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Two overdue library books have landed a married couple in Tecumseh,
Michigan, in trouble with the law. Not only have the husband and wife
been fined more than $200, but they were arraigned in court on Thursday,
each charged with larceny of rental equipment.
“We were appalled, totally appalled,” Catherine Duren, 44, said. “We
didn’t commit a crime.”
In the summer of 2014, Duren’s son checked out a Dr. Seuss book for
Duren’s granddaughter from the Tecumseh District Library. But the book
was misplaced and the library was sending notices to her son’s email,
who was a minor at the time and never told his parents about the
notices, Catherine Duren said.
Catherine Duren said she wasn’t notified directly until October 2014,
when she said she received notice from the library that the late charges
were now going on her credit report, but she didn't understand that the
book itself had not been returned.
Both Catherine and her husband, Melvin, 63, have health problems that
put them on disability, she said, so they only receive a small amount of
money through Social Security cheques. Most of that money goes towards
their medications, Duren said.
“We had no intent of not paying the fees,” she said, noting that she and
her husband intended to pay the library fees eventually.
However, in May 2015, she and her husband received another letter
saying the book would have to be replaced, so she went to the library in
person to clarify the matter.
“They told me they would send me the charges with the late fees through
the mail,” Duren said, noting that when she left the library that day,
she gave them $10 to pay towards the late fees.
At around the same time, the couple went to the library and checked out
the book "The Rome Prophecy." When they were moving to an apartment
later that year, the book got misplaced, Duren said.
Right before Christmas 2015, the Durens received another letter in the
mail from the library saying they had a charge of $55 in fees and to
return or replace the books if they were lost. The library said the Dr.
Seuss book was over a year overdue and "The Rome Prophecy" was
approximately 8 months overdue, Duren said.
In late December, the couple found “The Rome Prophecy,” but Duren
thought her husband had returned it and vice versa.
“I thought he returned it, he thought I returned it,” Duren said about
the miscommunication, when they found the book still in their home in
January. That's when they finally returned it.
Later that month, the newly established Economic Crimes Unit of the
Lenawee County Prosecutor's Office, led by Detective Robert Kellogg,
sent a notice that the couple would be prosecuted for larceny of rental
equipment if they did not pay the fees. The Economic Crimes Unit
investigates crimes concerning the intent to steal, such as using bad
checks or retail fraud.
Duren said she was not able to go to Kellogg to pay the fees until Feb.
3, due to a $500 payment she had to make in January for her and her
husband’s medication. When she finally went to Kellogg’s office to pay
the fees for the overdue and lost library books, Kellogg said she also
had to pay a "diversion fee" of $105 for each book. The diversion fees
are used to help fund the unit.
“He refused to take my money, because I had to pay the diversion fee
first,” said Duren, noting she tried to pay the late and replacement
fees, which totaled $55, directly to the library. The library had to
contact Kellogg to see if this was possible, and Kellogg told the
library not to accept her money, according to Duren.
She then tried to send a money order through certified mail and she said
Kellogg called them leaving "threatening" messages on their phone that
they “circumvented the law.”
“He was so rude to me,” Duren recalled. “He treated me like a criminal.”
An acquaintance who is a lawyer, advised the couple to ignore the calls,
until one day, the Tecumseh Police Department called them to say that
they had to appear in court and that "there was a warrant out for a $100
bond on both of us,” Duren said.
The police wanted the Durens to come down to the station and turn
themselves in, but Duren said she was bewildered that the situation had
ballooned from misplaced library books, so she told them, “You can go
ahead and serve your warrant.”
The police showed up at their home this week, took the $200 bond paid in
cash, and “they never arrested us, no fingerprinting, no handcuffs,”
Duren said.
When the couple appeared in court on Thursday, they pleaded not guilty
to larceny of rental equipment, which carries a maximum sentence of 93
days in jail and a $500 fine, according to police.
