oddly enough

oddly enough

Erie DA wants stiffer term for man drunk in court

ERIE, Pa.

Erie County prosecutors want a stiffer sentence for a man they say was drunk when he was sentenced for this third drunken-driving conviction.

County Judge John Garhart agreed to forgo a “mandatory” 90-day sentence for Christopher Benoit, when he was sentenced Wednesday for his second DUI within 10 years. Instead, the judge gave Benoit five years’ probation and 90 days’ house arrest and ordered him to attend three Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week.

But prosecutors say Benoit’s blood-alcohol content was 0.16 percent — twice the legal limit for drivers — when probation officials processed him just after his sentencing.

Prosecutors want a tougher sentence as a result.

Benoit’s attorney, William Weichler, tells the Erie Times-News that Benoit’s intoxication in court may have exhibited poor judgment but wasn’t illegal and, in fact, underscores the addiction the judge’s sentence addressed.

Fed-up friends turn in bomb threat suspect in Pa.

TITUSVILLE, Pa.

A school district superintendent says students who were fed up with having to be evacuated during a bomb threat at their northwestern Pennsylvania high school turned in the student whose note prompted the incident.

The Titusville Herald reported Friday that Titusville High School was evacuated after someone found a note in the boys bathroom about 11 a.m. Thursday, specifying a certain time that a bomb was set to detonate.

Students were evacuated to the district’s middle school, and Superintendent Karen Jez tells the newspaper that some students were disgusted by the delay and told middle- school administrators who they believed left the note. Jez says the boy confessed when he was questioned by two other administrators.

Police plan to charge the boy, who is a junior.

Council Bluffs man claims Hot Dog Man statue

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa

Police in Iowa say the case of the Hot Dog Man statue finally has been solved.

The Daily Nonpareil reported that the owner of the 6-foot-tall statue that suddenly appeared near a bus stop in Council Bluffs came forward to claim it.

Police Capt. Terry LeMaster says the owner was able to prove the statue was his by supplying the statue’s arms, which had broken off.

LeMaster says it was taken from the owner’s yard by teenagers who hoisted the 400-pound statue into a vehicle, breaking off its arms.

He says the teens became “creeped out” by it and dropped it off at the street corner where it later was found.

Associated Press