truesee's Blog

Prenuptial Cohabiting Can Spoil Marriage

Jeanna Bryner

Senior Writer

14 July 2009 01:01 pm ET

Couples who shack up before tying the knot are more likely to get divorced than their counterparts who don't move in together until marriage, a new study suggests.

Upwards of 70 percent of U.S. couples are cohabiting these days before marrying, the researchers estimate. The study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, indicates that such move-ins might not be wise.

And it's not because you start to get on one another's nerves. Rather, the researchers figure the shared abode could lead to marriage for all the wrong reasons.

"We think that some couples who move in together without a clear commitment to marriage may wind up sliding into marriage partly because they are already cohabiting," said lead researcher Galena Rhoades of the University of Denver.

Couples might also be nudged into nuptials because of a joint lease or shared ownership of Fido — along with other practicalities.

Relationship dynamics

Rhoades and her colleagues did telephone surveys with more than 1,000 married men and women between the ages of 18 and 34, who had been married 10 years or fewer. Survey questions included measures of relationship satisfaction, dedication to one another, level of negative communication and sexual satisfaction. To measure the potential of a couple to divorce, participants were asked "Have you or your spouse ever seriously suggested the idea of divorce?"

Overall, about 40 percent of participants reported they didn't live together before marriage, 43 percent did so before engagement, and about 16 percent cohabited only after getting engaged.

Those who moved in with a mate before engagement or marriage reported significantly lower quality marriages and a greater potential for split-ups than other couples. For instance, about 19 percent of those who cohabited before getting engaged had ever suggested divorce compared with just 12 percent of those who only moved in together after getting engaged and 10 percent of participants who did not cohabit prior to the wedding bells.

"We think there might be a subset of people who live together before they got engaged who might have decided to get married really based on other things in their relationship," Rhoades told LiveScience, "because they were already living together and less because they really wanted and had decided they wanted a future together."

So a joint lease or shared ownership of pets could nudge the nuptials for these folks, more than a life-long commitment to one another.

Why move in?

While this research suggests cohabitation in itself can result in lousier marriages, the initial reasons for moving in together could impact the relationship quality.

In another study led by Rhoades published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Issues, cohabiting couples ranked a list of reasons for cohabitation. More than 60 percent of participants ranked spending more time together as the number-one reason for moving in, followed by nearly 19 percent who put "it made most sense financially" at the top of their list, and 14 percent ranking "I wanted to test out our relationship before marriage" highest.

Those who listed "testing" as the primary move-in reason were more likely than others to score high on measures of negative communication, such as, "My partner criticizes or belittles my opinions, feelings, or desires." Such testers also had lower confidence in the quality and stability of their relationships.

Overall, those who want to test the commitment might want to think again, according to the February study.

"Cohabiting to test a relationship turns out to be associated with the most problems in relationships," Rhoades said. "Perhaps if a person is feeling a need to test the relationship, he or she already knows some important information about how a relationship may go over time."

By JEFF GEARINO
Southwest Wyoming bureau

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 1:02 PM MDT

Female officer accused of prison sex

Alex Shebar

The Cincinnati Enquirer

July 13, 2009

LEBANON - A female corrections officer was indicted Monday for allegedly having sex several times with a male prisoner at the Lebanon Correctional Institute

Authorities said Iona D. Cowan, 51, of Forest Park, had four different sexual encounters with a male prisoner at the Lebanon Correctional Institute.

The encounters happened between May 12 and June 11, according to Matt Nolan, spokesman for the Warren County Prosecutor's Office. During that time, Cowan was employed by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Cowan was caught by the people who monitor the prison surveillance system, Nolan said.

"There were video cameras that showed not the acts themselves but things related to the acts. Precursors to the acts," he said.

Cowan was indicted Monday on one count of sexual battery. Her court date has not been set.

It is unclear if Cowan still works at the Lebanon Correctional Institute.