The fees and the brouhaha over the matter are taking a huge toll on the
couple, said Duren, who noted that her husband is being tested for
cancer and that she is in stage-three of kidney disease. The library
charges should be the last of their worries right now, she said.
“If we intended to steal a book, why would we go in legally to check
them out?” she said.
The Durens are scheduled to appear in court on May 3.
A man was arrested last weekend for allegedly using bottled flatulence
to stink up a bar in downtown Athens, Georgia, according to an
Athens-Clarke County police report.
Upon arriving at the Whiskey Bent bar at about 1:40am on Saturday,
police saw “several patrons leave quickly while making comments about
how bad it stunk inside the bar,” according to the report.
Bar patrons pointed out 20-year-old Blake Leland Zengo as the culprit,
and one woman accused Zengo of spraying her face, according to police.
When police found Zengo in the bar's patio area, he claimed to not know
what was going on,
and said he did not spray anything, according to the report.
Zengo was described in the police report as being “very inebriated, and was slurring his words.”
When police searched the Oconee County resident, they found in his pants
pocket a spray bottle of Liquid ASS, which appeared to have worked as
advertised.
The website for the prank product promises: “Once unleashed, this
power-packed, super-concentrated liquid begins to evaporate filling the
air with a genuine, foul butt-crack smell with hints of dead animal and
fresh poo. The funny pranks you can pull with Liquid ASS are unlimited.
“Watching the facial grimaces of people and hearing their comments about
the part-your-hair, gagging stench will have you laughing until it
hurts.”
Zengo, of Bogart, was charged with disorderly conduct, public
intoxication and underage consumption of alcohol.
The 21-year-old woman who alleged that Zengo sprayed her in the face
declined to press charges, according to the police report.
Zengo was at the Clarke County Jail for less than two hours before he
posted a total bond of $1,500 and was released.
This strikingly detailed Hubble image reveals how, when seen from space,
the nebula, rather than being rectangular, is shaped like an X with
additional complex structures of spaced lines of glowing gas, a little
like the rungs of a ladder.
The star at the center is similar to the sun, but at the end of its
lifetime, pumping out gas and other material to make the nebula, and
giving it the distinctive shape. It also appears that the star is a
close binary that is surrounded by a dense area of dust—both of which
may help to explain the very curious shape.
The Red Rectangle is an unusual example of what is known as a
proto-planetary nebula. These are old stars, on their way to becoming
planetary nebulae. Once the expulsion of mass is complete a very hot
white dwarf star will remain and its brilliant ultraviolet radiation
will cause the surrounding gas to glow. The Red Rectangle is found about
2,300 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn).
Additional information at PhysOrg.
You know how hard it is to get your mind around the size of
even a single galaxy in the universe? Now try to imagine a wall of
galaxies cemented together by dark matter.
Laboratory test on ice compression has revealed that
Jupiter's icy moon's crust could generate a surprising amount of heat,
opening a new window into understanding the moon's potentially
life-giving ocean.
A tiger has fatally mauled a woman keeper inside an enclosure at Palm Beach Zoo in Florida.
Stacey Konwiser, 38, suffered a "severe bite" wound while inside the big cat's habitat on Friday afternoon, say zoo officials.
She was performing basic tasks with the male Malayan tiger at the time, said zoo spokeswoman Naki Carter.
"This is the first death at the hands of an animal in the history of the Palm Beach Zoo," she said.
The tiger was not on exhibit at the time of the attack and guests were never in danger, Ms Carter added. Ms Konwiser was taken to St Mary's Medical Center, where she died.
West Palm Beach police said the Malayan tiger, a critically endangered species, was tranquilized.
Ms Carter said Ms Konwiser was known as "the tiger whisperer" because of how well she handled the attraction's four Malayan tigers.
It is not known which big cat carried out the attack, but the victim earlier this year uploaded a photo of a tiger to Facebook.
Ms Konwiser, who was married to another keeper at the zoo, commented on the picture: "The newest man in my life."
The zoo will remain closed until further notice.
