truesee's Blog

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A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a Yuma man who sent his jury questionnaire back to the court clerk's office with obscenities written on it.

Timothy Michael Jones was ordered to appear in Superior Court Tuesday morning, on an order to show cause — which required him to appear before a judge to explain his reason for what he did.

But when Jones did not show up for his court appearance, Superior Court Judge Andrew Gould issued the bench warrant. Jones is facing a charge of indirect criminal contempt.

According to court records, Jones was sent a jury summons last month that informed him that he had been randomly selected as a prospective juror for the Yuma County Superior Courts and requested he fill out a questionnaire.

The summons also stated that if qualified, Jones was subject to being summoned anytime from July 1, 2010, for a period not to exceed 12 months.

Instead of filling out the questionnaire, Jones used a black marker to write a vulgar statement in big letters on the summons and sent it back to the court clerk's office.

The court also appointed Jay Cairns of the city of Yuma Prosecutor's Office as a special prosecutor in the case. Court records also stated that Jones is entitled to representation by counsel, but that he is not entitled to a jury trial on the charge.

If found guilty, Jones could be sentenced to up to six months in jail and a fine of no more than $300.

The warrant will remain in effect until Jones appears in court, whether voluntarily or after he is brought before the court in custody after his arrest.

GOP tests 2012 theme vs. Obama

Republican presidential contenders appear to have found a 2012 campaign theme: They’re spreading the word that President Barack Obama lacks enough real-world experience for the job, and that his response to the Gulf oil spill proves it.

No Republican has formally started to campaign, but several are speaking up now to say Obama is out of his league.

“I frankly think that he’s shown that in a crisis setting where there’s a deepwater oil spill, he’s out of his depth,” said Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, who ran for president in 2008.

“He just does not have the experience to actually lead. He’s a great speaker but not a great leader.”

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOPs vice presidential nominee in 2008, said Obama’s lack of experience has become evident during the crisis.

“I think what the president is realizing is that his lack of executive experience is coming into play right now,” she said. “I know that he mocked and chided others who did have experience in the campaign and he acted like being a community organizer was all that it was going to take.”

Romney and Palin made their comments during appearances on Fox News.

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Republican leaders haven’t said much about Obama’s inexperience since he took office in January last year.

Hillary Rodham Clinton tried in vain to make the issue play to her benefit during the 2008 campaign.

 Now the issue is making a comeback as Obama faces perhaps the biggest crisis of his presidency. More than six weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11, thousands of gallons of crude are still gushing into the ocean.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), another possible White House candidate, is now sounding the same theme as Romney and Palin: that Obama is failing to show leadership at a critical time.

 “The administration claimed to be ‘on top of this since day one,’ but the reality is that the president didn’t personally address the issue for many days, until the public outcry was too loud to ignore,” Huckabee said in a statement to The Hill.

Huckabee pointed to the president playing golf five times and hosting celebrity events at the White House, such as a tribute to Paul McCartney, since the rig exploded on April 20.

He also faulted Obama for not quickly convening local governors and private-sector companies to develop a broad response to the disaster.

 Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), whom some experts consider the most viable 2012 contender in Congress, also said executive inexperience may have affected the federal response to the oil spill.

“Whether it’s lack of experience or lack of focus, there were a lot of things that probably should have been done that weren’t done that indicated the administration was at a loss as to what to do,” said Thune. “You can tie that back to experience.”

Thune, who is focusing on his 2010 Senate reelection, said the most stunning revelation of the week was that Obama had not personally talked to Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, since the start of the crisis.

The administration announced Thursday evening it had invited BP officials to the White House for a meeting next week.

Almost all the most likely GOP presidential contenders are current or former governors. They argue that leaders with executive experience, such as theirs, know how to assemble partnerships to solve problems.

 But Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, said that argument is self-serving. “It’s an argument often heard from governors during presidential elections,” he said. “It’s arguable. [Former President] George W. Bush was a governor and he bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina.”

 Democratic lawmakers stepped in to defend the administration.

 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) argued that the spill happened because of the culture of lax federal oversight that developed during the Bush administration.

 “It takes a measure of nerve to say that when the Minerals Management Service was put under operational control of the oil industry by Republicans,” Whitehouse said in response to Romney and Palin. “It’s a little like the arsonist party blaming the firefighter for not doing a good enough job.”

