Hard Boiled News

True Crime and News of the Weird from around the Globe

83-Year-Old Child Molester Charged With Groping Sex Shop Employee

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Bobby Otto Powers allegedly tried to cop a feel from a worker at a sex shop where he liked to buy his porn

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma — What a creepy old man.

An 83-year-old former school teacher who’d been sentenced to 60 years in prison for molesting a child only to be released early, has been busted again for groping an employee or a sex shop where he went to buy porn.

Police in Oklahoma City say Bobby Otto Powers groped the employee of the Hustler Hollywood shop in Oklahoma City in late November after pushing $10 into her hand, and then pointed to some red lingerie and said he wanted to see her in it, police said.

The whole episode was caught by surveillance cameras, but when cops caught up to Powers, he said he didn’t remember laying hands on the woman, and that if he did so, it was accidental, the Oklahoman newspaper reported.

He did admit he went to the shop several times a week to buy porno videos.

When Powers was 70-years-old, in 2005, he was sentenced to 60 years behind bars for molesting a 9-year-old girl over many years. But in 2010, he was released when the state parole board granted him a medical commutation because it was believed he was sick and dying, with less than six months to live.

Even then-state governor, Brad Henry, signed off on Powers’ release.

He is now facing three felony counts of sexual battery and prosecutors say they will try to send him back to prison.

His victim told the Oklahoman that she was stunned that Powers was out walking the streets as she had thought he had died in prison.

“That’s crazy,” she said. “He, like, freaking messed my life up, a good part of it. I had a lot of mental issues for a long time. And still kind of do.”

Mother-Daughter Shoot Would-Be Robber in Furious Liquor Store Gun Battle

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TULSA, Oklahoma — A shotgun-wielding robber messed with the wrong liquor store, when the owner and her daughter whipped out their guns and shot him numerous times as he fought with them.

“We’re not going to be victims,” the owner’s son, Justin Christen, told KTUL-TV.

Dramatic surveillance video footage showed a masked gunman, who police identified as Tyrone Lee, walk into the Forest Acres Liquor Store in Tulsa on Thursday with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands and demanding cash.

The footage shows the store’s owner and her daughter get out of the way as Lee rifles through the cash register, but when he walks out of the camera’s view, they both dart down below the counter and grab handguns.

When Lee comes back into the frame, the owner opens fire. Lee then steps off camera again, but then comes back prompting more shots to be fired. As he begins to wrestle with the owner for her gun and start to pistol whip her, the daughter shoots him at close range.

He then tries to chase them around the counter, but falls to the ground, presumably as a result of his wounds. The women then fled the shop and called for help.

Lee — who police say they suspect was responsible for a string of gunpoint robberies in Tulsa in recent weeks — managed to get away from the store but later turned up at a hospital where he was rushed into surgery. He remains in critical condition in an induced coma.

The owner required several staples to close a gash in her head.

13-Year-Old Faces Murder Charges in Crossbow Killing of 10-Year-Old Boy

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A 13-year-old kid — like this one — took a pot shot at his pal and could now go to jail for it.

CHANDLER, Oklahoma — A 13-year-old boy was taken into police custody after fatally shooting a 10-year-old boy with a crossbow and injuring his kid brother, police said.

Cops say the three boys were playing in a tree house behind a home in Chandler when they began arguing and the oldest of them shot a single, broad head arrow.

“There was a disagreement amongst the three prior to the shooting,” Lincoln County Sheriff Charlie Dougherty said, according to KOKH-TV.

The arrow passed through Austin Almanza and struck his 8-year-old brother, Ayden, on the arm. Austin was declared dead at the scene and Ayden was taken to a local hospital and later released.

The suspect, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was held in a juvenile detention center and the sheriff expects formal charges to be filed soon.

“On an incident like this, I think you have to take the word accident plumb out,” he said. “Austin is not dead because of an accident. He’s dead because of an action that took place. So until something steers us in the other direction, we’re going to work it as a homicide.”

Relatives said the 13-year-old had just been given the crossbow as a gift by his parents.

 

Okla. Cops Stop Weirdo Motorist in Thong Bikini Bottom and Covered in Vaseline

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John Wayne Kellerman

ENID, Oklahoma — This guy found himself at the far end of the slippery slope.

Police in Oklahoma pulled over a motorist for speeding only to discover he was clad only in a thong bikini bottom and was dripping with Vaseline with a pornograhic magazine lying on the passenger seat.

Cops say they decided to stop John Wayne Kellerman, 54, on Oct. 15 when they clocked him driving 57 miles-per-hour in a 45 mile zone.

