I was the conference manager on an online service named Genie. In its heyday, Genie was a per hour rated service. That is, you paid for every hour online, unlike today’s unlimited access.

This, of course, created a subculture of folks that would hack into the system to get online free. Many bragged about using stolen credit cards or using alogarithms to create fake but usable numbers.

One young man would often come into the Apple II area - bragging loud and long about his prowess as a hacker and his ability to crack into Genie and get online free. Periodically, we’d have to boot him due to his sometimes rude actions, but he kept coming back. One day he spotted something on the bulletin board he wanted to purchase. Apparently, forgetting his boastings, he sent the proper amount of money for the item he wanted - along with his REAL shipping address. Needless to say, this information was imparted to me, and I sent it onto Genie management.

ST. ROSE, LA — He got away with it once. But when a bank robber used a getaway cab for the third time in four days, it landed him back in the slammer.

Noel Miller, 48, was serving a nine-year sentence for bank robbery in San Francisco when he fled May 10.

Authorities said Miller made his way to Louisiana and robbed a Metairie bank last Friday, taking a taxi to the airport and vanishing there, but after knocking off a New Orleans bank and a St. Rose bank Monday morning and heading back to the airport, his luck ran out: A witness this time followed his cab and notified police.

“I understand he did resist arrest but was taken into custody quickly,'’ said St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne.

Miller, who had been staying at a New Orleans motel, told investigators he was robbing banks to finance his gambling habit and to support himself, authorities said.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office turned Miller over to the FBI later Monday, agent Sheila Thorne said. Miller, who robbed his first bank in Nassau County, N.Y., in 1985, is also a suspect in an undisclosed number of bank heists that occurred in other states between May 10 and his arrival in Louisiana, authorities said.

Authorities said none of the cab drivers seemed to have been aware that they were transporting a criminal.

Monday’s robberies happened at Hibernia National Bank branch in New Orleans shortly before 11 a.m. and about 30 minutes later at First American Bank in St. Rose. Police said they suspect Miller took the same taxi, from Ed’s Cab Service, to and from both banks.

Authorities said it did not appear that Miller used a weapon in the robberies, but he showed a capacity to commit violence.

“He threatened to kill everyone in the bank if they did not give him any money,'’ Champagne said of the St. Rose robbery. “Obviously, he is somebody who is very dangerous.'’

But after the St. Rose robbery, a witness saw Miller get into a cab in the parking lot and followed it to the airport, investigators said. Miller was dropped off in front of the Delta Airlines skycap station, and the witness notified police.

Local authorities said Miller had been on the run for 12 days, since escaping May 10 from Cornell Correctional Institute in San Francisco. Prison officials were unavailable to say how he got out.

He arrived in New Orleans Wednesday by train from Charleston, S.C., and took up residence at a motel, police said. Two days later, he allegedly robbed Omni Bank in Metairie.

Oscar Sanabria, the Checker-Yellow Taxi Cab Co. driver who ferried the robber in the Metairie heist, said he didn’t notice anything unusual about his customer.

Sanabria picked up the fare at Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans and made a couple stops downtown before being directed to an Omni Bank. At the Metairie branch, Sanabria, 49, stepped out of his cab to have a smoke while the customer went inside.

“I took about three puffs off the cigarette,'’ he recalled. “And he came out and said, ‘Let’s go. Let’s go to the airport.”’

I was a Deputy Sheriff for Del Norte County, California. One day in 1956 while I was on patrol, I came upon a car in the ditch on the side of the road. Called dispatch, car had been reported stolen at 3 am, this date. I asked dispatch to send a tow truck out.

I went to the homes nearest the scene. Interviewed residents. They told me, about 1 am they heard a noise in front, looked out the window and saw the car in the ditch. A male driver was trying to get the car out, no luck. The driver got out and started walking south. He was a tall, skinny man. Walking like he was drunk and he had a little white dog with him. Some time later I was in the office, a tall, skinny man carrying a small white dog. Came to the counter, he wanted to get his car. I interviewed him for a time and he admitted driving the car into the ditch and then reporting the car stolen. He was booked and released. Another fun day was complete.

CHEROKEE, OKLAHOMA — When he heard about a 911 call involving a serious car accident with injuries, Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Darrin Lancaster stopped pursuing a speeding motorist and headed in the opposite direction.

No accident was found, and Lancaster, assigned to Alfalfa County, said in court papers that the 911 call was a diversionary tactic to prevent him from catching the motorist he was pursuing.

Steven Clint Mathis, 21, of Cherokee, has been charged with misdemeanor counts of false reporting of a crime, obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties and making a false 911 call. He is to appear back in court next month.

Lancaster said he was one of about 18 law and rescue officers to arrive at the scene of the reported accident on the west side of Cherokee. Others dispatched to the scene were Cherokee’s police and fire departments and Alfalfa County sheriff’s deputies and ambulance crews.

