Around midnight on Oct. 5, Hillsborough, Florida sheriff’s deputies got a call about a suspicious person in the 7-Eleven parking lot at U.S. 301 and Big Bend Road.

When Deputy Daryl Bowden of District 4 arrived, he found James Voytek Jr. asleep in a car. He also found a sawed-off 20-gauge shotgun with the serial numbers rubbed off, both of which are against the law.

Voytek woke up and told deputies that he was on his way from Tennessee to his home in Vero Beach. Bowden said Voytek had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath.

Voytek was unable to produce his driver’s license.

“He said he didn’t have his driver’s license because it was revoked for DUI,” said sheriff’s spokesman Rod Reder.

A Philadelphia man whose impromptu sex stop in a stranger’s driveway led to his arrest on drug charges pleaded guilty this week in Bucks County Court.

Daniel Villafane, 24, was sentenced to six to 23 months in Bucks County (Pennsylvania) Prison and granted immediate parole.

Villafane and his girlfriend, Evelyn Torres, 24, were arrested in February after they pulled their car into the driveway off Ridge Road in West Rockhill around 7 a.m. Neighbors said they saw the couple having sex on the automobile and called police.

The pair was fully clothed when police arrived but the officers smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the car. They searched the vehicle and found more than 2 pounds of marijuana, worth about $11,000 on the street, in the back seat.

Baggies and other drug paraphernalia were found in the trunk. Police said Villafane and Torres told them that they were traveling from Allentown to Philadelphia when they stopped.

They did not explain why they were allegedly having sex in the driveway, police records say.

Villafane was scheduled to stand trial this week, but instead entered a surprise guilty plea Wednesday during a bail hearing. Deputy District Attorney Craig Penglase said he was satisfied with the sentence.

Villafane did not testify at the hearing. He pleaded guilty to charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia and conspiracy. Torres will stand trial in county court next week.

This goes back a few years. In 1980, in New Richland, Minnesota, where I was police chief, I sat at a gas station in the early morning. I saw a car go through a stop sign. I pulled him over and gave him a warning. Underaged, yet with an adult girlfriend, he had a six pack of beer, which I made him open and pour out.

About a half hour later, from the same gas station, I saw another car roll through the same stop sign. I headed after him, he turned right, about four blocks ahead of me. With a gut instinct, I turned right a couple blocks before him, then turned left. The car was coming toward me, with his headlights off. I turned and proceeded to chase him through about eight stop signs, before turning onto the main street. He made another turn off main street, losing control and smashing into three cars that were parked alongside the bank.

I pulled side by side with him and realized it was the same kid (driving another car) I had pulled over a half hour before. Not ready to give up, the kid backed up and went a couple more blocks before pulling over. I was more than happy to turn him over to the Sheriff’s Department.

I don’t think he had a happy time with his parents.

A German policewoman has snared a wanted criminal after she arranged a blind date with him, police say.

The policewoman found the 29-year-old man’s mobile phone number and landed a date after flirting with him, said a police spokesman on Tuesday.

“It all began as a wrong number call, which then turned into a conversation, and eventually a date in a bar downtown”, he said.

The criminal — wanted in the town of Recklinghausen, north of Cologne, for crimes worth a total of three years behind bars if he is convicted — not only fell for the ploy, but turned up “all dressed up”, he said.

The policewoman arrested the man at the end of the date, surrounded by other police officers who had been posing as fellow revellers.

The police spokesman could not confirm whether there had been mutual attraction. He said: “In any case, it was all purely professional.

A Far-Eastside Indianapolis service station attendant thwarted an apparent robbery attempt Monday night by spraying the two assailants with gasoline.

Marion County Sheriff’s Lt. Dennis May said one of the robbers responded by firing a revolver. The bullet shattered a window of the car the attendant was servicing; a woman in the car was slightly injured.

May said the woman, who thought she had been struck by a bullet at first, told her husband to drive away quickly. The couple stopped at a friend’s house nearby and called 911, he said.

The incident occurred about 6:30 p.m. at the Swifty Service Station, 8525 E. 10th St.

May said the robbers approached the Swifty station on foot as the attendant was fueling the car. One wore a ski mask; the other wore a white cloth over his face. As they approached the attendant, he pulled out the nozzle and sprayed them with gasoline.

“It took the wind right out of their sails and they split,” May said.

Police believe the two robbers first tried to hold up a fast-food restaurant about a mile away. Details about that attempt or why it had failed were not available.

A man who spent almost 17 hours stuck inside the chimney of a grocery store wasn’t Santa coming early.

Evansville police said he was someone who apparently tried to commit a burglary at the Star Market, 324 E. Riverside Drive.

Police said the man, after his Monday-morning rescue, gave this account of why he got stuck in the chimney: “He stated he was out walking his parrot, and it got loose, climbed onto the roof and went down the chimney,” a police report reads. “So he climbed the roof and followed ‘Jojo’ down the chimney and got stuck.”

The man’s name was not released because he now faces no charges, said Evansville Police Detective Ted Mattingly. The man received treatment at Deaconess Hospital.

He told investigators he slid into the chimney around 6 p.m. Sunday, but denied trying to break into the store.

While watching television around 10:30 Monday morning, the store’s owner said he heard someone yelling for help. He turned off the television to make certain the noise wasn’t coming from the broadcast. He then called 911.

Evansville police responded, heard the cries and called for aid from members of the Evansville Fire Department, who lowered a rope and hauled the man out.

The man was treated at the hospital for several abrasions, respiratory problems and “a lot of pain.”

It was not known Monday night whether he would be arrested and charged with burglary.

After flinging his only weapon, a meat cleaver, police say that a burglar was beaten over the head with a chair by employees at a Chinese restaurant in Houva, Louisiana.

Adam J. Kelly Jr., 34, 700 Levron Street, remained hospitalized Monday afternoon with what police described as minor injuries.

When he is released Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said he will be formally charged with aggravated burglary and armed robbery.

Kelly, a restaurant employee, is accused of trying to rob the Dragon Garden Chinese Restaurant, 6653 West Park Ave., about 2 a.m., according to a written police report.

He got off work about midnight, but returned several hours later and broke in through a window only to discover the restaurant owner and another employee were still inside, the report says.

Kelly picked up a meat cleaver and demanded owner Jin Zeng’s wallet, police said. Zeng handed it over, but Kelly demanded money when he learned the wallet contained no cash.

Kelly then told Zeng to run, throwing the meat cleaver at him when he complied, police said.

The cleaver allegedly struck Zeng and the unidentified employee, leaving both men with superficial cuts that were not deemed serious.

Kelly also left himself unarmed when he flung the knife away, prompting both of his alleged victims to turn and attack him, Larpenter said.

Kelly was hit in the head with a chair and a piece of metal pipe used to secure the restaurant’s front doors, the report says.

He was taken to a local hospital where he remained Monday afternoon.

Police said his injuries are not considered serious, but he would likely be held at the hospital through Monday night as a precaution.

Kelly has been in trouble with the law before, police said.

His arrest record dates back to 2000. He was convicted in 2000 on a charge of felony theft and arrested in 2001 on a count of forgery a charge that was later reduced to theft of goods worth less than $300.