Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

88-Year-Old Florida Man Arrested for Setting Racoon on Fire for Eating His Mangoes

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Ezra James had had enough of a racoon eating his mangoes

PALM BAY, Florida — An 88-year-old Florida man was arrested for allegedly setting a live racoon on fire for eating his mangoes.

Ezra James told cops  in Palm Bay, Florida that he initially trapped the animal as a nuisance. But then he sprayed it with gasoline and set it on fire.

“I throw some gasoline on him and light a match,” James told WKMG-TV. “Eighty-eight-years-old, first time I ever have to go to jail. I never thought about killing nobody in my lifetime. No man, no woman, no kid.”

A neighbor who saw what was going on, called cops and James was charged with animal cruelty and later released on $2,000 bond.

“She’s a wicked woman,” James said.

When the officers arrived, they put the animal out of its misery by shooting it.

James said that he is originally from Jamaica and did not know authorities would have humanely euthanized the raccoon, so thought he had to take matters into his own hands.

“I’m not going to catch no more because I learned my lesson,” James said. “No, I’m done with that.”

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Florida Middle School Teacher Bought Students Sex Toys to Use in X-Rated Videos

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Teacher Alex Hull gave his students illegal instruction

TAMPA, Florida — A middle school algebra teacher has been arrested for allegedly giving two of his students sex toys and asking them to film themselves using them, police said.

Alex J. Hull, 31, who taught eighth grade at the Benito Middle School in Tampa, also allegedly had the two students perform oral sex on him, cops said. One of the victims was Hull’s student and the other was a pupil he had met in the hallway.

Hull allegedly carried on with the illicit trysts at the school from November 2017 until May 2018.

Investigators say the relationships began after Hull showed the students obscene pictures of himself.  After gauging their reactions, Hull allegedly bought them each sex toys to use while they record themselves, according to WFTS-TV.

Police began a probe after one of the victim’s parents reported the alleged misconduct.

Hull faces multiple charges including sexual battery, lewd and lascivious molestation and showing obscene materials to a minor. He remains in jail on $325,000 bond.

 

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Cross Dresser Charged With Tricking Straight Men into Making Gay Porn

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Bryan Deneumostier allegedly dressed as a woman to dupe straight men into having sex with him, which he filmed

MIAMI — A man posing as a lonely housewife has been charged with tricking numerous straight men he met online into unwittingly making gay porn by secretly videotaping them and then posting it online, federal prosecutors said.

Bryan Deneumostier, 32, was charged with posting ads on Craigslist, pretending to be a “real heterosexual female” looking for sex to lure men to his home in Homestead, Florida near an Air Force base.

According to prosecutors, Deneumostier would convince the men to wear blindfolds or blacked-out goggles and would secretly film them as they engaged in sex acts.

“When the men ask for assurances that there are no cameras, he assured them that ‘she’s’ married to someone in the army and she would never photograph or video them,” federal agents said, noting how Deneumostier actually was taping the entire encounter.

Deneumostier allegedly then posted the videos on a gay website he owned called “StraightBoyz,” whose purported theme is to show real straight men unknowingly participating in sex acts with other men.

Federal investigators say they found 600 videos on the site, which Deneumostier ran for at least four years. While the site is no longer up, some of the videos remain on the internet. The indictment lists at least three victims, but it is unclear how many more may have been duped into participating.

Deneumostier has had other encounters with the law. Early this month, he was arrested for unlawful sex with a minor, according to the Miami Herald.

In the porn video case, he has been charged with making unlawful recordings of commercial sex acts and is being held without bail.

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Florida Woman Charged in Bizarre Sextort Plot With Man She Never Met

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Briyana Valls is charged with extortion for threatening to expose a man she had never met as a cheater

DAVIE, Florida — For a good time, do not call this gal.

A Florida woman was busted for extortion after sending threatening text messages to a man she didn’t know, demanding he pay her $500 or she would tell his wife he was cheating on her.

The strange episode began after Shawn Schmoll, of Bradenton, went out with pals for some drinks at the Big Dawgs Sports Cafe in Pembroke Pines, police said. While there, he briefly left his phone unattended on a table.

Later that evening, after Schmoll had returned home, the phony femme fatale struck, bombarding him with texts demanding he send $300 via cash transfer app or she would expose him as a cheat.

