! Crime doesn’t pay It’s not necessary to act like a genius to be a criminal.

Police say Milt Sims ran into the woods near Saucier,

Mississippi, trying to avoid being arrested for burglary.

Deputies searched for about an hour with no results. That’s

when Milt’s cell phone started ringing. Hello, Milt.

Geniuses don’t need to be criminals. Middletown,

Connecticut, police arrested Michael Maslar for [attempted]

bank robbery-not for bank robbery itself. Mr. Maslar went to

Citizen’s Bank wearing a mask and carrying a hold-up note.

There he stood tugging at the door. It was 3:08. The bank

had closed at 3:00.

Chris Newsome knew some places to go. Deputies in

Muncie, Indiana, were chasing him after burglary. The chase

had a happy ending for the police-at the courthouse front

door. That’s where Mr. Newsome ran. “We love it when the

run to jail for us,” said one deputy.

May I remind you that criminals don’t have to be

geniuses? Police in York, Pennsylvania, arrested Robert

Haley for armed robbery. They wanted his partner, David

Ruppert, also. It didn’t take long. Mr. Ruppert went to visit

Mr. Haley at the York County Prison. The police invited him

to stay.

Dwight Oliver was wearing one of those fashionable

jeans baggy enough to fit entire math class. Not a good

choice for a fast-running fugitive. Dwight slipped away from

deputies at the Sanford, Florida, courthouse. A block later,

his jeans slipped away from him. Police nabbed a not so

fashionable Dwight two blocks farther.

Auburn, Georgia, police arrested Michael LaRock.

Ticonderoga, New York, police had wanted him for burglary.

They say he had called their station to brag that they would

never catch him. They read his number on caller ID, and

notified Auburn Police. Michael was still on the phone when

they arrived.

Harvey Taylor threatened to sue Penobscot County

Sheriff’s Department in Maine. He blames a detective for

the loss of some toes. The Detective was pursuing Mr.

Taylor, who hid three nights in the woods. Mr. Taylor said

that he would not have suffered frostbite if the detective had

found him sooner.

Police say Brittany Bell, 16, gets an ‘F’ for bank

robbery. They say she handed a Rochester, New York, teller

a hold up note. The handwriting was so bad that the teller

couldn’t read it, and went to ask another teller. Meanwhile,

closing time arrived, and Brittany got locked in the bank.

With a little help from our friends. Police in Oakland

Ca., spent 2 hours trying to subdue a gunman that

barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas

canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing

beside them in the police line shouting “Please come out and

give yourself up.”

What was Plan B?? An Illinois man, pretending to have

a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two

different automated teller machines, where the kidnapper

preceded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

The Getaway! A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas

Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer.

Apparently, the take was to small so he tied up the store

clerk and worked the counter himself for 3 hours until the

police showed up and grabbed him.

Did I say that? Police in Los Angeles had good luck with

a robbery suspect who just couldn’t control himself during a

lineup. When detectives asked each man to repeat the

words, “Give over all your money or I’ll shoot!” The man

shouted, “That’s not what I said!”

Not the sharpest tool in the shed. In Modesto,

California Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold

up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a

thumb and a finger to simulate a gun, but unfortunately, he

failed to keep his hand in his pocket.

He wasn’t the brightest thief. Arnsberg, Germany,

police spokesman Udo Heppe on a robber who broke into a

local doctor’s office through a skylight, and found that he

wasn’t tall enough to get back out, and then called the police

for help.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. A bank robber in

Fort Worth, Texas, gave a Wells Fargo Bank teller a holdup

note and then made off with big money. Police arrested him

the next day. He had written his holdup note on the back of

his own resume-a summary of his personal information and

job history.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. The Bureau of

Concern in Fostoria, Ohio, is a charity. Someone would have

to be pretty low to rob a charity. Someone was. Pretty

helpful too. The Bureau of Concern folks had been wanting

to get rid of the worthless old empty safe in its office. But

the thing was to big and heavy to haul to the dump. That’s

when a thief broke in and stole the thing.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Burglars broke

into a home in Fargo, North Dakota, and stole a water cooler

jug filled with $1800 in coins. It had to be burglars, plural.

The thing weighed more than a hippo on steroids. Later that

very day, three young men brought a water cooler jug filled

with coins to a local bank for deposit. “I don’t know how

they got it out of the car trunk” said the bank manager –

after the three had been arrested.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Police in Clark

County, Nevada, say Alejandro Martinez, 23, pulled off an

armed robbery in a pizza parlor and made off with $200. He

should have made off with the job application he was filling

out just before pulling the gun. But he didn’t. He left the

form on the pizza parlor counter with his full name and

address filled in. He didn’t get the job, but did get a free

room at the Clark County jail.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Twenty-four-year-

old Randy Washington pleaded guilty to robbing a Chicago

bank with five of his friends. They had split $81,000 they

took from the South Chicago Heights TCF Bank. They had

also gotten away scot-free for over a year. Then Randy

thought it would be fun to call a “confessions” radio show

and brag about his successful heist. Police easily traced the

call. Randy has free board and room for the next four years.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Police in

