Man Charged With Stealing Thousands In Detergent

53-year-old South St. Paul man has been charged with theft, after police say he stole thousands of dollars worth of detergent from a retailer.
According to the criminal complaint, Patrick Paul Costanzo was spotted on surveillance video pushing carts full of detergent out of a store without paying for it.
Police met with a loss prevention employee at the store in West St. Paul who said the inventory audit showed an abnormal loss of Tide laundry detergent.

According to loss prevention, the total thefts documented on video surveillance was estimated at approximately $6,000. They also told police that over the past 15 months, inventory reports showed a loss of $25,000 in missing laundry detergent.

Video surveillance showed the same man taking detergent and other items on four out of five days during the week, without paying for it.
On Feb. 8, the suspect, later identified as Costanzo, entered the store and attempted to push out another cart of items without paying for them but was detained by staff.
Video surveillance showed that in addition to the date of Costanzo’s arrest, he was seen at the store on 28 days between Jan. 1 and Feb. 7, selecting laundry detergent and other items. The total amount of merchandise taken between those dates was $6,339.09.

Suspect killed, ate homeless man

LYNN HAVEN — A man who allegedly killed and ate a homeless person traveled to Lynn Haven where he was arrested, Lynn Haven police said Wednesday.


Tyree Smith, 34, of Bridgeport, Conn., told a family member that he killed the victim with a hatchet, police wrote in a news release. Smith, who was covered in blood at the time, added that "after he bludgeoned the victim he took pieces of brain matter and his eye, which he consumed," police said.

After the confession, Smith took a bus and arrived Monday in Lynn Haven, where he stayed with a female friend, officials said. Investigators were able to locate Smith at 7 p.m. Tuesday night at an apartment on Illinois Avenue. The woman he was staying with "was unaware of Smith's actions and is cooperating in the investigation," officials wrote.

The Connecticut Post reported Smith is being charged in the death of Angel "Tun Tun" Gonzalez, 43.The newspaper reported Smith had gone to sleep on the back porch of a building, but Gonzalez later woke him and invited him in from the cold. Once in the abandoned home where  Gonzalez lived, Smith killed Gonzalez, according to an affidavit the newspaper obtained.

Read more: http://www.newsherald.com/articles/police-99905-smith-haven.html#ixzz1kVfS8Vc7

Undercover police had children with activists

Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal.

In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades – were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children's mothers for many years.

One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner.

The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child's mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother's political activities and life.

The disclosures are likely to intensify the controversy over the long-running police operation to infiltrate and sabotage protest groups.

Police chiefs claim that undercover officers are strictly forbidden from having sexual relationships with the activists they are spying on, describing the situations as "grossly unprofessional" and "morally wrong".
But that claim has been undermined as many of the officers who have been unmasked have admitted to, or have been accused of, having sex with the targets of their surveillance.

Last month eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term intimate relationships of up to nine years with five undercover policemen started unprecedented legal action. They say they have suffered immense emotional trauma and pain over the relationships, which spanned the period from 1987 to 2010.

Until now it was not known that police had secretly fathered children while living undercover. One of them is Lambert, who adopted a fake persona to infiltrate animal rights and environmental groups in the 1980s.

After he was unmasked in October, he admitted that as "Bob Robinson" he had conned an innocent woman into having an 18-month relationship with him, apparently so that he could convince activists he was a real person. She is one of the women taking the legal action against police chiefs.

Now the Guardian can reveal that in the mid-1980s, just a year into his deployment, Lambert fathered a boy with another woman, who was one of the activists he had been sent to spy on.

The son lived with his mother during the early years of his life as his parents' relationship did not last long. During that time, Lambert was in regular contact with the infant, fitting visits to him around his clandestine duties.

After two years, the mother married another man and both of them took responsibility for raising the child. Lambert says the woman was keen that he give up his legal right to maintaining contact with his son and cut him out of her new life. He says the agreement was reached amicably and he has not seen or heard of the mother or their son since then.

Lambert did not tell her or the child that he was a police spy as he needed to conceal his real identity from the political activists he was spying on. The Guardian is not naming the woman or the child to protect their privacy.

Lambert was married during his secret mission, which continued until 1988. The highly secretive operation to monitor and disrupt political activists, which has been running for four decades, has come under mounting scrutiny since last year following revelations over the activities of Mark Kennedy, the undercover police officer who went rogue after burying himself deep in the environmental movement for seven years.

Police chiefs and prosecutors have set up 12 inquiries over the past year to examine allegations of misconduct involving police spies, but all of them have been held behind closed doors. There have been continuing calls, including from the former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald, for a proper public inquiry.