Democratic lawmakers such as Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.) say Obama’s administration was on top of the problem from the first day and sent enough federal resources to the area. But Landrieu acknowledges that Obama fumbled the early PR effort by failing to take a more visible role.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has criticized Obama for not sending more ships to skim oil from the ocean surface. He said the president should have made it clear from the first day that his administration, and not BP, was in charge.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the 2008 GOP nominee, said the president had demonstrated a lack of experience and “also a lack of competence,” and added, “No one can understand why he wouldn’t speak to the head of BP.”

Source:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/102629-gop-tests-12-theme-vs-obama

Police: Man Arrested Amid Court Appearance

Man Charged With Car Burglary Accused Of Breaking Into Car Outside Court

POSTED: 10:12 am EDT June 10, 2010

UPDATED: 10:38 am EDT June 10, 2010

VERNION, Conn. -- A man appearing in court on charges of breaking into vehicles was arrested and accused of getting drunk and breaking into vehicles outside the courthouse Wednesday, police said.

Police said Thomas Peno, 62, of Amston, was appearing at Rockville Superior Court on Wednesday on charges of stealing a GPS from a vehicle. Police said during the court's lunch break, Peno purchased a bottle of vodka, which he proceeded to drink until he became intoxicated in front of the courthouse.

Police said Peno was then seen attempting to get into vehicles in front of the court and eventually got into a car on St. Bernard's Terrace, which is located next to the court.

Police said Peno was stopped by marshals for being intoxicated when he re-entered the courthouse and that he matched the description of the man who had been attempting to break into cars outside. Police said the victim of the car burglary on St. Bernard's terrace then entered court and reported that their cell phone and keys had been taken.

Police said after the victim entered the courthouse, Peno attempted to flee out the door, and knocked several people down as he went. Peno was detained by a marshal until officers arrived and he was placed under arrest.

Peno was charged with breach of peace, burglary and larceny. His bond was set at $20,000 and he was scheduled to appear in court on the new charges on Thursday.

LINK TO PHOTO:

http://www.wfsb.com/news/23856991/detail.html

Alvin Greene A GOP 'Plant'? James Clyburn Warns Of 'Shenanigans' With South Carolina Candidate

The Huffington Post   

Nick Wing

First Posted: 06-10-10 11:16 AM     

Updated: 06-10-10 03:55 PM

James Clyburn accused surprise South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene of being "someone's plant" on Thursday.

Is something fishy going on with Alvin Greene, the man who clinched an unlikely victory to become the Democratic nominee for South Carolina Senate? Fellow South Carolinian Rep. James Clyburn (D) thinks so, and on Thursday went as far as to say that Greene might be a "Republican plant."

Speaking with liberal radio show host Bill Press, Clyburn questioned Greene's improbable victory (Greene had no campaign signs, no website, and was largely invisible in the lead-up to Tuesday's primary) and said that his candidacy warranted an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office.

"There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary," Clyburn said of Tuesday's race. "I don't know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone's plant."

Clyburn said the circumstances of Greene's entry and eventual upset of the race were baffling.

"What is an unemployed guy doing paying $10,000 to run for the United States Senate? That just doesn't add up," Clyburn said of Greene, an unemployed military veteran who somehow came up with the $10,400 filing fee and decided to use it to mount an unlikely bid against conservative champion, Sen. Jim Demint. Greene ended up taking 59 percent of the vote despite his relative anonymity.

Clyburn went on to say that a U.S. attorney should examine the possibility that his limited campaign was improperly funded by outside political interests.

"I would hope the U.S. attorney down there would look at this," Clyburn said. "I think there's some federal laws being violated in this race...Somebody gave him that $10,000 and he who took it should be investigated, and he who gave it should be investigated."

The South Carolina Democratic party asked Greene to withdraw his Democratic nomination on Wednesday after it came out that he was facing a felony obscenity charge after allegedly showing inappropriate pictures to a college student last fall.

UPDATE:

Clyburn gave an interview to Talking Points Memo later Thursday and pushed the issue further, saying that a potential probe by the U.S. Attorney's office should extend to two other African-American Democrats whom he believes may also be party impostors with ulterior motives.

"The party's choice in the 1st Congressional district lost. The party's choice for U.S. Senate lost. Sounds like a pattern to me," Clyburn told Talking Points Memo.

Apart from Greene, Clyburn alleged that Gregory Brown, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign against Clyburn for the 6th Congressional seat, and Ben Frasier, who triumphed over state Democratic party-backed candidate Robert Burton to become the nominee for the 1st Congressional district, were also plants.