"Every year we have a couple instances of this occurring," Nolan said. "I wouldn't call it common, but it does happen."

http://snafu-ed.blogspot.com/2009/07/pastor-admits-to-praying-for-president.html

How a Rich Suburban Girl Became a Drug Kingpin

The Daily Beast

Jeff Deeney

July 13, 2009

 

Click Link Below to Watch the Surveillance Video of Rian Thal's Alleged Killers

http://video.philly.com/services/player/bcpid21394222001?bctid=28019452001

Katoya Jones, now charged with murder, appears to let a man in a white shirt into Rian Thal's building. He, in turn, lets two more men in. The three men then go up to the seventh floor, where they allegedly kill Thal in the stairwell to the left of the elevators.

The Piazza wasn’t meant for cold-blooded drug crimes. An 80,000-square-foot plaza ringed by clothing boutiques, art galleries and trendy restaurants, real-estate heavy-hitter Bart Blatstein dropped $500 million to make it not just an apartment complex, but an ongoing cultural event.

Nor was Thal the type of woman most people think of when they imagine a drug kingpin. A petite, blond, perpetually smiling product of an upscale Philadelphia suburb, her neighbors mainly remembered her as a cat lover whose drug of choice was nothing stronger than chocolate candy. Thal’s Twitter feed featured posts like, "Oh my god I am having a foodgasm, chocolate chip bread pudding!!!!!"

Yet when police arrived at her building, they found four kilos of cocaine in Thal’s penthouse apartment, along with $100,000 in cash. Newspaper reporters scrambled to her MySpace page, and found glamorous pictures of Thal out on the town with the city’s hip-hop and sports stars. She was big enough that the nightclub she promoted, Plush, had advertised a joint birthday party on July 18 for Thal and James "Kamal" Gray, a member of famed Philly hip-hop group The Roots.

Thal’s moneyed high gloss, it turned out, stemmed from her underworld involvement, which went back at least a decade. She was an improbable real-deal, big-time trafficker who had once been convicted of smuggling meth into the U.S., and, in a separate incident, was kidnapped and then released by another drug dealer, possibly as part of a disputed deal.

And now around Philadelphia, even as the details of the case are still unfolding, the question is on everyone’s lips: How did this white girl (in the hip-hop clubs, she was actually known as “white girl”) from the wealthy suburbs get to this level of the drug game in the first place? Having previously been in a similar position myself, let me try to shed some light on how someone like Thal could end up a big shot in that world.

It’s not as surprising as you’d think that someone like Thal, a reported casual coke user, would find herself being asked if she wanted to start participating in deals. I once knew a coke dealer—not a barroom nickel and dimer, but the kind of dude who could get you kilo if you needed it—and there were moments of opportunity when I, too, was asked if I wanted to get in on the game. Did I want to front five grand and go in on a niner? The question came up more than once.

So when I read about Rian Thal’s murder, I wondered how long ago it was that someone put a similar question to her. Did she want to get in on a brick? Would she mind if someone stashed a couple at her crib, along with some cash?

My friend didn’t typically deal in weight as big as Thal did—his usual deals were in the “4½ to 9” range, the two standard ounce measures that midlevel Philly coke dealers trade in. In the apartment above his corner store was the coke, usually right out on a desk next to a digital postal scale, a softball-size chunk we spent endless nights and days chipping pieces off to grind into powder and snort.

This friend ran with a crowd similar to the one Thal mingled with, and in this crowd he did business with a major coke dealer whose street name was “Real Roller.” Real Roller used his drug money to start a business promoting up-and-coming entertainers he knew from the streets in Philly (one of whom went on to tremendous success) until he died of a pancake-and-syrup overdose, which is the drug combination of codeine cough syrup and Xanax, not the breakfast food.