But rather than pay up, Schmoll called the Davie police. They set a controlled call with the woman, during which she upped the ante to $500, saying she had a photo of the two of them together at the bar that she would send to his wife.

She then asked that he go to an ATM and then text her a photo of him holding the cash. She then directed him to a location to hand off the money.

Cops followed, and when Schmoll handed over the cash, they arrested 22-year-old Briyana Valls, and charged her with extortion.

During her interrogation with cops, Valls admitted she didn’t have a picture of her and Schmoll together and that she needed the money to help her brother, who had recently incurred several large medical bills.

 

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Angry Monkey Owner Charged After Exotic Pet Attacks Home Depot Workers

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OKEECHOBEE, Florida — Don’t mess with the monkey.

A Florida woman has been arrested for negligence after her pet spider monkey attacked employees at a Home Depot on more than one occasion.

Police from Okeechobee County had to track Tina Ballard down to North Carolina where she fled with the monkey, named Spanky,  in an effort to ensure it was not taken by animal protection agents. The monkey was with her in her car when she arrested, cops said.

The first monkey attack occurred while Ballard was shopping at Home Depot on May 27 and her monkey bit an employee. The incident was not immediately reported but came to light following a second incident on June 4, when the animal escaped from a truck in the parking lot and bit a woman on her back.

Ballard told store employees after the first incident that Spanky “just wanted a hug and to play.”

Investigators initially cited Ballard for failing to constrain the animal properly, resulting in an injury. She now  faces seven charges, including two for negligence for putting the public at risk.

But after fleeing to North Carolina with Spanky, Ballard faces  a felony charge of tampering with evidence. Assistant State Attorney Ashley Albright said Ballard fled to North Carolina to avoid a court hearing.

“She had sent an email to the investigating officer stating that she was aware of the hearing and she was fleeing to North Carolina in order to hide the monkey so that state officials could not take that monkey from her,” Albright said, according to WPBF-TV.

After Ballard’s arrest, police said her daughter’s boyfriend came to temporarily retrieve the monkey. The monkey will be sent to live at a primate sanctuary.

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Florida Man Insists He Wasn’t Drinking While Driving, Only at Stop Signs

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Earle Stevens says drinking at stop signs doesn’t count as drinking and driving

VERO BEACH, Florida — In a hair-splitting defense, a man caught behind the wheel with a bottle of booze, claimed he wasn’t drinking and driving because he was only taking sips at stop signs.

Earle Stevens Jr., 69,  was stopped after a woman complained he kept hitting her rear bumper in a McDonald’s drive-thru in Vero Beach, Florida.

Cops say that not only did Stevens not have a driver’s license, he had an open bottle of Jim Beam bourbon in a brown paper bag on the passenger’s seat and stank of booze. Stevens told cops he felt “pretty good.”

“He further explained that he was not drinking while the car was moving and only when he stopped for stop signs and traffic signals,” the affidavit stated, according to TCPalm.com.

He admitted imbibing “actively” on the road from Port St. Lucie to Indian River County. There are many stops in the approximately 30 miles Stevens says he drove.

Cops didn’t buy Stevenss’ defense and he was arrested for DUI and driving without a license after failing a field sobriety test. Investigators later determined Stevens had a blood alcohol level as high as 0.153, nearly double the legal limit.

 

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Miami Beach Artist With No Arms Charged With Stabbing Tourist

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Jonathan Crenshaw, who has no arms, used his feet to stab a tourist with a pair of scissors

MIAMI BEACH, Florida — A homeless artist with no arms has been charged with stabbing a tourist with a pair of scissors.

Jonathan Dale Crenshaw, 46, allegedly used his feet to wield the weapon, which left 22-year-old tourist Cesar Coronado, who was visiting from Chicago, with a deep slash to his arm, cops said.

“I just said, ‘do you know where this is?’ but as soon as I talked, the only thing he reacted was — he just cut me,” Coronado told WTVJ-TV. “I’m not from here, and this is not what I came for. I came for a vacation,”

Crenshaw later told cops Officers he was lying down when a stranger came up and punched him in the head. He said he then pulled the scissors out of a suitcase with his feet and stabbed the man twice to defend himself.

Coronado said he was dumbfounded.

“Why would I go and attack someone else? No, no, I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “I can’t believe with his legs someone could do that.”

