A man took a cab to a liquor store after robbing a bank, where he got drunk and was arrested two hours later, police said.

William F. Nutley, 56, was picked up trying to leave through the back door of the liquor store, Daytona Beach Shores Department of Public Safety Sgt. Mike Fowler said.

Nutley had robbed a Bank of America branch Tuesday by telling a teller that he had an accomplice who would shoot her if she did not give him money, Fowler said.

He then walked across the street to wait for a taxi to take him about 10 miles to the New Smyrna Beach liquor store where police found him and a portion of the undisclosed amount of stolen money, Fowler said.

Allegedly confessing to stealing the money, Nutley was charged with robbery and was being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail on $5,000 bail.

A naked man got stuck in the chimney of a bookstore early Christmas morning. Don’t worry, it wasn’t Santa Claus.

The 34-year-old man was treated Thursday for bruises and abrasions at Hennepin County (Minnesota) Medical Center after being found naked and lodged in the furnace flue at Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore. He was expected to be charged with attempted burglary on Friday.

“He was lucky,” said police Lt. Mike Sauro. “He was only stuck in that chimney for a few hours. It’s kind of a happy ending, because if he had been in there until that store opened Friday morning, it’s my judgment he would have died.

“He doesn’t appear to be a hard-core criminal, just stupid.”

Police suspect that the man was drunk when he climbed atop the one-story building and removed all his clothes to help squeeze into the chimney. He then started to slide down the 12-by-12-inch chimney shaft, Sauro said.

“He’s not Santa Claus,” Sauro said. “He’s a really skinny guy. And he’s lucky he didn’t get cooked.”

The man told police that he entered the chimney about 1 a.m. Thursday to retrieve keys he accidentally dropped down the shaft.

A passer-by called police around 9 a.m. Thursday, after hearing screams for help coming from inside the store. Firefighters broke into the chimney with sledgehammers and freed the man.

“The store is pretty well torn up,” said owner Don Blyly, who came in Thursday to hang up signs for a sale to begin Friday. “This is not what I came in here for today, but that’s what I have to deal with.”

A man died when he apparently shot himself accidentally after the robbery of a taxi driver in Brampton, Ontario early yesterday.

Randy Robinson, 19, of Brampton, died in hospital shortly after a Kwik Cab taxi driver was robbed at gunpoint, at about 1:10 a.m. on Adam St. near Bovaird Blvd. and Conestoga Rd.

Peel police believe Robinson and another man robbed the cabbie and then fled the scene, but the handgun accidentally went off when the dead man tried to put the weapon into his pants.

The other, unidentified, man is believed to have picked up the gun before leaving the scene, police sources said.

The taxi driver, a 42-year-old Brampton man, was unhurt.

Peel Constable Wendy Sims said the cab had been dispatched to pick up a fare on Adam St.

“Upon arrival, two men entered the cab and one male, armed with a handgun, pointed the firearm at the driver,” Sims said. “He was robbed of his money and car keys.”

When police arrived, they found the fatally wounded man on the ground.

“It has been clearly established that the taxi driver didn’t discharge a weapon,” Sims said.

A former prisoner picking up his belongings at the Seminole County Sheriff’s office was arrested for auto theft and driving on a revoked license.

Ronald A. Mahner, released four days earlier from Seminole County Jail, where he served a sentence for drunken driving, auto theft and habitually driving with a suspended or revoked license, wanted to claim his personal property.

Asked to provide identification, Mahner gave a sheriff’s deputy his license, which after routine computer check was found to have been revoked for life.

Deputy Teri Cresswell could not prove Mahner was doing anything illegal without seeing him behind the wheel, so she told him to drive to the back parking lot.

Mahner took the car around back, parked in a fire lane and went inside to claim his clothing, shampoo, dart board and battery charger.

Ann Mallory, a manager in the Forensic Services Section, called in a computer check of the car’s tag and found it had been reported stolen the same day Mahner was released from jail.

Mahner was handcuffed and arrested Monday, just as he was about to drive away.

Back in jail, charged again with auto theft and habitually driving on a suspended or revoked license, Mahner’s personal property has been returned to storage at the sheriff’s office.

Mistake No. 1: Impersonating a police officer.

Mistake No. 2: Making a traffic stop.

Mistake No. 3: Stopping an off-duty state trooper.

Shalom Gelbman, 22, of New Square, N.Y., made all three mistakes, state police said.

Gelbman, with a strobe light on his dashboard and his high beams flashing, pulled a car over Wednesday night on the Palisades Interstate Parkway, police said. Inside the car was state Trooper Seamus Lyons, who arrested Gelbman. It was clear to Lyons that Gelbman wasn’t a colleague, authorities said, because of his license plate number and the equipment he had in his car.

Gelbman was charged with reckless endangerment and criminal impersonation, police said, and was cited for having unauthorized equipment in his car, a dark blue Mercury Grand Marquis with tinted windows.

Gelbman was also ticketed for driving without a registration or insurance. He was released on $5,000 bail after being arraigned in Clarkstown Justice Court.

With a sheriff’s helicopter and K-9 units searching for burglary suspects shortly after a break-in, two men dressed in black jumped into a car they apparently thought was a getaway car, only to bolt again when they noticed the driver wore a badge.

Combing a gated community for men who had stolen jewelry from a home, Collier County Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Maxfield saw two men run out of the bushes and toward his unmarked car.

The men’s backs were turned as they got into the car, and they didn’t notice his sheriff’s jacket until they were inside.

Maxfield yelled “sheriff’s office, freeze” but the men scrambled out of the car and started running.

Maxfield caught up with Dale McClain, 45, of Davie, who was later charged with grand theft and burglary.

The other man escaped and the jewelry has not been found, Maxfield said.

“For me to be in that place, at that time, in that car, everything must have been in alignment,” Maxfield said.

McClain was being held Thursday in the Collier County Jail on $105,000 bail. It could not immediately be determined whether he had an attorney.

Police said they arrested a suspected burglar Thursday after he left his wallet and identification inside a building he broke into.

Police arrested James E. Bolding, 34, on two charges of commercial burglary in connection with the Dec. 10 incident. He was being held Friday at the Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $20,000 bail.

About half a dozen businesses on Garden Avenue S have been broken into in the past few weeks, Clearwater police said. The burglar has used a pry bar to peel away back doors.

On Dec. 10, a burglar broke through the back door of the La Cazadora restaurant, 111 Garden Ave. S, then burst through the drywall into the neighboring business, the Shopping Place. That set off the alarm.

“That’s when he left and probably left his wallet behind,” said Clearwater police Detective Joseph Ruhlin.

Police looked in the wallet and found Bolding’s identification. Fingerprints found inside the store matched his, Ruhlin said.

“He’s not one of the smartest criminals I’ve ever met in my career,” Ruhlin said.

Police found Bolding, who does not have a home address, near the downtown bus stop Thursday. Ruhlin sat him down for questioning, then showed him the wallet.

“That’s when he asked for a lawyer,” Ruhlin said.

Bolding has a long history of property crimes in Pinellas County. Since 1989, he has been charged with burglary, grand theft and dealing in stolen property more than 30 times. In 1995, he was sentenced to five years in prison for multiple property crimes, records show.

Ruhlin said he plans to investigate whether Bolding was involved in the other recent burglaries in downtown Clearwater.