Stealing the archived letters of an acclaimed American novelist has garnered a former Arkansas public defender the same courtroom ending some of his former clients received.

Robert Hardin Smith, 43, was sentenced Monday in Jackson by Circuit Judge John Grimm to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing six William Faulkner letters from Southeast Missouri State University’s Rare Book Room. He was originally charged Nov. 19.

The letters by Faulkner, a Southern writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature, are part of the university’s Brodsky collection, acquired in 1989 from St. Louis collector Louis Daniel Brodsky.

Although a library staff member stayed with him while he examined the items on Sept. 27, Smith was able to steal some of them without her knowledge. He sold them four days later to a Rowlett, Texas, manuscript dealer, who bought them without knowing they were stolen. One letter was subsequently sold to a collector in Portland, Maine, for $1,200. Another was sold to a collector in Oxford, Miss.

University officials learned of the theft after a collector reported seeing one of the letters for sale on eBay, an Internet auction site. The letters, valued at $25,000, were recovered by law enforcement. The investigation was handled by the university’s Department of Public Safety.

“They did an excellent job with this investigation,” said Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle.

Detective Sgt. Kenny Mayberry traced the theft backward from the persons selling the letters on the Internet directly to Smith by showing them his picture in a photo lineup and by securing telephone records that proved he visited the Rare Book Room on Sept. 27. Smith used his wife’s cell phone to arrange the library visit and even signed the registry as “R. Smith,” Swingle said.

“Finally by traveling to Arkansas and interviewing Smith and obtaining a full confession, Kenny Mayberry put together a case that was airtight,” Swingle said.

Smith surrendered to officers in Arkansas on Dec. 1 and was extradited to Jackson on Dec. 5.

“The confession came easily,” Mayberry said Monday.

Smith was convicted in 1996 of stealing historic documents from the University of Kansas and the University of Arkansas. He served two years in an Arkansas prison before being paroled in 1999. He surrendered his law license in 1993 after being charged with forgery and writing insufficient checks.

I work in a county jail in the state of New Mexico. As a result, I see a lot of police reports. About 4 mos. ago, I read the funniest one I have ever read and would like to share it with you.

A young man was walking down the street high on mushrooms. It was 2:30 am and there was only one house with a light on in the window. He decided that this was “eternity” and he was going to get there that night.

He began banging on the door, trying to get to “eternity”, but nobody would let him in. He then decided to get in through the window, so he picked up a lawn chair and threw it through the window. Just then the devil showed up with a shotgun. (the owners of the property).

The wife called police as the husband had this guy on his knees in his living room. Police responded to the residence and observed the broken window. He went inside to arrest the suspect, when the suspect asked “Are you God?”

The officer replied “No, but he sent me here to save you.”

The suspect then put his hands behind his back, thanking the officer.

Cass County, Missouri sheriff’s deputies literally stumbled upon 100 pounds of marijuana this week, KMBC’s Lara Moritz reported Thursday.

“It’s just an indication that drugs are traveling through on our highways, probably on a daily basis,” Sheriff Dwight Diehl said.

Moritz reported that Kermit Alen Gibbs was caught taking a nap sometime after midnight.

“He ran off he road. It was a one-car accident,” Diehl said.

Deputies found Gibbs’ car off Highway 71. The driver was asleep, but woke up at that time. Investigators said that Diehl was not able to tell deputies much information.

“He was not real coherent, and hasn’t given us much information at this time,” Diehl said.

Deputies allegedly found drug paraphernalia in the front seat of the car and a brick of marijuana in the back seat, Moritz reported. After the car was impounded, deputies said that they discovered 100 pounds of pot worth almost $75,000.

“Sometimes in law enforcement, you make progress because you’re good and sometimes you make progress because you’re lucky,” prosecutor Chris Koster said.

A D.C. native with bank-robbery experience going back 40 years bungled his latest attempt by locking his keys in the getaway car and shooting himself in the leg as he fled on foot with $100 bills flying from his pockets, police said yesterday. Top Stories

All in all, it was a pretty poor attempt, said Capt. Scott Moser of the Caroline County Sheriff’s Department in Virginia.

Edward Butler Blaine, 61, of Spotsylvania County was to enter a plea bargain in court yesterday on gun-possession charges unrelated to the bank holdup, but was instead hospitalized for his wounds, commonwealth attorney Matt Britton said.

Capt. Moser said Mr. Blaine walked into the Union Bank & Trust branch in Port Royal at noon Wednesday wearing a mask and gloves and wielding a gun.

The gunman told the bank tellers to give him all their money, and left the bank with a “large amount” of cash stuffed in a bag and on his person, Capt. Moser said.

As he fled the bank, Capt. Moser said, $100 bills flew from his pockets.

When he got to his car, Mr. Blaine found he had locked himself out. He picked up a log from the ground and tried to break the window, but failed. Apparently in anger, he hurled the log at a pickup parked nearby.

The truck belonged to Emmett Lowe, owner of L&G Auto, who was unaware the bank had been robbed but saw Mr. Blaine toss the log from inside his shop. Mr. Lowe and another bystander, Larry Aguilar, went outside to confront Mr. Blaine and returned after a short conversation.

