Florida state trooper arrested for issuing fake tickets

Florida state trooper Paul C. Lawrence has been arrested on charges of issuing hundreds of fake tickets to unsuspecting drivers to boost his numbers to meet his quota.  He was caught slipping when dozens of people complained of losing their driver's licenses due to unpaid tickets they had no idea they had ever received; many of these drivers were able to prove beyond a doubt they were somewhere other than the location printed on the ticket at the time the tickets were issued.  Over 200 tickets have been dismissed so far; the fraud is thought to be so far-reaching, the Florida Highway Patrol has set up a hotline to try to ferret out more victims.  Lawrence is charged with 22 counts of official misconduct; he has been placed on administrative leave pending conclusion of the investigation.

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Man finds $3,100 in trash

A man in Stuart, Florida found $3,100 in cash while rummaging through the trash behind his apartment complex.  Warren Bendix was sifting through garbage in a trash pile when he came across a framed photo of the Apollo 8 launch that caught his eye.  He liked the photo but did not like the frame, so he set about removing it.  He soon made a startling discovery:  three envelopes containing 24 $100 bills and 35 $20 bills--$3,100 in all. 

Instead of pocketing the money, Bendix called the Stuart police and turned the money in.  "No, that large sum of money I wouldn't keep," Bendix said. "If it was something small maybe, but not that large sum of money. Somebody needed it. They lost it."  Police traced the photo to the apartment of a deceased person; the complex had cleaned out the person's belongings and discarded them to ready the apartment for new occupants.  If the sum of money goes unclaimed for 90 days, and police cannot find any heirs in that time, the money will go to Bendix. 

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If you thought you picked up some steals on Black Friday check this out

Fans of Oceans Eleven and The Italian Job pay attention: this was a crime so well executed, it belongs right up there with those heist films. On July 10, 2009, a man walked into a WalMart store in Orange County, Florida, and within minutes walked out with over $200,000. The man walked into the store mid morning posing as a shopper. He put two boxes into his cart then attached a WalMart nametag to his shirt. Wearing his nametag he walked right past a legitimate employee at the customer service counter, through two sets of doors, and emptied the safe of its contents. He then calmly walked right back out the store with his two boxes full of enough cash to buy several houses in this economy. Time to complete the heist? Six minutes flat.

Watch the video here. And thank you for stealing shopping at WalMart.

Watch where you swim in Florida

A 14-year-old boy made an shocking discovery while fishing in a Florida pond. Piranhas are native to South America and not found anywhere in the state other than on the black market. Incidentally, it is a crime to sell, stock, or possess piranhas anywhere in the state. 10 days after the initial find, another piranha was caught in the pond, then a third prompting great alarm from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials. Today, officials dumped a fish-killing chemical called rotenone in the lake to kill off the piranhas; the flesh-eating piranhas would have fed on any fish and other animal life in the lake. After iradicating the piranhas, they hope to stock the lake with native freshwater fish species.

You'll have to wait until January for those snakeskin shoes

Yes, those are the Loubotin blue snake skin Declics.

Florida's first-ever python hunting season ended last night. State wildlife authorities sponsored the pilot program in an attempt to put a dent in the state's exploding python population. Python species like the Burmese Python were introduced into the wild by would-be pet owners who buy the pets at reptile shows and pet stores then realize they cannot properly care for the fast-growing voracious eaters. The snakes can grow to be over 10 feet long and weigh over 250 lbs; it is estimated several thousand of the snakes now inhabit the numerous wild areas in south and central Florida with numbers increasing daily due to natural reproduction and lack of natural predators; earlier this year, officials found a deceased python who had burst open after ingesting a large alligator.

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Is that a ferret in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

A man tried to steal a ferret from a Pet Supermarket store in Jacksonville by stuffing the ferret down his pants. When confronted, he tried to use the live animal as a weapon. He was arrested and booked on various charges which probably should have included extreme weirdness and suspicion of being a zoophiliac.