Crenshaw was held on $7,500 bond Wednesday.

 

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Sad Florida Widow Loses Life Savings in Match.com Catfish Scheme

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Diane Standish thought she’d found the love of her life

ORLANDO — A Florida widow who thought she found the love of her life online was instead duped out of her life savings in a callous catfishing scheme, authorities said.

Diane Amanda Standish, of Orlando, says she fell head over heels for a man named Jerry Michael who she met on Match.com and who said he was a German contractor working in California.

“I never thought I could fall in love with someone on the telephone,” she told WKMG-TV. “But for some reason, he just said the right things to me.”

So she didn’t blink when he asked her to send him money when he fell into financial and legal trouble. Before she knew it, she had sent him $270,000. Then he disappeared.

“I’ve talked to a million people who said they met on eHarmony and Match.com and they’re happily married, so I didn’t have any reason to question it,” she said.

An investigation revealed that the photo Michael had posted was actually that of a married Bosnian diplomat who was unaware his image was being used.

The scammer used this picture of a Bosnian ambassador for his dating profile

Orlando investigators have tracked Michael’s email to South Africa, but they have told Standish there is no chance of getting her money back and that her case is currently inactive.

“I wish to God I could find him,’ Standish said. ‘I loved him and he said he loved me. He could be anybody, anywhere. I just don’t know.”

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Rare White Alligator Stolen in Arson at Farm Run by TV’s ‘Swamp Brothers’

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Snowy, a rare white alligator, was stolen from a sanctuary run by Robbie Keszey, of TV’s ‘Swamp Brothers’

BUSHNELL, Florida — An extremely rare white alligator was stolen from an animal sanctuary and 43 other reptiles were then killed in an arson fire that appears to have been set to to cover the thieves’ tracks, investigators say.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s office says the blaze broke out Friday evening at a crocodile and alligator sanctuary run by by Robbie Keszey and his brother, Stephen, who hosted the Discovery Channel reality show “Swamp Brothers,” in 2011 and 2012.

After firefighters brought the fire under control, they discovered 43 crocodiles and alligators had died, and a rare white Leucistic alligator named Snowy, had gone missing.

“Based on items observed at the scene, it appears that the building was burglarized first and then set on fire after the theft of the rare alligator,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Snowy is believed to be one of only 10 Leucistic alligators in the world and could be worth up to $100,000, Keszey said. They are like albino alligators in that they are white in color, but their eyes are blue, which makes them significantly more rare.

Despite its rarity and value Mr. Keszey said that the 3-year-old reptile would be very hard to sell.

“Everyone in the world knows this gator,” he said. “Whoever has it has no outlet to get rid of it.”

“To me, he was priceless,” Keszey added. “Snowball was like my best friend. I’d handle him every day. We just want Snowball back.”

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Bigot Jailed For Threatening to Burn House Being Bought by Muslim Family

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David Howard (l) threatened to burn his neighbor’s house down rather than have a Muslim move in

TAMPA, Florida  —  A Muslim-hating homeowner was sentenced to eight months in prison for threatening to burn a neighbor’s house to the ground rather than let a Muslim family buy it.

David Howard, 59, was accused of accosting Kaderbhai Ali Asgar and his wife in 2016 as they were doing the final walk through before plunking down $658,000 to buy the house next door on David Islands in Tampa, Florida, prosecutors said.

“This sale will not take place,” Howard said, according to court documents. “I will break all of your f—— windows and I will burn your f—— house down.”

The outburst so unnerved Asgar that he and his wife backed out of the sale and lost their  $30,000 deposit.

Howard pleaded guilty in February to a felony civil rights violation and now has been sentenced to eight months behind bars, two years probation and $30,000 in restitution.

“This Justice Department will not stand by when individuals use violence and intimidation to deny fair housing rights,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore. “The Civil Rights Division will continue to prosecute crimes like this one that deprive families of a safe place to live.”

Howard testified that his outburst was driven by testosterone supplements he takes because he has AIDS. He claimed he was not racist, although he said he was not fond of Muslims as he had lost a loved one in the September 11 attack.

Prosecutors say Howard later boasted to friends and neighbors about driving the couple out and made derogatory remarks about Muslims.

Asgar said that he was very pleased at the punishment Howard received.

“I’m very happy that the judge did a very fair judgement,” Asgar said after court.

 

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