Asked by Talking Points Memo about Clyburn's accusations, Burton campaign manager Ann Beser said that something was "radically wrong."

From TPM:

Beser said that since election night the Burton campaign has been doing precinct tallies and has seen numbers that far surpass what turnout had expected to be, including all-white precincts where Greene beat Senate candidate Victor Rawl and Frasier beat Burton. Both Rawl and Burton are white. "None of it makes sense," she said.

 

Read the whole report here.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/clyburn_alvin_greene_not_only_suspicious_candidate.php

Mom Finds Abducted Daughter on Facebook

Prince Sagala searched for her son and daughter for 15 years, fearing she had lost them forever to the estranged husband who took them to his native Mexico.

Then one day, she typed her child's name into Facebook on a library computer, and suddenly found herself exchanging messages with a young woman who said she was her daughter in what experts say was a rare online success in the search for missing kids online.

But the exchange wasn't a happy reunion.

"She thought I was a stranger woman," Sagala said, with hurt and frustration in her voice. "I wrote back and she deleted it. Then, she disappeared."

Authorities tracked down the children, now 16 and 17, outside Orlando, Florida, and arrested their father, Faustino Fernandez Utrera, 42, on May 26. He faces kidnapping and child custody charges. Sagala is now racing to regain custody of her children before they turn 18 and she loses them to adulthood.

Florida authorities have temporarily placed the children with a non-relative whom the pair know and set a hearing for later this month.

"This has been so traumatic for them. The father, the only person they've known as a parent, is now in jail. When they have children of their own, when they're 25, 26, 27 years of age, it's going to dawn on them what their mother lost," Montclair police Detective Debbie Camou said. "You can't fault them for what they feel."

Utrera did not respond to a request for a jailhouse interview. Florida authorities did not know if he had retained an attorney.

The couple was contemplating divorce in 1995 when Sagala returned from work to find the children, then 3 and 2, gone, Camou said.

Sagala, 43, later learned through her husband's relatives in Mexico City that he was there with the children and didn't intend to come back, Camou said. "At that time, she was afraid to go to Mexico because he had threatened her," she said.

Police eventually referred the investigation to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office, following the department's policy, but the probe stalled.

During this time, authorities recently learned, Utrera moved to Florida with his children and got a driver's license using a fake name. It's unclear how long the three had been in Florida when Sagala found the Facebook page.

Meanwhile, Sagala raised two younger children she had with a man she said she married three years after Utrera fled and with whom she now lives on a quiet residential street in this city about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. It's not clear if she ever divorced Utrera.

But she always hoped to reunite with her older children. On a visit to a neighborhood library in March, Sagala had one of her children enter her daughter's name into Facebook and her page popped up.

On March 10, she began exchanging e-mails and chatting with her daughter, and hoped to get her to reveal where she lived and re-establish a bond.

Sagala said she sent an old family photo to the teen, but her daughter broke it off, saying in an e-mail that she was happy with her family and that she'd heard bad things about her mother.

Sagala alerted police, who used the names of friends on the daughter's page to track the girl to central Florida — and her high school. Sagala gave police copies of e-mails she exchanged with her daughter, which helped prosecutors build their case against Utrera.

Authorities in Florida began surveillance of the children and Utrera to make sure they did not run off while prosecutors in San Bernardino built an extradition case in California, Camou said.

Investigators checked the children's attendance at school and drove by their house to make sure they weren't packing up. Utrera and the children had been living with another woman whom the children apparently considered a mother figure, said Kurt Rowley, who is prosecuting the case in California.

Once prosecutors said they had enough to charge Utrera, Florida deputies arrested him as he waited at a bus stop to pick up his son from school.

When Utrera was arrested, the family was living in a permanent mobile home on a palm-lined street of neatly trimmed lawns in Davenport, Fla. On a recent day, a minivan parked in the drive bore a speciality license plate with the words "Parents Make A Difference" inscribed on it.

The case is "more heartbreaking because now, with the dad in jail, she does have a right of custody by default, but it's not that simple," Rowley said, adding that courts give weight to the children's opinions because of their age. "If they were returned to her, in all likelihood, they would probably run away."

Even with the array of websites frequented by teens, discoveries like Sagala's are rare because abducted children's lives are so closely monitored by the offending parent that they can't easily get online, said Robert Lowery of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

For now, Sagala is trying to sort out the pieces of her children's past. Her younger kids, she said, helped her stay strong.

Then, with a sad smile, she summed up what she's missed with the older ones: "Every single day."