The second case involves an undercover policeman who was sent to spy on activists some years ago. He had a short-lived relationship with a political activist which produced a child.

He concealed his real identity from the activist and child as he was under strict orders to keep secret his undercover work from her and the other activists in the group he infiltrated. He then disappeared, apparently after his superiors ended his deployment. Afterwards, she remained under surveillance as she continued to be politically active, while he carried on with his police career.

The Guardian understands that as he had access to the official monitoring reports, he regularly read details of her life with a close interest. He watched as she grew older and brought up their child as a single parent, according to an individual who is aware of the details of the case.

The policeman has been "haunted" by the experience of having no contact with the child, whom he thought about regularly, according to the individual.

Over the top on the ding dong ditch

A Rockville Centre attorney is under arrest after allegedly holding a suspected teenage prankster at gunpoint until officers arrived at her home Sunday night, Nassau County police said.
Bernadette Greenwald, 47, apparently lost her cool after someone repeatedly rang her doorbell and ran from the home around 11:15 p.m. Sunday.

The “ding, dong, ditch” prank was apparently carried out three times and after the last incident, police said Greenwald, a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney, grabbed her .9 mm pistol and fired one round into the air in front of her house.

Police said Greenwald later saw a 17-year-old boy walking in front of her N. Forest Avenue home. She allegedly approached the teen and pointed the gun at him.  Greenwald’s retired Air Force pilot apparently returned home to discover the youth inside his home.

“[Greenwald's husband] arrived during the incident. He did see his wife with a gun. It’s a licensed gun, it is registered to her. In the house with the wife holding the gun, He pulled the kid outside the house, and waited for the police,” attorney Mitchell Barnett said.

According to court papers, a 17-year-old teen testified “I had 5 or 6 beers” and then walked towards the Greenwald’s home.  “A woman appeared at the front door with a gun,” papers said. “I was scared…I put my hands up in the air.”
The teen’s shaken mother told CBS 2′s Jennifer McLogan: “I’m very emotional right now.  My son did not do anything wrong.”

Greenwald has been charged with menacing, reckless endangerment and prohibited use of a dangerous weapon. The married mother of two declined to comment on her arrest when reached by 1010 WINS.
Barnett, said his client was home alone with her two children Sunday night and felt threatened. He also contended that the teenager had been found loitering on the Greenwald property in the past.

Killer Mom! No really she killed her kids.

Twenty years ago, Kristine Cushing shot and killed her two daughters in their sleep.

Cushing was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, but her action 20 years ago has Trish Conlon fearing the safety of her two teenage sons today. Conlon is the ex-wife of former Marine fighter pilot Lt. Col. John P. Cushing Jr., who was married to Kristine Cushing when she killed their daughters — and who is remarried to her today.

Accompanied by her attorney, Todd DeVallance, Trisha Conlon spoke exclusively with TODAY’s Matt Lauer on Tuesday about her worries concerning her sons living with a woman who once shot and killed her own daughters.

“I am not willing to risk my kids’ lives on speculation,’’ Conlon told NBC News. “When a person is capable, they’re capable.’’

A convoluted custody dispute has resulted in the two boys living with the Cushings at their home on Vashon Island, south of Seattle. They were dropped off on Sunday after a court ruled against Conlon attaining full custody of her boys. Another hearing is set for Aug. 25.

“It wasn’t easy,’’ Conlon, who lives in Silverton, Ore., told Lauer about dropping the boys off at the Cushings’ home. “It was gut-wrenching. I don’t even have words to describe it.’’


Two deaths
In 1991, Kristine Cushing used a .38-caliber handgun to shoot and kill her two daughters, ages 4 and 8. The killings stunned the affluent community of Laguna Niguel, Calif., where neighbors thought of Kristine as a “super-mom,’’ who shepherded her daughters to various activities while her husband was overseas on tours of duty. The killings were blamed on the convergence of Cushing’s use of the antidepressant Prozac, a debilitating heart condition, and the impending dissolution of her 17-year marriage to John.

Once Conlon determined in 2007 that Kristine had returned to her ex-husband’s home, she immediately went to court to try to alter the parenting plan regarding the two sons she had with John. The boys are currently 13 and 14.

“I came to realize that my ex-husband’s first wife was back in the home, so that caused concern for me due to the fact that she killed their two children,’’ Conlon told NBC News.

“This is not an allegation,’’ Conlon’s lawyer, Todd DeVallance told Lauer Tuesday. “These are facts. They are undisputed facts from the record. This woman has harmed children in the past. She has killed children in the past.’’

The Cushings did not respond to NBC’s interview requests for this story. In court documents, John has said that Kristine’s sanity has been “restored” and that “she is busy, enjoys life and loves me and my sons."