His funeral was an invite-only event for the regional street elite and entertainment-industry figures. My coke dealer friend was invited; he showed me the glossy flier invitation. Celebrities at the funeral (Allen Iverson, Beanie Sigel, Jay Z) purportedly knew Real Roller from his entertainment business. Or did they? It’s hard to say, and by my friend’s report there were a lot more drug dealers than entertainers or athletes at the service.

Point is, the two social ladders—the drug world’s and the entertainment world’s—are inevitably intertwined, and my friend, just another privileged white guy from the suburbs who started out a small-time user, had ascended them. Every now and then, he and I went out for hip-hop nights in Market Street clubs that were part of the same scene Thal worked in. When we walked in the door, heads turned, the shout outs came in waves, big men got up from their seats to throw enthusiastic hand slaps and shoulder bumps at my friend. He had become not only well known, but well respected in this crowd that ran thick with established drug suppliers.

Such, it seems, was Rian Thal. She was an influential figure, a girl who, through circumstances not as unlikely as you might think, became an apparent middleman for the Real Rollers of the drug world. Even though I was further removed from the top of the chain than Thal was, I got the same offer she must have: Did I want in? It’s easy to see how someone who liked moving with power players and climbing social ladders, who craved glamour and excitement, could easily say yes.

But it’s not all glamour and special access, as I learned one morning when I went to my friend’s store to get high. His car, a lightly used Lincoln, was riddled with bullet holes. He feigned nonchalance; just a couple neighborhood kids messing around, he said, nothing to worry about.

It suddenly dawned on me, something self-evident to anyone less drug-addled than I was: The world of high-stakes drug deals is no glamorous fantasy game. Any of those long nights I spent in that room above my friend’s store, the door could have been kicked in and both of us shot in the head for that coke sitting on the table and the money knot in his pocket.

I said no to my dealer’s offer to get in on the game because I understood that there is a certain amount of ruthlessness necessary to rise through the ranks of the drug world. If I had gotten in, I would have been an easy target, someone who obviously wasn’t cut out for the job, and who shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

It’s easy to imagine Rian Thal’s killers felt the same way about her the day they slipped into the Piazza and turned out the lights on her.

Wedding bouquet tradition causes plane crash in Italy

13:5513/07/2009

MOSCOW, July 13, (RIA Novosti) - The tradition of the bride throwing the wedding bouquet led to a plane crash in Livorno on Italy's western coast, Corriere della Sera said.

The centuries old tradition of the bride throwing the wedding bouquet to a group of single women turned into a tragedy after the happy couple hired a light plane in an effort to add some novelty to the custom.

The light aircraft was supposed to fly over a line of single women and a passenger on the aircraft, Isidoro Pensieri, was supposed to throw the bouquet out. However it all went horribly wrong when the bouquet was sucked into the plane's engine, which caught fire and exploded.

The aircraft went into a nosedive and hit a nearby hostel where some 50 people were accommodated. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Pensieri received multiple fractures and a head injury, while the plane's 61-year-old pilot, Luciano Nannelli, escaped almost unharmed.

However the incident completely spoiled the wedding party with all the guests leaving following the crash.

The bouquet is supposed to bring luck to the woman who catches it as according to tradition, she is the next to marry.

TYPEWRITE & WRONG

NYPD 'WASTES' $1M ON RELICS

The city is plunking down nearly $1 million on typewriters for its keystroke cops.

That's right -- typewriters.

Despite the adoption of high-tech equipment that can read license plates from the air and detect 

By JEREMY OLSHAN

New York Post

Last updated: 9:47 am
July 13, 2009
Posted: 1:18 am
July 13, 2009

 

SHEET WORK: NYPD cops say filing paperwork today on typewriters is still an inefficient time waster -- just as it was 30 years ago on the sitcom "Barney Miller" (above).

radiological events before they happen, manual and electric typewriters continue to be used throughout the NYPD -- and they won't be phased out anytime soon, officials told The Post.

In fact, just last year, the city signed a $982,269 contract with New Jersey-based Swintec for the purchase of thousands of new manual and electric typewriters over the next three years -- some of which retail for as much as $649 apiece.

