Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

Oregon Woman Loses $400,000 to E-Mail Scam
An Oregon woman who is out $400,000 after falling for a well-known Internet scam says she wasn't a sucker or an easy mark.
Janella Spears of Sweet Home Oregon says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front.
Spears told KATU-TV about the scammers' ability to identify her relative by name was persuasive.
"That's what got me to believe it," She said. "So, why wouldn't you send over $100?"
Spears, who is a nursing administrator and CPR teacher, said she mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car, and ran through her husband's retirement account.
Her family and bank officials told her it was all a scam, she said, and begged her to stop, but she persisted because she became obsessed with getting paid.
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Homeless Man Receives 45 Months, $101M Fine
A homeless man has been sentenced to 45 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $101 million in restitution for starting two fires, including a 2006 blaze that burned more than 163,000 acres in Los Padres National Forest.
U.S. District Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank sentenced 50-year-old Steven Emory Butcher on Monday for felony and misdemeanor charges related to the blazes.
Butcher was convicted in February of starting the fire by burning debris at his campsite in Piru Canyon as well as the smaller Ellis Fire in the same forest in 2002.
The Los Padres forest fire cost more than $78 million to suppress. It injured 18 people and destroyed 11 structures.
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$7,500 Mistakenly Left in Shoes Donated to Goodwill
It took some fancy footwork, but a Goodwill store in Glen Carbon Illinois has found the owner of $7,500 in cash mistakenly donated with old shoes.
A newcomer to the United States from Bulgaria found the money this month on her first day at the Goodwill store in Glen Carbon. Teodora Petrova turned over the money to management.
The cash was found in a shoebox, bundled in large denominations.
Goodwill found the family through hints on scraps of paper left in the box. The donor apparently also called the Goodwill office, figuring he was the source of the cash.
The shoes belonged to the man's recently deceased parents. The store said he didn't want to be identified. The family has offered Petrova a gift for turning over the money.
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Dumb Crook Botches Getaway
A man accused of robbing a convenience store in Columbia South Carolina is being talked about because of his unusal attempted getaway.
It hit a little snag when he stopped to ask for directions at the worst possible place.
Taxi driver Ricky Pearson says "I think he's a pretty dumb crook. Because to let me pull into the Young's market that he knew he just robbed was totally dumb."
It was early Friday morning at this Young's food store in Bishopville.
That's when police say 48-year-old Johnny Lindner walked in and pulled out a knife and demanded money and cigarettes.
Lindler's stolen getaway truck broke down near Sumter so he decided to walk to this Burger King and get a taxi.
Ricky Pearson says "once we go in the car, he told me that he wanted to go to Lydia."
But even the taxi driver didn't know where Lydia was.
Ricky Pearson says "so as we went through Bishopville we came up on a Young's market there, and there was a police car and a man standing outside, and I said I'll stop and ask this man for directions so I can make sure where I am going."
Corporal Capps says "but I said you're not going to Lydia tonight, and he said why is that sir, and I said because your passenger is under arrest for robbing this Young's."
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Man stole $20,000 worth of wine
Police said they have arrested a Denver man suspected of stealing more than $20,000 worth of wine and selling the pilfered beverages on the Internet.
Investigators said the suspect stole bottles of wine from at least three Denver-area wine stores, including one store, Tipsy's, that recorded the man on security cameras taking three $200 bottles from the fine wines room.
The Denver sheriff's department said the man used Velcro to wedge the stolen wine bottles into a back brace he was wearing before exiting the store.
"I've seen a lot of creative ways for people to steal, but this one really was interesting with the type of apparatus that he had to be able to put the product in," Tipsy's store manager Reegan Moen said.
Police said the suspect was arrested Wednesday after an undercover officer purchased some of the stolen wine during an operation. The suspect is believed to have made more than $21,000 from selling bottles of stolen wine over the Internet.
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Mower driver on drugs
A Glens Falls man who was arrested Thursday night in connection with charges that he had a safe full of pot stolen from his home was charged early Saturday when police found him driving downtown on a riding lawnmower while under the influence of marijuana, police said.
Donald L. Johnson, 42, of Ridge Street, drew police scrutiny because he had a man riding on the hood of the tractor as he crossed Glen Street near South Street at 12:09 a.m., said Glens Falls Police Sgt. Keith Knoop. Glens Falls Police Officer Seth French approached the men, and found that Johnson appeared intoxicated and admitted he had smoked marijuana, Knoop said. So he was charged with driving while ability impaired (DWAI) by drugs, a misdemeanor, and issued 10 traffic tickets, Knoop said. Among them were third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, a misdemeanor, which was filed because Johnson's driver's license was suspended for failure to pay child support, police said. He also was ticketed for driving an unregistered and uninspected motor vehicle, not using headlights and not wearing seat belts, among other violations, Knoop said.
The man riding on the hood, Carl W. Critelli, 49, was ticketed for not wearing a seat belt, Knoop said.
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