Antonio Gonzalez in Davenport, Fla., contributed to this repor

 

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1995766,00.html#ixzz0qTk38jmO

Dems drop empathy in immigration fight Carrie Budoff Brown June 10, 2010 04:36 AM EDT

Long pilloried for being soft on illegal immigration, top Democratic officials have concluded there’s only one way they can hope to pass a comprehensive immigration bill: 

Talk more like Republicans. 

They’re seizing on the work of top Democratic Party operatives who, after a legislative defeat in 2007, launched a multiyear polling project to craft an enforcement-first, law-and-order, limited-compassion pitch that now defines the party’s approach to the issue. 

The 12 million people who unlawfully reside the country? Call them “illegal immigrants,” not “undocumented workers,” the pollsters say. 

Strip out the empathy, too. Democrats used to offer immigrants “an earned path to citizenship” so hardworking people trying to support their families could “come out of the shadows.” To voters, that sounded like a gift, the operatives concluded. 

Now, Democrats emphasize that it’s “unacceptable” to allow 12 million people to live in America illegally and that the government must “require” them to register and “get right with the law.” That means three things: “Obey our laws, learn our language and pay our taxes” — or face deportation. 

“We lost control of the message in the 2007 debate,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigrant rights group that worked with Center for American Progress founder John Podesta on the messaging overhaul. 

“We were on the inside fighting off amendments, and the other side was jacking up their opponents and getting Rush and Hannity and O’Reilly on fire about this. We needed to do a much better job on communications.” 

President Barack Obama uses the buzzwords. So does the congressional leadership. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), author of the Democratic immigration plan, scolds advocates who refer to illegal immigrants as “undocumented workers.” 

The revamped message may not face the real-world test anytime soon. The appetite to take on immigration before the November elections has faded as the political environment for incumbents grows increasingly hostile. Supporters of comprehensive reform plan to continue to exert pressure, but privately they say legislative action will need to wait until next year. 

Even then, the poll-tested words and phrases will only go so far if Democrats fail to exert discipline and unify behind the get-tough message. And at this point, not all immigration reform advocates have bought into the rhetorical hard line, which aims squarely at winning the political center. Even Sharry, who spearheaded the effort, declines the advice of pollsters to excise “undocumented workers” from his lexicon, saying it feels too much like it plays into conservative efforts to “dehumanize” immigrants.

“When [voters] hear ‘undocumented worker,’ they hear a liberal euphemism, it sounds to them like liberal code,” said Drew Westen, a political consultant who has helped Sharry hone the message through dial testing. “I am often joking with leaders of progressive organizations and members of Congress, ‘If the language appears fine to you, it is probably best not to use it. You are an activist, and by definition, you are out of the mainstream.’”

The shift in language is one of the more dramatic changes in the Democratic strategy since foes of comprehensive immigration outmaneuvered the party in 2007, dealing an embarrassing legislative defeat that set back the cause years. But the tougher tone is only one outcome of a broader effort by Democrats and immigration reform advocates to prepare for the next round of battle.

The country’s largest labor unions, which fought each other the last time around, are now on the same team. The Service Employees International Union mended its differences on the issue with the AFL-CIO, which worked against the bill in 2007 and prompted several pro-labor Democratic senators to vote against it. The upshot is a Democratic message with a more combative approach toward employers that “hire illegal immigrants to drive down wages.”

Lacking a coordinated campaign, advocates organized as if they were managing an election. Sharry left his post as executive director of the National Immigration Forum to start America’s Voice, which describes itself as the communications and rapid response arm of the movement. Angela Kelley, an authority on immigration, signed on to lead the lobbying effort through the Center for American Progress.

And a network of community organizations, advocacy groups and labor unions organized under three umbrellas to push citizenship and voter mobilization drives, raise money and develop a field campaign.
But first, Podesta and Sharry assembled a roster of boldfaced Democratic pollsters — Stan Greenberg, Celinda Lake, Guy Molyneaux — to figure out how the party would ever get away from one of the most devastating GOP lines of attack, that a comprehensive immigration plan amounted to “amnesty” for illegals.
The results made Greenberg a convert.

His surveys of swing districts in 2006 and 2007 concluded that Democrats took a political risk by discussing immigration. Greenberg thought frustration with immigrants would spawn an environment similar to the welfare backlash in the 1990s and that Democrats needed to get tough on border security before talking about citizenship.