Bank tellers, meanwhile, were watching the whole thing. When Mr. Lowe returned to his shop, they phoned and told him of the robbery, Capt. Moser said.

“They said, ‘Emmett, the guy you just talked to just robbed us,’” Capt. Moser said.

Mr. Lowe grabbed a gun, and with Mr. Aguilar ran after Mr. Blaine. They chased him about 150 yards from the bank, Capt. Moser said, and tackled him. They were unable to subdue him, however, and could not get his gun away from him.

“They were on the ground with him scuffling,” Capt. Moser said. “They said he was very strong. He tried to shoot them but the hammer [of his gun] was caught up in his pocket.”

Mr. Blaine finally got a round off, Capt. Moser said, “but instead of shooting them, he shot himself.”

Despite the wound in his leg, Mr. Blaine continued struggling and would not let go of the gun.

During their tussle, “Mr. Lowe shot Mr. Blaine in the same leg as Mr. Blaine had shot himself,” Capt. Moser said.

“They didn’t want to kill him; they just wanted him to not shoot them.”

Sheriff’s deputies arriving at the scene struggled for several minutes to subdue Mr. Blaine and get his gun away from him, Capt. Moser said.

The suspect was taken to a hospital in Richmond for treatment of his wounds. He was released yesterday and taken to the regional jail in Hanover.

Mr. Blaine now faces two counts of attempted murder, one count of armed robbery and five other felony charges, according to Mr. Britton.

Mr. Blaine was to have appeared in King George County Circuit Court yesterday to enter a plea agreement on four counts of handgun possession. Police found an assortment of 18 guns in a false wall in an outbuilding next to his home, Mr. Britton said. He said the plea agreement would have returned Mr. Blaine to prison for five years. He said Mr. Blaine’s attorney withdrew the agreement after the bank holdup.

Mr. Britton said Mr. Blaine had spent nearly 20 years in prison for a Maryland bank robbery in 1963. He was arrested twice in Maryland after his release in 1981: for assault and battery in Pikesville in 1981, and for carrying a handgun as a felon in Hyattsville in 1982.

Mr. Britton said Mr. Blaine was born in the District in 1941.

Mr. Britton said he would prosecute Mr. Blaine for the gun-possession charges if he is convicted in Wednesday’s bank robbery but is sentenced to less than 20 years in prison.

“I would do everything I could to make sure he spends the rest of his time behind bars,” Mr. Britton said. “He’s obviously a menace to society.”

Story courtesty of Jon Ward and THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Four suspected thieves who robbed a Chinese food delivery man by hitting him with a bag of prawn crackers were nabbed after police followed a tell-tale trail of spicy sauce, British police said on Tuesday.

Police in the West Midlands said the takeaway delivery driver was jumped on by a group of people who bashed him over the head with the light-weight crackers before stealing his food.

When officers arrived, they noticed a thin path of sauce had leaked from one of the containers. They followed it to a nearby apartment where they arrested three men and a woman.

The driver, who has not been named, was not seriously hurt, police said.

The four arrested were due to appear before magistrates.

Police confiscated $50,000 in cash from a Vermont couple who had come to bail their daughter out of jail, claiming the money smelled like marijuana.

Police said they thought the cash could be the proceeds of drug deals.

Nikita Santor’s parents, Arlene and Martin Edward Santor of Wallingford, Vt., brought the money Dec. 21 to the Hampshire County Jail. Most of the money was in $20 bills wrapped in rubber bands, according to police.

The officer at the jail detected a “slight odor of marijuana,” according to a sworn statement. A police dog then sniffed the money and confirmed the drug smell, the police affidavit said.

According to police, the Santors told them the money came from their daughter’s friends.

Nikita Santor, 27, of Ascutney, Vt., and Michael Lenahan, 36, of Walpole, N.H., were arrested Dec. 18 on Interstate 91 in Northampton. Santor, who was driving Lenahan’s car, was pulled over for following another car too closely.

Police said the state trooper who pulled her over smelled marijuana in the car and a search recovered marijuana and $12,000.

Police said they later found other drugs, cash and a handgun in Santor’s and Lenahan’s homes.

Both pleaded innocent to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

The district attorney’s office is seeking to keep the $50,000 brought to bail out Santor, who remains in jail. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Jan. 16.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued the following press release:

The Florida Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Fort Myers Regional Operations Center announce the arrests of Corey L. Andrews and Lemuel W. Ware. Both men are housed in the Charlotte Correctional Institution (in Punta Gorda). Andrews and Ware are each charged with Aggravated Battery by a Person Detained in Prison.

At approximately 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 11, 2002 Charlotte Correctional Officers found Inmate James Borland unconscious and unresponsive in the recreation yard of the facility. Borland was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for head trauma and underwent brain surgery. . . .

The Department of Corrections requested FDLE agents to assist in the investigation. After several interviews with witnesses, it was learned that Corey Andrews and Lemuel Ware got into a fight with James Borland over a pet spider. Andrews told investigators that Borland had accused Ware of stealing his pet spider “Pinky.” Ware told investigators that the pet spider talked to him and told him to hit Borland.