And last month, the city signed a $99,570 deal with Afax Business Machines in Manhattan for the maintenance of its existing Brother, Panasonic and IBM Selectric typewriters.

In both cases, NYPD expenditures account for the bulk of the contract, sources told The Post.

Although most of the NYPD's arrest-report forms have been computerized, cops still use typewriters to fill out property and evidence vouchers, which are printed on carbon-paper forms.

There are typewriters in every police precinct, including one in every detective squad.

"It just doesn't make sense that we can't enter these [vouchers] on computer," one cop told The Post.

When the typewriter ribbons run out, as they often do, officers say the search for a working machine turns into a scene right of the '70s sitcom "Barney Miller."

"We have to sneak around the rest of the precinct in search of a ribbon to steal," a cop said.

The reliance on typewriters contributes to the slow pace of processing arrests, said Dr. Edith Linn, a retired NYPD cop and professor of criminal justice at Berkeley College in Manhattan.

"The system is hobbled by redundant paperwork, misused personnel, broken equipment, backward technology," Linn says in her 2008 book "Arrest Decisions."

Of the roughly 500 NYPD officers Linn interviewed for a study on arrest behavior, many mentioned the outdated equipment as part of their reason for being averse to making arrests for less serious crimes.

But the few typewriter companies still in existence aren't complaining.

Ed Michaels, sales manager of Swintec, said police departments are among its biggest clients.

"They have a lot of forms to fill out, so we're still here," he said.

The NYPD insists it has made progress over the past five years digitizing many processing forms.

The department also is working on software to eliminate the old machines, a rep said.

Toy gun robber chased off by cricket bat-wielding worker

Craig Myers

Staff Reporter

July 12, 2009 5:57 PM

A man tried to rob a Bay Minette-area store this weekend with a toy gun but was chased off by a worker wielding a cricket bat, Baldwin County investigators said.

Sims

A man entered Bee Gee's gas station and store on U.S. 31 in the Pine Grove community Saturday afternoon and tried to steal money using a toy gun, Baldwin County authorities said.

 

"After noticing that the suspect's gun had an orange tip at the end of the barrel, the employee grabbed a cricket bat and the suspect ... fled the store without getting any money," said Cpl. Mike Gaull of the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office.

Justin Blake Sims, 22, of Bay Minette, was arrested and charged with first-degree robbery. He was being held tonight in the Baldwin County Corrections Center on $25,000 bail, a jail worker said.

By Tom Callis
Peninsula Daily News

July 12, 2009 

PORT ANGELES -- A 37-year-old woman was arrested after the Clallam County Sheriff's Department said she threatened several people with a handgun in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin said Teresa Nadine Dumdie of Port Angeles threatened four other customers with a .22 caliber handgun at 4:54 p.m. Friday outside the store at 3500 E. U.S. Highway 101.

No one was injured.

Peregrin said Dumdie had argued with customers in the store after they had asked her to stop cursing and yelling at an employee.


Wrong ammunition

He said she was upset with the employee, saying she had sold her the wrong kind of ammunition.

After she received her refund, she walked out to the parking lot, removed a gun from her car and confronted the customers she had argued with earlier inside the store, Peregrin said.

"The long and the short of it is, she didn't like what was happening at the store . . . and as a result, pulled a weapon and threatened people with it out in the parking lot," he said.

Sheriff's deputies arrested Dumdie at 5:05 p.m. across the highway from Wal-Mart. She was booked into the Clallam County jail on investigation of first-degree assault.

Dumdie had left Wal-Mart in her car as the four deputies arrived.

"Our deputies got there before she was able to leave the scene," he said, "before she was able to threaten anyone else or cause any harm."

Peregrin said the Wal-Mart employees did the right thing by immediately notifying the Sheriff's Department.

"They did everything right in that regard," he said.