But polling that Greenberg, Lake and Molyneaux conducted in 2008 proved to Greenberg that Democrats could talk in a way that won over voters. It needed to sound tough and pragmatic, but not overly punitive, the pollsters said. The message beat the amnesty charge in their polling.

“There was more and more evidence that there were ways to address the issue,” Greenberg said. “I also came to believe the country wanted to do comprehensive reform. ... People want this to be brought under control, and they know you can’t just expel people.”

The most significant shift in language involves the path to citizenship. Pollsters determined that Democrats sounded as though they wanted to reward illegal immigrants, even though lawmakers almost always laid out that requirements and delays that would precede citizenship.

“It comes back to this idea: We give permission; we set the terms; it’s under our control; and if you meet those conditions, you are us, welcome to America,” Westen said of the new frame.

This time around, the message starts with a pledge to secure the borders and crack down on employers. It then moves to this: “It is unacceptable to have 12 million people in our country who are outside the system. We must require illegal immigrants to register for legal status, pay their taxes, learn English and pass criminal background checks to remain in the country and work toward citizenship. Those who have a criminal record or refuse to register should be deported.”

To get any idea of how the language has infiltrated official Washington, here is what Obama said last month at a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House:

“The way to fix our broken immigration system is through common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. That means responsibility from government to secure our borders, something we have done and will continue to do. It means responsibility from businesses that break the law by undermining American workers and exploiting undocumented workers — they’ve got to be held accountable. It means responsibility from people who are living here illegally. They’ve got to admit that they broke the law and pay taxes and pay a penalty, and learn English, and get right before the law — and then get in line and earn their citizenship.”
Bob Dane, communications director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, predicted the new frame would have limited impact once both sides are fully engaged on the issue.

“They are scrambling to sugarcoat a breakfast cereal that nobody wants to eat,” Dane said.

Jail trusty accused of smuggling contraband in prosthetic leg

Abbey Brown Doyle

The Town Talk

June 9, 2010

The Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office displays some of the contraband it alleges trusty Joe Lewis Jr. smuggled into Rapides Parish Detention Center III in his prosthetic leg.

2 years later, ex-cop admits story of shooting was a lie 

Fired shot into his vest to stir Gowanda search

Stephen T. WATSON

BUFFALO NEWS

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

June 09, 2010, 12:30 am

A disgraced former Gowanda police officer has admitted that he lied two years ago when he claimed that a gunman shot him, a disclosure that apparently settles one of the area’s more perplexing police shooting cases, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Jason D. Miller confessed that he staged the 2008 incident by firing a shot into his bulletproof vest as it hung from a tree and hiding the weapon before making his false call, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III told The Buffalo News.

Miller made the admission to investigators from Sedita’s office as part of a plea deal in a case that accused Miller of covering up a traffic violation in exchange for free pizza.

“From what I know about this case, it makes a certain amount of sense,” Sedita said of Miller’s statement. “It makes a heck of a lot more sense than the story he’s been sticking to since September 2008.”

Members of the Gowanda police force, the State Police and other law enforcement agencies have long had suspicions about the incident, which occurred Sept. 26, 2008.

Miller, now 36 and a North Collins resident, was a part-time Gowanda officer at the time.

He initially told police that he had been driving on East Hill Street in the village when a man walking on the side of the road threw something at his patrol car, Gowanda police said.

Miller said he got out of his car and chased the man, who Miller said climbed a steep incline and fired two shots at the officer from a plateau. One of the bullets hit Miller in his vest, according to his account.

The call by Miller drew a heavy law enforcement response, with state troopers and Gowanda police leading an intensive investigation into the shooting.

Miller stayed on the Gowanda police force until last July, when he was placed on administrative leave because of his handling of a June 4, 2009, traffic stop.

Officials say Miller arrested the driver for having a suspended license, filled out the required paperwork but never filed those documents with the court. He did this in exchange for three free pizzas provided by the driver, authorities said.

Miller resigned from the force in September and, on the same day, resigned as an investigator with the Cattaraugus County district attorney’s office.

In May, Miller pleaded guilty to official misconduct, a deal that required him to pay back $600 to the Gowanda Police Benevolent Association and reveal what happened in the shooting.

Sedita’s office handled Miller’s prosecution because of his former employment with the Cattaraugus County office.

In his first session with Sedita’s investigators, Miller acknowledged that the shooting didn’t happen the way he reported it, but he did not elaborate.

This didn’t satisfy Sedita, who said he directed Chief Investigator John M. Cleary Jr. and Investigator Mark R. Stambach to interview Miller again.