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Only in Fla, Mass, Ill, Texas, Cali maybe Alaska....

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Stepfather comes home and catches step-daughter knockin the boots with her boyfriend...

Only in Fla: Pensacola officer runs over, kills suspect during chase

A Pensacola police officer was placed on administrative leave Saturday after his cruiser ran over and killed a bicyclist he was pursuing. Pensacola Police Department Chief John W. Mathis said Officer Jerald Ard, 35, had been placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

According to a Saturday afternoon news release, Ard saw a suspicious man in a construction site about 1:50 a.m. Saturday, while he was on routine patrol near Cervantes and T streets.

The man left the scene on a bicycle and Ard pursued, attempting to stop him using verbal commands and blue police lights, the release said. The officer also tried unsuccessfully to shock the fleeing man with a Taser stun gun, according to the release. After the Taser was fired, the man turned into the parking lot of a vacant business near R Street, crashed his bicycle, and was run over by the pursuing police car, according to the release.

The man, identified as 17 year old Victor Steen, was pinned beneath the car during the crash, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Only In Fla: Polk County Sheriffs in a WII bit of Trouble

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With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March.

As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco's house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame. NINE HOURS LATER...the raid was completed.

But detectives with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the Auburndale, Lakeland and Winter Haven police departments did not know that a wireless security camera connected to a computer inside Difalco's home was recording their activity. The Sheriff's Office is still investigating....

Only in Florida: Grandmother Attacks TV Crew With Hoe

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Cocoa police still haven't shut down a strip club where they say two underage girls were allowed to perform. Police say, on Saturday morning, they found a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old with barely any clothes on at Playmates Strip Club, but the club says it was duped.

The 15-year-old's mother alerted the police that her daughter worked at the club and indicates that DCF (Dept. of Children & Families) has questioned her but has no plans to take her minor child away. The video is what happened when a news crew visited grandma's house. Warning: Grandma gets crunk!

Only in Florida: Grandma kills rattlesnake with bare hands

I don't even like snakeskin shoes so all the pictures of rattlesnakes I found really creeped me out. Please enjoy this photo of fine ass Dwayne Johnson instead.

Esther Orring, 87, killed a pygmy rattlesnake with her bare hands after the reptile slithered up to her front porch and bit her on the hand. The Tampa woman grabbed the snake and did what any larger snake might do, she squeezed it to death like a boa constrictor. Orring's family eventually sought help for her venomous wound at an area hospital where she began to tell her incredible tale. Her daughter plans to have the snake framed for her viewing pleasure. Moral of the story: don't sleep on the gray-haired. They are tougher than you think.

Only in Florida: Jesus Himself Couldn't Get His Clunker Traded

A woman in the picture above came into the Coggin Pontiac dealership in Jacksonville, Fla a few weeks back looking to buy a car. How she tried to pay for the car is what caught the salesman's attention.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office says Emma Harrison, 25, wrote the dealership a check for $67,768 for the purchase of a car, with the names Jesus Christ and Emma Christ on the account. The check was handed over to the financial manager for verification.

But when the funds didn't check out, he called police.

Reports show that Harrison would sign the checks as Emma Christ, or even sometimes sign both Jesus Christ and Emma Christ.

Emma told police Harrison was her maiden name, and she was married to Jesus Christ, and Jesus was coming in next week to sign the paperwork for the car. Somebody told me that once when I did they taxes, this Jesus was in jail at the time.

She also said the dealership called the wrong company to verify the funds. Police looked into Harrison's accounts, and found that she had no money in any of her accounts, so she could not purchase the car. (I wonder what kind of Pontiac she was buying? You know Jesus loves him some Pontiacs.)

When asked about work, Harrison told police she does not work, but she has a traveling website that people deposit money into.

She had three active credit cards in the name of Emma Christ.

Harrison was arrested on three fraud-related counts, meanwhile, we're all still waiting on Jesus to show up.