Ricky Beale rode in the back of a stretch limousine to rob a Bank of America of $5,000, San Francisco police say, only to earn a free ride to jail later Thursday.

Beale, 31, a personal trainer, hired the limo to take him from his studio on Van Ness Avenue to San Francisco International Airport, said Inspector Dan Gardner of the robbery detail. Beale told the driver to stop at his girlfriend’s place.

Instead of visiting his girlfriend, however, Beale went to the Bank of America branch at 3701 Balboa St., police said, and allegedly robbed two tellers after simulating having a handgun.

A witness spotted Beale getting into the limo. Police were alerted and pulled the car over at 20th Ave. and Lincoln Way at 11:20 a.m.

“It’s a stretch limousine — not exactly the most discreet getaway vehicle, ” Gardner said.

The driver, he added, “got stiffed.”

“It’s just one of those things,” said the driver, Cornelius Weekley, owner of My Way Limo.

He said he had driven for Beale about eight times, usually for bar-hopping and such occasions as New Year’s Eve.

“But that was in the evening, when the banks are closed,” Weekley said.

“I thought he was pretty successful myself, but you never know,” he said. “It was a big surprise.”

Story courtesy of Jaxon Van Derbeken and San Francisco Chronicle

Police in Fort Worth say a bank robber made a bad career move. Detectives say the man who held up a Wells Fargo Bank branch wrote his holdup note on the back of his resume.

Police say he had tried to hide the personal information by taping black construction paper over it. But he apparently forgot to retrieve the note and take it with him after slipping it to a teller. Police just peeled off the tape.

A tip led police to a Fort Worth motel, where the suspect was arrested.

Our friend Beverly in Cocoa, Florida had not ONE, but TWO encounters with really stupid criminals. Here are the stories in Beverly’s own words:

ONE: I was working at an ice cream parlor in Merritt Island Florida when a young man came in and asked if he could have an application and a pen to fill it out with. The pen had written on it “Stolen From…(name of the ice cream parlor).” I gave them to him and he sat down to fill it out. He got up to ask me a question about working there then proceeded to demand all the money out of the drawer. When he left with the money, he put his left palm flat on the glass door, that I had just cleaned, to push open the door. After the police arrived, they discovered that the guy had put a name on the application, his REAL name. They showed me a photo line up and I picked him out, it was one and the same. They caught him two weeks later in the next town bragging about how he had robbed an ice cream parlor.

TWO: I was working at a 7-11, again in Merritt Island Florida, when a guy came in about 4:30 in the morning July of 2002. He had a purse with him. Not unusual for that area, trust me. My coworker noticed it was open so we talked about watching him for shoplifting. The guy walked up and down the front of the store for about 15 minutes. I had asked him if he needed help, he told me “not yet, I have to go to the bathroom” He went into the womans bathroom (again not unusual) He came out without the purse. My coworker snuck in the bathroom while he was at the other end of the store and came out and told me he had a curling iron, a towel and something else but she couldn’t tell what it was. The guy went back into the bathroom. We decided to call our security system because he was acting strange. Also in the store we had a beer vendor stocking shelves. While my coworker was on the phone with the security system, the guy comes out of the bathroom with a womans tube top on his face and what looked like a gun wrapped in a towel. We found out later it was the curling iron. He demanded I put my hands up, and wanted my coworker to come out of the back and put hers up too. She came out and he politely asked for the money out of my drawer, all the scratch off lottory tickets and cartons of cigarettes. In the mean time, our security system had called the sherriff’s department and two customers had walked in. The robber didn’t even look up at the sound of the door bell that rings when someone walks in. One of the customers walks out and also calls the sherriffs. While we are complying with the robber, the store is surrounded by sherriffs. The robber gets his stuff, tells us not to move or call the police for 5 minutes. He goes out the front door, you hear someone yelling “Freeze! Get down on the ground!”

The robber just stands there for a second then comes back into the store. He is yelling at us about calling the police. We informed him we didn’t but that he is surrounded. He replys “Yes, I know, I’m going back out there.”

He puts everything on the counter, including the tube top he was wearing as a mask, and goes back out. Again you hear yelling. Afterwards we found out that he just stood there again, looking at the sherriff’s deputies and said, “Hey guys, what’s going on? I”m not doing anything.” They hand cuff him and put him in the car.

For days afterwards, our regular customers would come in and say things like…”I’ve got a hair dryer, give me all your money.”

TWIN FALLS — Police say all 20-year-old Erin Magill wanted to do was get her boyfriend out of jail.

But Magill landed in jail herself after she was arrested and charged with trying to pay for her boyfriend’s bail bond with checks stolen from her own mother.

Magill tried to post bond Monday for her boyfriend with a stolen check in the amount of $650 — but is now in jail herself with a $15,000 bond, according to court documents.

Magill was charged this week with forgery and grand theft. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 25.