Originally published July 11, 2009 at 11:48 AM

Page modified July 11, 2009 at 10:55 PM

The Court of Appeals ruled his testimony was not necessary, given his age at the time of the alleged crimes and the fact that his mother had had an affair with Krause's supervisor.

According to Krause, the detective, the children were together when they were abused.

Both Matthew Spencer and Tetz testified their stepbrother was never abused by their father.

In 1985, Spencer entered the no-contest pleas, a type of guilty plea, after learning his court-appointed attorney had not prepared a defense. He felt pleading no contest was his only option, and that he would appeal his convictions.

Former Judge Thomas Lodge sentenced Spencer to two life terms in prison plus 14 years.

For several years, Spencer's appeals failed. He was denied parole five times because he refused to admit guilt and enter a sex-offender treatment program.

He hired Seattle attorney Peter Camiel in the mid-1990s. Camiel and a private investigator uncovered disturbing facts about the investigation — including that prosecutors withheld medical exams that showed no evidence of abuse, despite Krause's claims that the children had been violently, repeatedly raped. Those discoveries led Gov. Gary Locke to commute Spencer's sentence in 2004.

Spencer was ordered to be on supervision for three years.

He's still a convicted sex offender, and Friday's hearing was another step in the long process of clearing his name.

The process has taken its toll on Spencer, who suffered a heart attack in April.

"For so many years, nothing went right," said Spencer. "When things keep going right, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Senior Deputy Prosecutor Kim Farr grilled Spencer's son and daughter about why they are so certain they weren't abused.

Matthew Spencer said he knew his father had ruined the relationship with his mother.

"He had downfalls. But none of them were molesting children," he said.

Tetz said when she finally read the police reports, she was "absolutely sure" the abuse never happened.

"I would have remembered something that graphic, that violent."

Krause, who declined an interview request from The Columbian in 2005, could not be reached Friday.

If the Court of Appeals vacates Spencer's convictions, the case would return to the Clark County Prosecutor's Office. Charges would either be refiled or dismissed.

Appeal possible

Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Dennis Hunter wasn't ready to wave a white flag on Friday. He said if convictions are tossed, prosecutors could appeal to the state Supreme Court.

After the hearing, Spencer, who has received his doctorate in clinical psychology but cannot get his state license as long as he has a criminal record, said he will just have to wait and see.

But at least he has his children, who didn't talk to him for more than 20 years.

"They were my life, and they were taken away from me. That was the hardest part. I could serve in prison," Spen

LINK TO VIDEO AND PHOTO OF SON AND FATHER:

http://columbian.com/article/20090711/NEWS02/707119986/-1/ARCHIVES

RELATED ARTICLES:

Ex-cop will seek to clear his name

Friday, July 10 | 11:47 a.m.

STEPHANIE RICE
COLUMBIAN STAFF WRITER

cer said, before his voice trailed off, and his son came up for another hug.

Culture

Taller People Earn More Money

Robert Roy Britt

Editorial Director

posted: 11 July 2009 10:14 am ET

There's a growing body of research that finds taller people make more money.

The latest study, in Australia, found that being 6-foot tall brings raises annual income nearly $1,000 compared to men two inches shorter.

"Taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful," according to the study, published recently in the Economic Record.

"Our estimates suggest that if the average man of about 178 centimeters [5 feet 10 inches] gains an additional five centimeters [2 inches] in height, he would be able to earn an extra $950 per year - which is approximately equal to the wage gain from one extra year of labor market experience," said study co-author Andrew Leigh, an economist at the Australian National University.

Other studies in the United States and Britain put the extra earnings at nearly that much per inch.

"The truth is, tall people do make more money. They make $789 more per inch per year," says Arianne Cohen, author of "The Tall Book" (Bloomsbury USA, June, 2009).

