Lead Story
Ronald S. Terry, 25, was arrested near Morristown, New Jersey, for robbery of a gas station in January because he forgot to check the cars in the driveway, one of which was a police car with an officer inside. When Terry emerged from the station clutching cash and saw the officer, he ran back inside and flung the cash at the attendant, but was arrested anyway.
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In October Los Angeles police arrested James Richardson, 32, and Jeffrey Defalco, 18, for stealing a three-ton safe that had been left on a sidewalk pending arrival of a forklift to move it. The safe was empty, but the men thought it contained $6,000. As they dragged the safe behind their car, it created a deafening noise, and the metal on the pavement created such a spectacular shower of sparks that police were alerted. Officers followed the gouges in the pavement and arrested the men.
Ramon Leon, 28, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in January for selling cocaine to undercover police officers. He would have received a mandatory 20-year sentence if he had sold police the legal threshold amount of 8 ounces (which undercover officers had requested), but he had cheated them out of 0.2 ounces and thus received a lesser sentence.
