oddly enough

oddly enough

Man arrestedfor paying with a real bill

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn.

Tennessee police are apologizing after arresting a man for using a $50 bill they thought was fake but that turned out to be real.

Police in Shelbyville thought the bill was counterfeit after a convenience store clerk called them. The clerk said a marker used to detect false money didn’t show the bill was real.

The Shelbyville Times-Gazette reported Officer Brock Horner arrested Lorenzo Gaspar on Friday.

But a police evidence technician told the arresting officer that some old bills don’t react to the markers. So police gave the money to two banks to check, and they said it was real but just very old.

Gaspar was released from jail and police apologized to him.

Police dept. has 2 UAVs, but they aren’t used

GADSDEN, Ala.

An Alabama police chief says he recently discovered that his department has two unmanned aerial vehicles.

Gadsden Police Chief John Crane tells The Gadsden Times he learned two weeks ago the department has had the unmanned aerial vehicles since 2010.

The revelation came to light after the Federal Aviation Administration released a list of agencies certified to fly drones and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Gadsden Police Department was on the list.

Crane, who was named police chief in February, says he doesn’t know why they were purchased. The cost was about $150,000, paid through a federal law-enforcement grant.

Crane says the department’s UAVs, which have video-surveillance capability, haven’t been used because there hasn’t been a need for them.

Mass. woman balks at paying old $73 debt

AMESBURY, Mass.

A Massachusetts woman who got a bill for $73 from the state of New Jersey for a decades-old debt says she has no intention of paying.

Alice Mainville, of Amesbury, got a letter recently telling her she owes New Jersey’s Department of Labor $73 because it gave her too much money in an unemployment check 35 years ago.

Mainville tells the Daily News of Newburyport she collected unemployment during a labor dispute at the bakery where she worked when she was 17.

Mainville, who moved to Massachusetts after high school, says she won’t pay because New Jersey officials have not explained how they concluded she owes the money.

New Jersey Department of Labor spokeswoman Kerri Gatling says there is no bad debt “write-off” in unemployment-insurance law.

Associated Press