There's nothing else physically measurable about tall people that explains the salary boost, however, Cohen explained recently on American Public Media's radio program Marketplace. "They're not nicer. They're not prettier. They're not anything else. But they've sort of gotten a halo in society at this point."

Serious money over time

As the inches mount, the salary continues to, too.

Cohen's number is based in part on a 2003 review of four large U.S. and UK studies led by Timothy Judge, a management professor at the University of Florida. Judge and his colleague concluded that someone who is 7 inches taller — for example, 6 feet versus 5 feet 5 inches — would be expected to earn $5,525 more per year.

Height was found to be more important than gender in determining income (though that claim is debatable, depending on how you analyze the gender salary gap) and its significance doesn't decline with age.

"If you take this over the course of a 30-year career and compound it, we're talking about literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of earnings advantage that a tall person enjoys," Judge said then.

Being tall may boost self-confidence, helping to make a person more successful and also prompting people to ascribe more status and respect to the tall person, Judge said.

Of course all such studies generate averages. A shorter person can certainly beat the odds, and not every tall person is raking it in.

Cohen, who is 6 foot 3 inches tall, says the pay advantage is conferred partly because taller people tend to exude leadership.

"Tall people tend to act like a leader from a very young age because other children relate to them like a slightly older peer," she said on the radio program. "In the workplace, when you're automatically acting as a leader, that's really important when it comes time for promotion."

To some extent, then, the advantage of height may date back to youth.

A 2003 study of 2,000 U.S. men found that their height at age 16 had a big effect on their salary as an adult, regardless of how tall they ended up being. "We found that two adults of the same age and height, who were different heights at age 16, were treated differently in the labor market. The taller teen earned more," said study team member Nicola Persico of the University of Pennsylvania.

Vertically challenged

All is not rosy on high, however.

In her book, Cohen notes that being tall can cost more, from additional food requirements to costlier clothes and the desire for outsized things like high-ceilinged homes. (Interestingly, there's a growing debate about whether obese people should pay for their excess footprint on society and the environment, yet nobody is calling for taxing the tall.)

The average height for American men is about 5 feet 9 inches nearly 5 feet 4 inches for women. In more than a century, no U.S. president has been below average height (the last one was William McKinley, at 5 feet 7 inches, and he was ridiculed in the press as a "little boy," Judge said).

Judge figures the advantages of height today are rooted in our evolutionary decision-making regarding who was most powerful.

"When humans evolved as a species and still lived in the jungles or on the plain, they ascribed leader-like qualities to tall people because they thought they would be better able to protect them," Judge said. "Although that was thousands of years ago, evolutionary psychologists would argue that some of those old patterns still operate in our perceptions today."

Man stole beer in his underwear

He was only wearing underwear when he
entered

Updated: Friday, 10 Jul 2009, 6:29 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 10 Jul 2009, 3:20 PM

Shane Allen

Dayvon Lee, accused of stealing beer in his pants

The Great Bell, which resides inside one of the country's most famous and most photographed landmarks, first struck the hour on July 11 1859.

Although the nickname Big Ben is often used to describe the clock tower, the name was originally given to the bell itself

The origin of the name is thought to come from Sir Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings, whose name is inscribed on the bell.

The anniversary will be marked with a night-time projection on the tower reading: "Happy Birthday Big Ben, 150 years, 1859 - 2009."

Mike McCann, Keeper of the Great Clock, said: "After 150 years, Big Ben still holds a special place in the hearts of Londoners and the world as a magnificent example of engineering and building genius."

Architect Charles Barry designed the new Palace of Westminster after a fire destroyed the old Houses of Parliament in 1834.

The clock tower was completed in 1859 and the clock first started on May 31 of that year, with the bell sounding for the first time just over a month later.

The first bell was cast in 1856 but cracked the following year under testing.

The second bell, weighing 13.7 tonnes, was cast on April 10 1858. It took 30 hours to winch into the belfry.

But its success was short-lived and in September 1859 it also cracked.

