blackshear was in the store trying to play a gambling machine. When a store employee asked him for identification, Blackshear pulled out a gun and demanded cash from the register. The employee then locked himself behind a Plexiglas counter, and Blackshear ran away without the money.

No one was hurt.

The release says when deputies made it to the scene, they searched the area and found Blackshear in the 1600 block of North Atwood Drive. They found the gun used in the robbery attempt, which turned out to be a toy.

Blackshear was arrested and taken to the Bibb County jail where he is charged with Armed Robbery. There is no bond at this time.

Source; 13WMAZ

Italian man accused of skipping work for 15 years straight

This guy just had to have been a part of the Italian military’s version of the E-4 Mafia. I won’t need to give you a second guess on where he most recently worked gets paid to not show up.

Find a job that will forget you’re on the payroll, and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Italian prosecutors say they’ve busted a man who raked in roughly 538,000 euros (US$647,000) over 15 years without ever showing up to his hospital job, in one of the most egregious cases of absentee abuse they’ve ever seen.

Police have dubbed Salvatore Scumace, 67, the “king of absentees” for his allegedly rampant abuse of public-sector funds in the city of Catanzaro, ANSA News reports. Authorities say the man used threats to ensure that he would not be docked for missing work at the local hospital, and that he later fell off his employer’s radar altogether while still collecting paycheques.

Scumace’s job — at least on paper — was as a safety officer at the Pugliese Ciaccio hospital, Italy’s Unione Sarda newspaper reports.

The suspect faces charges of abuse of office, forgery and aggravated extortion in connection with the scheme, The Guardian reports. Six other managers at the hospital are also under investigation for their alleged involvement, officials said.

Authorities say the suspect’s absentee abuse started in 2005, when a “distinguished person” allegedly threatened the hospital director and warned her not to file a disciplinary report against Scumace. Police say the director complied and turned a blind eye to his absences, and that the suspect simply never showed up for work again — while still being paid.

The director eventually retired and her successor took over with no knowledge that there was a ghost on the payroll. Human resources also did not notice, police said.

It’s unclear when the scheme came to light, but the hospital launched disciplinary action against the man last year and also alerted the authorities. He was fired in October and later arrested as part of an investigation dubbed Operation Part Time.

Investigators say the arrest came after they conducted extensive witness interviews and reviewed attendance logs at the hospital.

Sounds to me more like the hospital administration, HR, and accounting should be charge more than this industrious fellow.

Source; Global News

This last one isn’t so much a stupid criminal as it is just stupid.

Woman Calls Animal Control on Menacing Croissant

People call animal control all the time, but usually only when there’s, you know, an animal to control. This week, a woman in Poland, became an international phenomenon after mistaking a harmless croissant for a menacing creature—and calling animal authorities to come collect it.

Recently, the Krakow Society for the Protection of Animals received a call about a mysterious animal terrorizing locals from its perch in a tree. The woman on the phone said it had been sitting in a tree for two days, scaring residents into keeping their windows closed out of fear that it might get in their homes.

According to the animal society, which detailed the incident in a Facebook post, the woman believed it might be some sort of iguana. The animal rescuers hadn’t dealt with iguanas in Krakow before and grew suspicious that it was a late April Fools’ Day prank, but went along with the call anyway in case it was, in fact, an abandoned iguana that needed saving.

When the animal control officers arrived at the scene ready to save the day, they encountered something that no amount of training could prepare them for.

“The brown creature is sitting on a lilac branch,” one of the workers recalls on Facebook. “We are looking more closely—poor guy has no legs or head.”

That’s when they realized: The “intimidating iguana” they were called to handle was a croissant, as in the crescent-shaped pastry.

In the woman’s defense, it’s not every day that you find a croissant nesting in a tree, so it’s understandable that baked goods weren’t immediately on her mind when she noticed the brown mass. Still, that didn’t stop animal control officers from bursting into laughter.

The animal society took the false report in stride, alerting its followers that they’d rather people call them about anything concerning than sit back and let a potential animal struggle. At the end of the day, the woman followed her instinct—even if her instinct was wrong, no harm was done.

Photo of the “menacing iguana”

Source; thrillist

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Crime, Police, WTF?