On Monday, Twin Falls police responded to 281 Paintbrush Circle for a theft report, according to an affidavit signed by Ryan Howe of the Twin Falls Police Department.

Sandra Magill, Erin Magill’s mother, told Howe she had taken a nap and then checked her purse. Sandra Magill said her driver’s license, Discover credit card, and several checks from her checkbook had been stolen, according to the affidavit.

“Sandra told me she thought her daughter, Erin Magill, may have taken the items and may be attempting to bond Erin’s friend, Kane Hutsell, out of jail,” Howe wrote in the affidavit.

Howe said he then called the Twin Falls County Jail, where a deputy told him a bail bondsman from Aladdin Bail Bonds was asking about Hutsell, according to the affidavit. Howe next called Aladdin Bail Bonds.

“The bondsman informed me that Erin (Magill) was in his office at that time and had given him a check in the amount of $650.00 written on a check that belonged to Sandra Magill,” Howe wrote in the affidavit.

Erin Magill was also attempting to use the title to her mother’s home as collateral for the bond, according to the affidavit.

Howe then drove to Aladdin Bail Bonds, where Magill was completing an application, according to the affidavit. Magill told Howe her mother had signed the check she gave the bondsman, according to the document.

“Erin said she woke her mother up but her mother probably did not remember signing the check because she takes a large amount of medication,” according to the affidavit.

Howe then compared the writing on the check to the writing on the application. They were very similar, according to the affidavit.

After telling Magill she was under arrest, Howe gathered some papers Magill had taken to the bondsman. Included in the papers was the title to Sandra Magill’s home, according to the affidavit.

Magill was taken to the Twin Falls County Jail, where police found the other stolen checks, a Discover credit card, a driver’s license and a Social Security card all belonging to Sandra Magill, according to the affidavit.

Monday’s brush with the law wasn’t the first for Magill or her boyfriend. Together, the two have about a dozen cases pending in court, according to court records.

Magill has several pending cases and is either currently charged or was previously charged with possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of methamphetamine, battery and other offenses, according to court records.

Hutsell, 26, of Kimberly, alone has about seven pending cases. Hutsell is either currently charged or was previously charged with receiving or transferring stolen vehicles, possession of drug paraphernalia, driving under the influence, carrying a concealed weapon, providing false information to an officer, resisting or obstructing an officer, possession of a controlled substance, driving without privileges, burglary and other offenses, according to court records.

Story courtesy Brandon Fiala and the Times-News

Stuart, Florida - Trying to bribe a deputy with a stack of Dunkin’ Donuts coupons was the suspected drunken driver’s first mistake.

After being arrested, the Hutchinson Island man compounded the error by threatening that the deputy would “get a bullet,” Martin County sheriff’s reports state.

Michael J. Matakaetis, 23, was charged with DUI and corruption by threat, reports show.

He was released from the Martin County jail Thursday on $50,500 bond.

“It does happen from time to time. I myself was offered lifetime podiatry care,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Jenell Atlas said. “We have to be above reproach in our integrity.” A Stuart police officer stopped Matakaetis in a 2000 Lexus on suspicion of speeding about 2 a.m. Thursday at Wright Boulevard and Dixie Highway, a report states.

The officer called for a sheriff’s deputy after becoming suspicious that the driver was impaired. The deputy arrived to be offered the coupons.

“You can have these if you just let me park the car and I’ll walk home,” the deputy reported Matakaetis told him.

Matakaetis, who could not be reached for comment Friday, subsequently failed roadside sobriety tests, was arrested and taken to jail.

In the breath-test room, Matakaetis told the deputy, “You’re done, you’re done. You’re gonna get a bullet. … You should’ve let me go,” the report states.

The statements were videotaped, the deputy reported.

MELBOURNE, Australia — In a rushed grab-and-run robbery, two men with a sawed-off shotgun stole two bags of garbage from a gasoline station attendant in Melbourne, police said Friday.

The male attendant was carrying the garbage through a shopping center parking lot in the city’s western suburb of Deer Park just before midnight Thursday when a green van reversed toward him, police said.

A man, who had covered his face with a piece of yellow cloth, slid the van’s side door open, produced a sawed-off shotgun and demanded the attendant hand over the bags.

“He told them it was only rubbish but they took it anyway,” police spokeswoman Bronwen Kelly said.

The van then sped off.

Police say they have no idea why the men grabbed the trash, but assumed they thought the bags contained money. Police believe the van was stolen and are treating the case as a normal armed robbery.

Nova Scotia - If you’re going for a boat ride, it really helps to know the local geography.

Three Bridgewater teens had to be rescued from the Nova Scotia’s south shore Wednesday night.

Police said the teens took a boat, beached it, and then burned it — not realizing they were on an island.

An RCMP helicopter and the rescue officials were called in.

All three teens face charges of theft and damage to property.