No wreck was ever found.

Minutes before hearing of the 911 call, Lancaster lost sight of the red sports car he had been pursuing early on May 7. Speeds reached 120 mph, Lancaster said in court documents filed in Alfalfa County District Court.

Lancaster stopped at a house where he saw several people outside to ask them whether any had seen a car speed by, he said. All of them, including Mathis, denied seeing a car, and Lancaster said he continued his pursuit.

Lancaster said he later talked with Mathis, who said he recognized the car the trooper was chasing.

After Lancaster left, Mathis said a friend, Bo Ginder, told him they needed to prevent the trooper from catching their friend, and Ginder gave him his cell phone, the affidavit said.

Mathis said he dialed 911 and reported a head-on crash in Cherokee, Lancaster said in his affidavit.

Here’s some advice for fugitives: don’t hitch a ride with a sheriff’s deputy.

A trio of brash men wanted for arson in TIfton, Georga accepted a ride to the county line from Thomas County deputy Don Allen.

The men’s car had broken down and Allen stopped to help. The three, who were from Ohio and Tennessee, told him they were headed to Panama City Beach, Florida and he offered a ride part of the way.

During the drive, Allen heard a “be-on-the-lookout” message on his car radio about three arson suspects, one with long, black hair.

“It’s a good thing one of you hasn’t got long hair,” Allen said.

That’s when one responded that he had just cut his hair, prompting Allen to draw his gun and pull off the road.

Police charged Jerrick Sumlin, 21 of Dayton, Ohio; Timothy Conatser, 19, of Centerville, Ohio; and Scott Rawlings, 21, of Gatlinburg, Tennessee with first-degree arson.

A Tifton woman told police she had let the men stay at her house for ten days, but they left Wednesday after she and Conatser had an argument.

“During the harsh words, these guys got angry and decided to set the house on fire,” police detective Porter Jackson said. “They lit up and they left.”

A Fort Smith man who robbed a convenience store at gunpoint while wearing an orange hard hat with his name written across the front was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday.

A Sebastian County CIrcuit Court jury deliberated only one hour before returning with a guilty verdict for James Newsome, 42. He was convicted of aggravated robbery, which carries a sentence of 10 to 40 years or life in prison.

Fort Smith police sayt they recovered the hard hat in a dumpster at Air Systems, Inc., a company for which Newsome worked at one time. He was arrested for the January 24, 1999 armed robbery of The Gas Well convenience store on Zero Street.

Ann Buckner, who was working behind the counter at the time of the robbery, said she remembered that Newsome’s full name was printed on the hard hat and even spelled the name for police. During a victim impact statement to the jury before sentencing, Buckner called the memory of Newsome pointing a revolver at her “the most horrifying experience” of her life.

“Could he have been smarter about the way he tried to cover things up? Yes, he could have,” said Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Stacey Slaughter in closing statements. However, she encouraged jurors to look at all the evidence in the case, “which included cash found in Newsome’s possession, dark clothing similar to that worn during the robbery and Buckner’s description of Newsome.

Public defender Ben Beland presented a two-pronged defense. He said the evidence against Newsome was circumstantial and, besides, said Beland, Newsome suffered from extensive mental problems.

“He evidently does have some mental problems,” Beland told jurors just before they deliberated for sentencing.

Newsome sat impassively with his head nodding rhythmically back and forth during the two-day trial that began Monday.

A psychiatrist who testified for the state said he believes Newsome suffers from malingering, which he described as “assuming a demeanor to impress others that you are mentally ill.”

Newsome’s former wife, Catherine Newsome, also testified for the state. She said he began to have delusions that became especially aggravated just before the robbery.

“I think he was in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” she said.

She told jurors that her husband would play with toy guns and tell her that he did “secret work” for the CIA and police just before the robbery.

Beland told jurors that Newsome could not remember the robbery.

Part of the sentence meted out by jurors calls for Newsome to undergo counseling while in prison.

Story courtesy of John Anderson of the Southwest Times Record, Forth Smith, Arkansas

It simply wasn’t a good day for two aspiring burglars in Alpine, California. First, the best time to attempt a residential break-in is not at 8:00 on a Saturday morning when most people are at home. The two men were spotted removing property from a home on Bay Meadows Drive.

When sheriff’s deputies pulled up after being summoned by the homeowner, the intruders took off at a run. A short distance later they split up and one jumped over a fence into a back yard. It turned out to be the home of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer - who took the fleeing suspect into custody. The other man ducked into the garage of another home and dove under a car. Apparently he didn’t notice that the car he hid under was painted black and white and topped with a red and blue light bar. It also belonged to a California Highway Patrol officer who works outlying areas of the county.

To make matters worse, according to sheriff’s investigator Dan Pearce, the two men had been using a truck reported stolen a few days earlier. And in the truck, he said, was loot from two other recent burglaries in whch the men are now suspects.