Thursday, January 28, 2016
oddly enough
Man dubbed ‘Bordeaux Bandit’ sent to prison for Wii theft
PROVIDENCE, R.I.
The man who authorities dubbed the “Bordeaux Bandit” for purportedly stealing expensive bottles of wine around the Northeast was sentenced to prison in Rhode Island on Wednesday for stealing video-game equipment.
Scott Deluca, of Cohoes, N.Y., was sentenced in Providence to 90 days in prison for larceny, with credit for time served since Jan. 11. The remainder of his six-year sentence was suspended.
The 25-year-old is accused of stealing rare wines from businesses in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. One bottle he is accused of taking from a Connecticut restaurant is worth $4,800.
In Rhode Island, Deluca pleaded no contest to taking a Nintendo Wii, games, a controller and jewelry from a Cumberland apartment in 2011. A warrant was issued after he failed to appear in court in June 2014.
Deluca was ordered to pay $6,188 in restitution and have no contact with the victim. He answered questions from a magistrate judge, but did not say anything on his own behalf before the sentence was imposed.
Deluca was arrested Jan. 8 in Smithfield, where police learned during booking that police in Groton, Conn., had obtained an arrest warrant in the wine theft.
Groton police say Deluca stole a bottle of 1990 Chateau Petrus wine from the wine- storage area at the Octagon restaurant at the Mystic Marriott Hotel.
Deluca’s lawyer, Thomas Thomasian, said he couldn’t comment on the other cases.
After serving his sentence in Rhode Island, Deluca faces a fugitive-from-justice charge and extradition, according to the attorney general’s office. The state withdrew a violation-of-bail charge as part of the plea agreement.
Iowa U. fight song plays 7 hours a day at vacant NY building
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.
An instrumental rendition of the University of Iowa fight song has been playing for several hours every day since last summer over speakers mounted on a vacant building in the city of Niagara Falls.
And it’s driving the neighbors crazy.
The music starts in the midafternoon and repeats in about 50-second loops for the next seven hours before turning off.
The owners of a restaurant directly across the street from the building say they have been told by police that the music’s volume and the time it’s being played don’t violate any city noise ordinances.
Kevin Robertson, the restaurant’s chef, lives above the eatery. He says being subjected to hours-long daily doses of the Iowa fight song is torture.
The company that owns the building hasn’t responded to media requests for a comment.
Associated Press