Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

Dog Released From Butler Co. Jail
A dog that bit two Butler County jail inmates is released from custody. Fonzie was quarantined for 10 days.
Our partners at the Hamilton Journal News report Fonzie has been returned to the Animal Friends Humane Society.
He was the first dog picked for "Project FIDO," which pairs dogs with inmates for obedience training.
Officials describe the biting incident as "play biting."
Neither inmate was seriously hurt, and Fonzie will not be put down
Sheriff Richard Jones says "Project FIDO" will continue with a new dog.
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Stop signs waste gas
Police in Flagstaff say a man angry because new stop signs were causing him to waste gas went on a late-night theft spree and removed several of the signs.
Police reports say a witness who spotted a group of men stealing the signs called them early Wednesday. Responding officers found a car matching the witness description outside a nearby apartment, and they spotted a pile of nut and bolts on the floor of the home.
When a man answered the door, it hit a stack of metal stop sign posts.
Police reports say the man told them he was angry at the new stop signs, which were installed in his neighborhood after complaints of speeding. They recovered 10 signs.
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Man Angry Over Sex, Accused of Trying to Start Fire
A man is behind bars in Hamilton County, accused of trying to set a woman's van on fire after she fell asleep during sex. 46-year-old Gregory Smallwood is charged with attempted arson and aggravated menacing. According to court records, the alleged victim says Smallwood woke her up about 4:00 am on June 30th. She said he became angry after she fell asleep twice and doused her van with lighter fluid and threatened to do the same to her.
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Robber Had Loot In Underwear
It didn't take an undercover officer to find the loot from a gas station robbery.
Police said that they found the cash stuffed in a man's underwear -- the only clothing he was wearing when spotted riding a bicycle near a local recreation center.
That was only a short time after the robbery at the West Side Auto Mart in Hartford on Tuesday.
Some bills were sticking out of the leg area of his skivvies, according to a criminal complaint charging Patrick Bishop, 36, of Hartford, with armed robbery.
Prosecutors said that he used a toy gun when he ordered a clerk to open a cash register and then took the money. The complaint said that he peeled off clothing and tossed away the toy gun as he fled.
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Want to get arrested?
Just ask a cop.
It helps if you curse at him while you're at it.
Joseph Russo, 20, of 149 Hilburn Road, Scarsdale, was charged with a disorderly conduct violation early today after he was accused of screaming profanities and creating a scene when he was informed that he could not bail his friends out of jail at 4 a.m.
Police said Russo went to the night desk at White Plains police headquarters to bail out some friends arrested in an earlier, unspecified incident. When the desk officer told him they were being held without bail for arraignment later in the morning, "Russo began yelling and cursing in the lobby, in a violent manner,'' according to the police report.
At that point, police told Russo to calm down and leave the building, but he refused, and "continued yelling and becoming more agitated," the report said, adding that Russo's actions "caused public alarm'' to other people waiting in the lobby.
When an officer walked into the lobby and told Russo that if he did not leave, he would be arrested, Russo cursed at him, said he didn't care and asked to be arrested, police said.
"I then complied with Russo's request and placed him under arrest," the officer wrote in the report. Works almost every time.
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Florida man charged with drowning, reviving puppy
Sabeno Martinez-Perez has been charged with animal cruelty after police say he threw a puppy into the water, let it drown, revived it, and then threw the puppy in the water again. It happened Thursday in the beach area of Lake Broward, in Pomona Park near Jacksonville.
Witnesses tell police that when the dog appeared lifeless Martinez would perform mouth to mouth and beat on the puppy’s chest and reviving the puppy. They say he also was swinging the puppy by her neck and legs and throwing her against the pole securing the floating dock. When police arrived and ordered Martinez out of the water they say he swam towards the deputy dragging the puppy underwater. The deputy told him to lift the dog from the water and he ignored her and when he go closer to the deputy he picked the puppy up by her front legs, swung her in front of him and shook her vigorously. Martinez was placed under arrest.
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Pastor Among the Arrested in Illegal Snake Trade Crackdown
The pastor of a Kentucky church that handles snakes in religious rites was among 10 people arrested by wildlife officers in a crackdown on the venomous snake trade.
More than 100 snakes, many of them deadly, were confiscated in the undercover operation after Thursday's arrests, said Col. Bob Milligan, director of law enforcement for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife.
Most were taken from the Middlesboro home of Gregory James Coots, including 42 copperheads, 11 timber rattlesnakes, three cottonmouth water moccasins, a western diamondback rattlesnake, two cobras and a puff adder.
Coots, 36, is pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, where a Tennessee woman died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a service in 1995.
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Housekeepers Get Almost $1M in 'Modern-Day Slavery' Case
A federal judge has awarded almost $1 million in back wages to two Indonesian housekeepers who were virtually enslaved by a wealthy Long Island couple.
Judge Arthur Spatt said Friday the maids were entitled to double their unpaid wages because they were abused while working around the clock for Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani.
The victims have testified that they were beaten, slashed with knives and compelled to take freezing showers for such misdeeds as sleeping late in what prosecutors had said amounted to a "modern-day slavery" case.
The judge awarded the housekeepers a total of more than $936,000 — at least $700,000 more than the Sabhnanis' lawyers considered reasonable.
The Muttowntown couple was convicted in December of charges including forced labor. Varsha Sabhnani has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, her husband to 3 years and 4 months.