Features

Philly lures fugitives with phony mail, cash promises 

PHILADELPHIA — They thought they were getting money owed to them by the city. Instead, more than six dozen fugitives got arrested. 

Using a phony city agency and fake letters promising big bucks, Philadelphia police lured 80 fugitives into a trap over the last two months. 

Detectives sent out letters from the fictional Office of Municipal Audit and Disbursement to 549 fugitives wanted for crimes ranging from burglary to fraud. The letter said that the agency owed the fugitives $1,320.27 in unpaid benefits and they could get the check at the office. 

A fake office was set up near other city offices. When the cash-motivated fugitives arrived in the waiting room, a staff member would ask them to go into the next room to sign for the checks. 

Instead of a fat check, the room was full of detectives waiting to escort the fugitive into a police car. 

“It was just con men being conned. Greed took over,” Sgt. Joe Motto said. 

Arrests included 27 people charged with assault and battery, nine charged with burglary and 10 charged with robbery. 

Farmer claimed to lost herd 

PITTSBURGH — Call it the “Little Bo Peep” ploy. 

A dairy farmer has admitted he tried to hide his assets, including 200 head of cattle, from creditors and federal agents by claiming he couldn’t find them. 

Vern E. Over has pleaded guilty to concealment of assets and bankruptcy fraud for selling livestock and equipment from his Clarion County dairy farm and then telling a bankruptcy trustee and FBI agents he didn’t know where they went, according to court documents. 

Over has also agreed to tell authorities what happened to the missing property. 

According to court documents and his lawyer, Michael Witherel, Over sold some of the items after he filed for bankruptcy in 1994. 

When his western Pennsylvania farm was being liquidated a year later to pay creditors, a bankruptcy trustee couldn’t count the cattle, tractors, wagon, plows and other farm equipment because they were gone. 

“There’s no question that things were sold,” Witherel said. “He’s a good and decent man who shouldn’t have done what he did and he’s going to pay the price.” 

Over could face five years in prison under sentencing guidelines, but Witherel said he would likely get no more than 1 1/2 years. 

Ball club bans bin Laden from their bobbleheads dolls 

HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Bobblehead dolls are a popular promotion at ball games, but a minor league baseball team decided that Osama bin Laden’s head doesn’t belong on them. 

The Hagerstown Suns, an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, rejected a proposed bin Laden bobblehead giveaway promotion Thursday after an Internet poll indicated most people would find it distasteful. 

The team had considered a promotion in which fans entering the ballpark would be given the dolls and then be invited to smash them. 

Of 194 responses, 72 percent considered the idea “way out of line,” according to the team’s Web site. 

“We’re really glad the fans got online and voted,” team general manager Kurt Landes said. He said the club’s staff came up with the idea. 

Bobblehead manufacturer Alexander Global Promotions, of Bellevue, Wash., gets requests every week for bin Laden dolls, company chief executive Malcolm Alexander said. 

“The answer from us consistently has been no,” he said. 

Idaho elevates their potatoes 

BOISE, Idaho — At the prompting of fourth graders, Idaho’s famous potatoes are being elevated to the top of the vegetable heap. 

The state Senate unanimously sent Gov. Dirk Kempthorne a bill that would designate the potato as Idaho’s official state vegetable. 

The bill, passed Thursday, had already been approved by the House. 

For decades, Idaho has led the nation in potato production, making spuds practically synonymous with the state. Most license plates are graced with the slogan “Famous Potatoes.” 

Now the potato joins other official state symbols like the mountain bluebird, cutthroat trout and Appaloosa horse. 

The idea for the official vegetable came from fourth-grade classes studying Idaho history at Grand View Elementary School. The children wrote to 200 other fourth-grade classes around the state and to all 105 legislators for their support.