After Kellerman pulled into a driveway, the officer discovered him mostly nude except for a “bikini thong covering his genitals,” and an open jar of Vaseline next to him. The officer noted that Kellerman’s hands, upper and lower body were oiled up with Vaseline and there was a sin mag on the seat next to him, according to the Enid News & Eagle.

The officer’s reported stated that Kellerman nervously handed over his Vaseline-smeared ID and admitted he’d been masturbating while driving. The officer then declined Kellerman’s offer of a “semen rag,” to wipe the lube off the ID card.

A license check revealed Kellerman’s license had been revoked back in 1985. Kellerman said he thought his license was still valid, but admitted he’d been in jail for much of the past 27 years for car theft.

He was charged with speeding and driving with a revoked license. He was released on $1,000 bond.

When officers prepared to impound the car, they noted that the driver’s seat was “extremely greasy.”

Inmate Sues Penal System For Failing to Treat His 91-Hour Erection

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McALESTER, Oklahoma — He may have been a hardened criminal but he wasn’t up to do hardest of hard time.

An Oklahoma inmate has filed a $5 million lawsuit against officials at a county jail for allegedly laughing off his complaints of a painful erection that lasted 91 hours and refusing to promptly bring him to a hospital for treatment.

The suit says Dustin Lance, 32, suffered permanent damage to his member as a result of the stiff penalty.

The episode unfolded after Lance was arrested on Dec. 15, 2016 on burglary and drug possession charges at was taken to the Pittsburg County Jail. There he ingested an unknown pill given to him by another inmate which caused him to have a raging hard-on that wouldn’t go away.

The next morning he complained to jail officials that he was suffering “intense and excruciating pain to his penis” but that they refused to bring him to see a doctor and then began mocking him.

It was only four days later that Lance was taken to a local hospital, but doctors there said that permanent damage had been done and they were unable to treat him, the suit said. They said he needed to be taken to a urology specialist in Tulsa right away.

But the suit says the prison guards took him back to the jail and then released him on his own recognizance to seek medical attention on his own.

County officials are trying to get the suit dismissed due to an error in the suit that suggests Lance has since died. His lawyer insists, however, that his client is still alive and that the offending language was simply a “scrivener’s error,” according to the Tulsa World.

Hostage Shot Nine Times By Cops in Oklahoma Bank Robbery Files Suit

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Julie Huff was used as a human shield during a 2016 bank robbery

EUFAULA, Oklahoma — A woman who was taken hostage by a bank robber last year and was shot nine times by cops trying to stop him, has filed a lawsuit against the bank and the police saying they are responsible for the “horrific injuries she suffered that day.

Julie Huff, 57, was a customer in the Bank of Eufaula on Jan. 21, 2016, when Cedric Norris, a career criminal with a history of mental illness stormed in. Before he left, he fatally shot the bank president, Randall Peterson, wounded a teller and took Huff hostage, dragging her to his SUV to make his getaway.

Police gave chase and eventually stopped the vehicle, after which Norris jumped out and, using Huff as a human shield, opened fire on cops. They fired back — some officers using AR-15s — killing Norris and striking Huff nine times. The suit states that all of the shots that hit Huff came from weapons fired by police.

“Ms. Huff was shot from her head down to her legs. She also sustained multiple gunshot wounds in her torso,” the suits says, according to the Muskogee Phoenix.

At the time, officers said they didn’t know that Huff was a hostage.

A registered nurse and a grandmother, Huff suffered severe injuries, requiring numerous surgeries. The suit said some of her injuries are permanent and that she has been left disfigured. It said she will have significant medical expenses for the rest of her life.

The suit, which seeks a minimum $75,000 in damages, contends the bank had multiple points of entry and lacked a security guard which made it particularly vulnerable to a violent robbery.

Oklahoma Top Cop Resigns After Being Tied to Neo-Nazi Organizations

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Bart Alsbrook was named Colbert’s interim police just last week

COLBERT, Oklahoma — The interim police chief in a small town on the Oklahoma-Texas border has resigned after a local TV station reported that he appeared to have ties to neo-Nazi organizations.

Bart Alsbrook had been a reserve police officer in Colbert until being named interim chief last week.

But news station KXII-TV reported soon after that a Bart Alsbrook showed up in records as the owner of two websites, ISD Records and NS88 Videos, that sell neo-Nazi paraphernalia, like such as music by “The Klansmen,” and Nazi patches.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, has listed both sites as connected to hate groups. The Center also listed him as the Texas coordinator of Blood & Honour USA, a racist skinhead gang.

When contacted by the Tulsa World newspaper, Alsbrook insisted that someone had stolen his identity and that he was not responsible for the websites.

“Someone has been using my name for years on the Internet in regards to racist topics. It’s not me, rather someone who has hijacked my name due to my combativeness and rejection to white power skinheads who were always coming to the heavy metal shows, starting fights and messing up our scene,” he said. “We hate each other. They use my name in all sorts of things.”

