You're So Vain: 5 Craziest Crimes of the Week

Including a candidate for 'dumbest criminal of the year'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 15, 2016 5:54 AM CST
Updated Jan 15, 2016 8:12 AM CST
You're So Vain: 5 Craziest Crimes of the Week
A wanted suspect didn't like the mugshot police were circulating so he sent them a replacement.   (Lima Police Department)

Road theft and carrot capers are among the weirdest crimes of the week:

  • Man Sends Cops Selfie Because He Hates His Mugshot: A wanted suspect apparently embarrassed by the mugshot being circulated by Ohio police sent them a selfie to replace it. Donald Pugh—wanted for failing to appear in court in connection with arson, vandalism, and more—texted the new pic to the Lima Police Department. Check out his message to cops, and the PD's response.
  • Cops: Kidnapper Could Be 'Dumbest Criminal of Year': "If he can survive the remaining 340-some days of the year, he will definitely win the dumbest criminal of the year," police chief David Splain is quoted as saying. The dumb criminal in question is Pennsylvania 17-year-old Jason Hayes, who is charged with kidnapping and robbing an old woman at gunpoint. Police say Hayes entered the victim's home through a window and woke her up by poking her with a gun. What he did after allegedly demanding $2,000 is what led to his downfall.

  • Obama Kidnapping Plot Foiled: When cops arrested Scott Stockert in DC after a Secret Service tip that he was possibly planning to kidnap a member of Obama's family, they reportedly found a shotgun, a rifle, and ammo in his pickup truck, along with a machete and a billy club. Which Obama he allegedly wanted to kidnap is a bit of a surprise—as were the couple he IDed as his parents.
  • Feds Find Pot Stash in Most Unusual Place: What's orange, long, and filled with marijuana? At the Texas-Mexico border, it happened to be thousands of carrots, both real and fake, and the phonies were crammed with 2,493 pounds of pot. It wasn't exactly a first; here's how the vehicle came to be stopped.
  • Over a Year, Man Steals 30-Mile Road: Jokes about highway robbery abound after a Russian prison chief was arrested and charged with the unlikely crime of having stolen a 30-mile stretch of public road. Russia's Investigative Committee says Alexander Protopopov directed the deconstruction of a concrete highway in the sparsely populated Komi region. Here's what he allegedly did with the 7,000 slabs of reinforced concrete.
Click to read about more crazy crimes. (More weird crimes stories.)

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