Bizarre case
For three years, Conlon said, she was unaware that Kristine was living with her boys. The boys were instructed to use a false name for Kristine and lie to Conlon about her presence in the home, Conlon told Lauer. Conlon and DeVallance hired a private investigator who determined that Kristine was back living in John’s home.

Conlon went to court in mid-June and was awarded full custody of her sons for 30 days. However, in a recent hearing about whether the parenting plan should be modified, the court ruled against Conlon.


“What was said was that [Kristine] hasn’t hurt anybody since 2008, and so they didn’t allow a change in the plan at this point,’’ Conlon told Lauer.

Commissioner Leonid Ponomarchuk ruled that since the boys had been spending time with Kristine for three years without incident, even though it was unbeknownst to Conlon, she did not pose a threat that warranted a change in the parenting plan.

“Despite the serious history in this case, there is no presentation of a current threat to the children,’’ Ponomarchuk stated.


However, Ponomarchuk also acknowledged the bizarre nature of the case.

"I have to look at this dispassionately," Ponomarchuk said. "Would I ever want my children around her? I would say no. But that is an emotional reaction coming from a parent."

Kristine Cushing spent four years in a mental institution. After a subsequent decade of psychiatric monitoring, it was determined that she posed no risk.

“First of all, this is not a criminal case, this is a family law matter,’’ DeVallance told Lauer Tuesday. “What Trish is asking the court to do is make sure her children are safe. That is, to impose adequate safeguards, limitations and restrictions in the existing parenting plan. The commissioner actually dismissed Trish’s case, saying Trish’s case had no merit.’’

In 2007, Conlon was contacted by a Washington state Child Protective Services worker who informed her that Kristine’s therapist had contacted CPS to inform them that Kristine was living with children again. The fact that the situation was reported by CPS indicates more recent behavior that is cause for concern, according to Conlon.

“Her psychiatrist felt that there was a need to report this situation, and so there is recency, there is currency,’’ Conlon told Lauer. “It’s not something that just happened 20 years ago.’’

As for her children, 14-year-old Stephen and 13-year-old Sam, Conlon is hoping to shield them from being caught up in the public nature of the custody fight.

“I’m trying as much as I can to keep them out of this, away from this,’’ she said. “This should be an easy custody battle between adults, and I’d rather not talk about what their thoughts are.’’

Conlon was also asked by Lauer about whether her ex-husband would allow the current parenting situation if he believed it was unsafe because of Kristine’s history.

“I’ve spoken with it to folks, even folks in the mental health profession,,’’ Conlon said. “The words ‘guilt’ and ‘denial’ come up. To believe that she’s OK, to believe that it was the fault of Prozac and the fault of medical events coming together — I’m sure helps him to deal with it as well.’’

Conlon and DeVallance are now looking for a more favorable ruling regarding alteration of the parenting plan in the hearing on Aug. 25.

“We’re hopeful, we’re optimistic the judge will overturn the ruling,’’ DeVallance said.

Let your balls hang somewhere else

BONNEAU, S.C. (AP) - A Berkeley County woman will get a jury trial for a ticket she was given by police for displaying big plastic testicles on the back of her pickup truck.

Virginia Tice of Bonneau was given a $445 ticket July 5 that accuses her of violating the state's obscene bumper sticker law.

Police Chief Franco Fuda asked for a jury trial, saying questions of obscenity should be determined by community standards.

Tice's attorney, Scott Bischoff, expects a trial next month. A relative said Tice didn't want to talk about the case before the trial.

She was ticketed after pulling into a gas station in her truck with big red fake testicles hanging from the trailer hitch.

Your basic Thia hooker turned Rhino horn smugler story

JOHANNESBURG - A smuggler paid Thai hookers to take poached rhino horns out of South Africa and into the lucrative Asian market, the Mail and Guardian reported Friday.

Thai national Chumlong Lemtongthai was arrested last week outside Johannesburg on suspicion of being part of a syndicate that sold at least 40 rhino horns.

The poached horns were taken to a taxidermist and made to look like hunting trophies, but to get around a lack of hunters, Lemtongthai found a creative solution.

He paid Thai hookers and strippers 5,000 rand ($740) each to pose as hunters and take the horns back to Thailand.

Lemtongthai reportedly made a profit of $8.9 million before he was caught.


Read more: AFP

Dog Bites Shark

Sharks are the undisputed kings of the shallows, voracious predators who, with one flash of a fin, can send crowds of paddlers fleeing for the safety of the shore.
But one plucky pooch showed a group of these fierce fish just how handy man's best friend can be when he rounds them up like a flock of timid lambs.
These incredible pictures show the moment a dog rounds on a group of sharks, and even dives under the water and gives one a nip.