ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Bank robber who bummed cigarette gets 10 years

PITTSBURGH

A bank robber who stopped during his escape to bum a cigarette off a construction worker has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Pittsburgh.

The worker told police that a man matching 38-year-old Paul Carman’s description appeared nervous moments after the October 2013 robbery in Ambridge, when Carman threw his shirt in a trash container. But Carman still stopped to borrow a cigarette.

That encounter helped police identify Carman as the man who handed a Huntingdon Bank teller a note saying, “This is a robbery. No dye packs. No alarms.”

Carman pleaded guilty in June and faced more than 12 years in prison under federal guidelines.

Carman’s attorney argued his client has had a life-long problem with alcohol and should get a shorter term.

Robbing graves for gold teeth

SKOPJE, Macedonia

Macedonia may have found its ultimate gold digger.

Police in the tiny Balkan country say a 52-year-old guard at an Orthodox Christian cemetery was detained after he purportedly opened graves to prize gold teeth and dentures and reselling them.

The suspect identified only by his initials, J.K., was taken in for questioning in the city of Tetovo after police searched him outside a shopping mall and found him carrying 12 pairs of dentures, four gold tooth caps, believed to be destined for sale in Serbia.

Tetovo police spokesman Marijan Josifovski said the man has been charged with desecrating graves, an offense that carried a jail sentence of up to one year.

Associated Press