It was silent for four years until, in 1863, it was turned so the hammer struck a different spot.

A lighter hammer was also put to use and a small square cut in the bell to prevent the crack from spreading.

The clock tower stands 315ft tall, with each of the four dials measuring 23ft in diameter.

The original cast-iron minute hands proved too heavy and were replaced with 14 feet long copper hands which travel a distance equal to 118 miles every year.

The hour hands are 9ft long and are made of gun metal while 312 separate pieces of glass in each clock face.

Over the years the clock has been stopped accidentally on several occasions, by weather, workmen, breakages and birds.

In 1976 the Great Clock was shut down for a total of 26 days over nine months when part of the chiming mechanism disintegrated through metal fatigue.

Big Ben turns 150 years old in London

UPDATE: Alleged bank robber tried getting ride from undercover Saginaw Township detective

by Andy Hoag 

The Saginaw News

Out of prison for just over three weeks, Mark E. White chose the wrong car to try to hitch a ride with on Wednesday.

Just two blocks from the Citizens Bank at 2815 E. Genesee in Saginaw that he allegedly robbed five minutes earlier, White, 50, flagged down Saginaw Township Detective Scott Jackson of the auto theft division for a ride.

Jackson slowed his car enough to allow city patrol officer Ian Wegner enough time to provide backup, and a little more than three weeks after he was released from prison on parole, White was back in police custody.

Saginaw County District Judge Terry L. Clark on Friday arraigned White on a charges of bank robbery, making a false bomb threat, attempted carjacking, assault with intent to commit a felony and assault and resisting a police officer.

Clark set bond at $755,000 for White, who was in Saginaw County Jail.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 24 before District Judge Kyle Higgs Tarrant.

The officers arrested White, 50, three blocks from the bank shortly after the 2:30 p.m. robbery.

As White saw Wegner getting closer, he tried opening Jackson's passenger door without permission. After Jackson told White he was a police officer, White tried to flee before Wegner apprehended him.

White gained parole from West Shoreline Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights on June 16, where was serving to 15 months to 10 years in prison for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated-third offense and violating a previous parole.

His current address is listed as 402 Lafayette in Bay City.

White was previously on parole for another unarmed robbery case in Oakland County in 1994. That conviction, along with two counts of uttering and publishing, earned him a minimum 10-year sentence that began in 1996.

Saturday July 11, 2009, 2:04 PM

Prisoner escapes after switching identity with twin brother

 

Roya Nikkhah

Telegraph UK
9:30PM BST 11 Jul 2009

It is believed that Maclellan, who was on remand at HMP Winchester, walked from court when he pretended to be his brother. Photo: SOLENT NEWS

Simon Peter Maclellan, 27, from Gosport, Hants, has not been seen since Friday afternoon when he was released by magistrates.

Maclellan, who was on remand at HMP Winchester in connection with a serious assault, escaped when he pretended to be his twin brother, Mark, who is also on remand at the same prison for a less serious offence

The pair are non identical twins.

Hampshire Police said that a 27-year-old man had been arrested in connection with aiding and abetting the escape.

A spokesman, said: "It is believed that Maclellan, who was on remand at HMP Winchester in connection with a serious assault, walked from court when he pretended to be his brother, Mark, who was also on remand at HMP Winchester."

The deceit was discovered on Friday night by prison officials who alerted police shortly after 9pm.

Detectives began an immediate search for Maclellan and have been conducting enquiries over the weekend. The police have advised people not to approach the defendant who has a history of violence.

He is described as a white European with blue eyes, brown hair, of slim build and about 5ft 8".

The defendant, who was wearing blue jeans and a grey shirt when he walked from court, was due to stand trial in August in connection with an offence of GBH in Gosport, in December.

A Prison Service spokesman, said: "A prisoner from HMP Winchester was mistakenly released instead of his brother.

"The prison are treating it as an escape and an internal investigation is under way.

"This is now a matter for the police."