Columbus, Mississippi, say 26-year-old Terrel Green robbed

the Trustmark Bank. He walked into the bank wearing a

white T-shirt, blue jeans, and sunglasses. He pulled out his

wallet, removed a hold-up note, and handed it to a teller. He

then fled with a pillow case full of cash. Police soon arrested

him at his mom’s house. He had left his wallet with all of his

identification on the bank teller’s counter.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Ask Clay County

Sheriff Andy Howe in Yankton, South Dakota. He says drunk

driver Jada Coover hit another vehicle with his truck and

skedaddled. A deputy chased him until he stopped in the

street to turn around. Instead he reversed his truck into a

retaining wall, jumped out, ran into a building, scampered

upstairs, slipped through a door, and barricaded himself

inside a large room. It was the courtroom of the Clay County

Courthouse – complete with judge.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Pensacola,

Florida, police say two men stole a blue Ford Escort from a

gas station. The car, one hubcap missing, belonged to a

station employee. It was running on empty. Apparently the

thieves were too. Less than an hour later, a blue Ford Escort

missing one hubcap appeared at the pumps. The two men

apparently saw they needed gas. They didn’t. The police

car that took them to jail had a full tank.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Australian

teenagers Luke Carroll and Anthony Prince worked at a Vail,

Colorado, ski shop. They also robbed Vail’s WestStar Bank.

Arrested two days later, they weren’t hard to track. Their

faces were covered during the holdup – but not their

accents. And they used the BB guns they had shot some

windows with two months earlier. Police from that arrest

remembered the guns and the accents. They also took

pictures of each other with the loot and bought expensive

jewelry after robbery – with cash.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Police in

Redlands, California, say Albert Engelsman and Matthew

Montanez stole a 2001 Mustang and later abandoned it.

They also abandoned plenty of fingerprints and a disposable

camera filled with pictures of the two proud thieves posing

with a car. “These are not the brightest people,” says police

spokesman Carl Baker. When arrested, Mr. Engelsman was

wearing the same shirt he wore for the cool pictures.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Police in Santa

Cruz, California, say a 20-year-old man got so drunk that he

jumped into a police car thinking it was a taxi cab. The

“taxi” driver drove him straight to the police station where

he was booked for both alcohol and drug abuse.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Police in Fargo,

North Dakota, say 23-year-old Richard Roquet stole some

diamond earrings from a fundraising auction at North Dakota

State University. He took them to a jewelry store to ask their

value. The jeweler said appraisal would take one day, and

took the man’s name and number. Oops. It was the same

store that had donated the earrings. By the way, their

$4600 price was on them when Mr. Roquet brought them in

for appraisal.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Police in

Lawrence, Massachusettes, have arrested the bag bomb

bandit. They say George Melendez robbed banks by

claiming to have a bomb in his zipper bag. After taking the

moola, he’d leave the bag behind to keep police busy

checking the “bomb” while he got away. Well, the bombs

were always just books in a bag. Trouble (for George) is, his

latest “bomb bag” included his own phone book with his own

mailing label on it.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. The sheriff’s

department in Orange County, Florida, arrested 34-year-old

Michael Gariby of Orlando for selling illegal drugs. Deputies

say he approached a car at a gas station and asked the

driver, “want to buy some cocaine?” They say the driver

said yes, and the suspect handed him a bag of cocaine and

asked for cash. The driver was Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Johnson –

in uniform. The car was a marked patrol car.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Christopher Harris

spent about a year in jail for robbing the same gas station

three times in less than a week. He released to serve four

more years probation, by the apparently hadn’t learned his

lesson. Police in Green Bay, Wisconsin, arrested him for

robbing the Astor Park Mini Mart. Twice. And in the same

day.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Ralph Gomez of

St. Augustine, Florida, was showing off the Onstar system to

his girl friend in his Cadillac Escalade. On star is a satellite

communication device that helps drivers with directions and

also automatically calls the police in a possible emergency.

Mr. Gomez turned OnStar on but turned the volume down, so

did not hear the OnStar operator asking if everything was

okay. When showed up, everything wasn’t. They found

cocaine sitting on his center console.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Phillip Williams of

Tampa, Florida, bought some crack cocaine – an illegal drug.

But he suspected he’d been ripped off. Maybe the stuff was

fake. So he walked up to two men and asked them to check

it out for him. Sure enough, it was the real stuff. Good news

for druggie. The two men were police officers in uniform.

Bad news for druggie.

Criminals don’t have to be geniuses. Two burglars,

ages 18 and 20. broke into a summer cabin near the Danish

town of Kaldred. A passing neighbor caught them hailing

loot to their getaway car and told them to put it back. To

make sure the confronted burglars didn’t skedaddle, the

passerby yanked the keys from their car and refused to give

them back. So the burglars called the police.