Dateline: New Zealand— A pregnant woman arrested on her eighth drunk driving offense couldn’t be sentenced because she was too drunk in court. Rachel Brown, 28, registered nearly 2 1/2 times the legal limit on a breath alcohol test when she was arrested last July at a police checkpoint in the North Island city of Rotorua. At the time, she was seven months pregnant. After her arrest, Brown told police she was driving because she was “the least pissed” of the three people in the vehicle. Brown was due in court for sentencing last week but failed to show. A warrant was issued for her arrest, but police spotted Brown near the courthouse and took her back there. Rotorua District Court Judge James Weir held over sentencing, however, when he realized Brown was having trouble standing. Witnesses said she had been drinking wine with friends outside the courthouse. The judge remanded Brown into overnight custody so she could sober up before her sentencing. The next day, Brown was sentenced to at least six months in jail. She has never held a driver’s license and was banned in 2005 from ever getting one. The baby that Brown was pregnant with when she was arrested last year is in the care of a family member. Dateline: Florida— TCPalm.com reports police in Port St. Lucie arrested a man spotted walking around in his underwear in connection with a car windshield that was apparently smashed out with an ax handle. Nicholas T. Doud, 42, faces a criminal mischief charge following the 3 a.m. Sunday morning incident. Police were dispatched to an address on Northeast Canoe Park Circle based on a report of a man in his tighty whities walking around in front of the complainant’s residence. An officer spotted a vehicle with a flattened rear tire and a smashed windshield. Inside the vehicle was a red ax handle with the words “Walking Small—Your Face Here” written in black marker. The words are likely a reference to legendary Tennessee sheriff Buford T. Pusser, who carried a 2-by-4 and inspired the film Walking Tall . “We made contact with [Doud] and asked him why he was walking around in his underwear outside his neighbor’s home,” a police affidavit filed last Monday says. “He stated that he likes to walk around in his underwear and that he does this often.” Doud denied knowledge of the smashed windshield but admitted that investigators “probably” would find his fingerprints on the ax handle. On the way to jail, Doud allegedly said his neighbors were “being a bunch of crybabies,” the affidavit states. Dateline: California— Seven office workers were sent to the hospital, a building was evacuated and a hazmat team was called when someone tried to clean out a stinky refrigerator. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose last Tuesday after rotten food fumes prompted someone to call 911. Inside the building, they discovered an unplugged refrigerator filled with moldy food. Authorities said an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room and scrubbing down the fridge with disinfectant. Thanks to the combination of leftover lunches and cleaning chemicals, 28 people were treated for vomiting and nausea. Seven were serious enough to require hospital care. Authorities said the worker who cleaned out the fridge didn’t need treatment. She can’t smell due to allergies. Dateline: Colorado— A 54-year-old Longmont man was issued a summons on April 25 after going into an Ethan Allen furniture store with a professional wrestling-style mask on. An employee said she saw a car pull up with two people inside. Both were wearing masks. Fearing a robbery, the employee called 911 and told coworkers to flee out the back of the store. When officers arrived, they found the man, still wearing his mask, calmly shopping in the store. They cordoned off the area and ordered the faux luchador onto the ground at gunpoint. Upon interviewing the suspects, officers learned the unnamed man and his wife had purchased the masks at a flea market earlier that day and wore them to Ethan Allen. The man’s wife removed her mask before entering the store, but the man thought it would be funny to keep his on. “If anyone asks why I’m wearing this mask,” the man told his wife, “tell them I’m ugly.” The couple said they thought it was a little odd there were no employees around when the entered the store, but it didn’t stop them from shopping for furniture.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. E-mail your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