But within hours of being contacted by the local TV station, both web sites tied to Alsbrook were taken down.

 

 

 

Grand Jury Probes Death of Oklahoma Inmate Left Strapped to Chair for 2 Days

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Garfield County Detention Center in Oklahoma

ENID, Oklahoma — A grand jury is investigating whether officers at an Oklahoma jail are responsible for the death of an inmate who was found dead after being strapped in a restraining chair for two days.

Anthony Huff, 58, had been arrested for public intoxication in Enid, Oklahoma in June 2016 and placed in the chair two days after he was booked and was found dead 48 hours later. The official cause of Huff’s death was complications from chronic alcoholism, authorities said.

A civil rights lawsuit filed by his family last month said jail officials knew from prior arrests that Huff suffered from congestive heart failure, high blood pressure and other ailments, but left him in the chair without his medication or adequate food or water for two full days.

Anthony Huff

The Oklahoman newspaper said the grand jury is investigating whether officers committed a crime by leaving Huff in the chair for so long.

According to the suit, filed in federal court in Oklahoma City, Huff “died due to conditions related to his withdrawal from alcohol and the effects it had on his body and system.”

The suit names the  Garfield County sheriff, jail administrator, the county commissioners, the Garfield County Detention Center, the jail medical provider and a jail nurse for actual and punitive damages.

The suit says there had been a recorded pattern of abuse of inmates at the jail and that some guards had complained to the jail administrators about it. County officials, the sheriff and the jail administrator deny any wrongdoing.

Star Wars Vs. Star Trek Argument Ends In Oklahoma Knife Fight

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OKLAHOMA CITY — The age-old argument over which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek, took a bloody turn in Oklahoma when two nerds got into a knife fight.

Oklahoma City Police say Jerome Dewayne Whyte, 23, was arrested after a bloody brawl on July 1 which was sparked by a tense debate over which sci-fi franchise is superior.

Cops say the victim, who they did not publically identify, told investigators he became frustrated and stated “You’re just a trick” before walking out of the room, KOKH-TV reported.

Whyte then chased the man into the other room and shoved him to the ground, cops said.

The victim got back up and said: “You wanna replay that?” and was once again shoved to the ground, cops said.

Whyte then put his arm around the victim’s neck and began choking him. The victim said he was about to pass out when he pulled out a pocket knife. Whyte then let go and cut himself as he reached for the blade, and then fled the room.

Jerome Whyte

Whyte was later charged with assault and battery, possession of marijuana and on several older warrants, police said.

Hobby Lobby Owners Admit Being Tomb Raiders in Hunt for Biblical Antiquities

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Prosecutors say this ancient tablet was among a trove of artifacts Hobby Lobby illegally smuggled out of the Middle East

NEW YORK —  The owners of Hobby Lobby are quaint home ware and curio dealers by day, but were apparently tomb raiders by night.

Hobby Lobby’s evangelical Christian owners who have avidly collected biblical artifacts from the Middle East have agreed to forfeit 5,500 ancient cuneiform tablets they illegally smuggled out of Iraq in addition to paying $3 million in fines.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say the company paid $1.6 million for the tablets and clay talismans it acquired in 2010 from an unnamed dealer in the United Arab Emirates.

At the time, the company sent its president and an antiquities consultant to inspect the treasure trove that is thousands of years old, but ignored the opinion of a cultural property law expert who warned that the artifacts might have been looted from historical sites in Iraq. Extremist groups like ISIS have often traded in looted artifacts to fund terrorist activities.

The expert had told the Hobby Lobby execs that failing to determine the artifacts’ exact provenance could put them in violation of the law. Despite what prosecutors said were numerous “red flags” Hobby Lobby shipped the items back to its Oklahoma headquarters with false shipping labels identifying them as clay or ceramic tiles that had originated in Turkey.

The company’s owners began amassing their collection of biblical artifacts in 2009, and in a statement, admitted they had made mistakes because they were new to the process at the time they made the illicit deals in 2010.

“The company was new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process.  This resulted in some regrettable mistakes,” said Hobby Lobby president, Steve Green. “We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled.”

The company deals primarily in home wares, knickknacks and arts and crafts materials and operates 600 stores across the country with about $4 billion in annual sales.

Over the years, Hobby Lobby’s owners have engaged in widespread efforts to promote evangelical Christianity by producing biblical-themed films, operating a chain of Christian bookstores and donating to Christian charities.

In 2014, the company made headlines when it was the defendant in a landmark Supreme Court case that found barred the Affordable Care Act from forcing family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception, saying it was a violation of religious freedom.