Stupid criminals

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINAL: In May, the inept Christopher Emmorey, 23, was sentenced to two years in prison for robbing a Peterborough, Ontario, bank, from which he had intended to take $2,000. However, the teller said she could only give him $200 and also must take out a $5 fee because Emmorey is not a regular customer. Emmorey stood stoically while she did the paperwork and then handed him $195, which he took and walked away (only to be arrested a short time later).

KNOW WHAT YOU PAID FOR: The sheriff‘s office in Clyman, Wis., reported that a man called 911 on April 21, alarmed that he had just paid $20 to a woman at a club after a lap dance and then realized that she was not the one who had danced for him.

FINE POINTS OF THE LAW: Thomas Wimberly, 74, was arrested in July 2006 for stealing two hot dogs (value: $2.11, including tax) from a Quik Trip convenience store in Wichita, Kan. (though he said he had merely forgotten to pay). Because it was Wimberly‘s third misdemeanor theft charge, Kansas law required that the count be upgraded to a felony. Wimberly could not immediately make bail, and in fact was incarcerated for 71 days before his trial (once being subject to a bond of $100,000), but prosecutors insisted on a trial. In April 2007, a jury of 12 people (reportedly angry at having been called to such an insignificant case) found Wimberly not guilty. (The penalty, according to state law, if he had been convicted, was 12 months‘ probation.)

MEMORABLE BONG: In May, a woman in Jacksonville, Ill., reported the theft of a bong from her house; she told police that she valued it because it belonged to her son, who is in prison, and it is all she had to remember him by.

RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH: In May, a jury in Weld County, Colo., declined to hold Kathleen Ensz accountable for leaving a flier containing her dog‘s droppings on the doorstep of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, apparently agreeing with Ensz that she was merely exercising free speech.

- News of the Weird, Universal Press Syndicate