The investigators talked with Miller on Monday at the office of his lawyer, Daniel J. Henry Jr. There, Miller admitted that he fired a bullet into his vest as it hung on a tree, put the vest back on, buried the weapon and reported that he had been been shot and needed backup, Sedita said.

Miller said he got nervous and returned about a week later to dig up the gun, which he dismantled before scattering the pieces throughout Gowanda.

Monday, Miller contended that he always intended to eventually tell the truth.

“He did say he was going to come clean to the authorities, but it was too embarrassing,” Sedita said.

The two investigators repeatedly asked Miller why he had staged the shooting.

“He said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” said Sedita, who speculated that Miller might have wanted to present himself as a hero — or victim — to his fellow officers.

Sedita said that Miller was not promised immunity for his admissions in the shooting and that he has the discretion to charge him with reporting a false incident, a Class Bmisdemeanor. But Sedita noted that Miller already has pleaded guilty to official misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor, and now has cooperated with investigators.

Henry declined to comment on the details of his client’s admission.

Miller’s confession is gratifying to Gowanda Police Chief Joseph J. Alessi, who said law enforcement officials had worried for two years that a cop shooter may be on the loose. “I don’t understand his thinking,” Alessi said. “It’s very disheartening that he threw away a promising career in law enforcement, . . . and for what?”

Alessi thanked the State Police, Sedita’s office and the Erie and Cattaraugus County sheriff’s offices for their work on the case.

He said he and a number of police officers plan to attend Miller’s sentencing, originally set for Thursday in Collins Town Court but now postponed.

Man forced to help thieves carry TV

Armed robbers on the Southeastside added insult to injury this morning when they forced a man to help them carry out a 32-inch flat-screen television they stole from his apartment.

The thieves also made off with a $1,000 Bulova gold watch and a $600 diamond-studded Rolex watch during the home invasion in the 8100 block of McFarland Road at 1:30 a.m., police said.

Three masked men carrying handguns entered the apartment through a second-floor patio door while Jason Geminden, 30, and his girlfriend were asleep, according to an Indianapolis metropolitan police report.

They told their victims to lie on their stomachs on the bed but at one point instructed Geminden to get up so he could help them carry the flat screen, according to the report.

The robbers stole jewelry, electronics and car keys. They at first said they would tie up the pair before they left but decided against it because the victims were so helpful, according to the report.

Ya Wen, a Chinese girl who was hurt in a traffic accident, smokes cigarettes and drinks beer as therapy.

This three-year-old turned to booze and nicotine to recover from a horrific road traffic accident.

Chinese toddler Ya Wen started downing pints of beer and smoking up to a pack a day after she was struck by a speeding van and spent five days in a coma, her parents told the Yangcheng Evening Post.

"She likes drinking," her mother Gao Wen said.

"Three glasses of beer is no problem to her."

Gao Wen said her daughter's personality changed dramatically and she started acting like an adult shortly after leaving the hospital.

First she was busted hiding in the toilet smoking her dad's cigarettes, then the girl turned to stealing them from a local store - before the owner let her have them on credit.

"The first time I found her smoking was in the toilet," her mother said.

"Before that I often saw cigarette butts in the toilet but thought they were my husband's, until I saw my daughter smoking there."

The store owner said he assumed the child was buying the butts for dear old dad, adding that the child would take up to two packs away at a time.

The girl has been addicted to smoking for a year now and has also changed her preference in clothes, the family said.

"She only likes boy's clothes," Wen's mother said.

"If we don't buy them for her, she cries in protest."

The family lives in a shelter in Huizhou, China, and collect and sell garbage for cash.

Wen's father recently gave up the smokes to set a good example for his child but she still cries for them whenever they are visible. 

Meanwhile, a chain-smoking toddler in Indonesia who threw tantrums if he did not have 40 cigarettes a day has managed to curb his addiction, by cutting down to just 15 a day.

Two-year-old Ardi Rizal took up the habit when he was 18 months old.

"He's totally addicted," Ardi's 26-year-old mother, Diana, said recently.

"If he doesn't get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick." 

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/06/09/2010-06-09_chinese_toddler_ya_wen_smokes_drinks_beer_as_therapy_from_traffic_accident_injur.html#ixzz0qO2LLs46

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?id=7485244&section=news/bizarre

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/larry_king_wife_shawn_attempted_suicide_exclusive_police_reports/celebrity/68795