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Odds & Ends
By Devin D. O'Leary
MARCH 15, 1999:
Dateline: England--British solicitor Edward Bentley could
very well be the unluckiest man in the world. After losing thousands
of pounds in bad investments, Bentley tried to recoup his money
by embezzling 64,000 pounds from his clients. Bentley had the
brilliant idea to fly to Monte Carlo and place a single 60,000
pound ($96,000) bet on either black or red. With his money doubled,
Bentley could fly back to England and return the "borrowed"
money before anyone noticed. Unfortunately, the casino's maximum
stake on this kind of bet was 10,000 pounds. The ill-fated attorney's
next scheme was to place a 10,900 pound bet on a "sure thing"
race horse. The horse fell during the race and came in last. Bentley
then tried his hand at the stock market, buying a risky 49,000
pound futures option which promised a huge reward if the main
FTSE-100 index fell. It rose, leaving Bentley with a paltry 1,000
pounds of purloined loot. Realizing his situation was hopeless,
Bentley attempted to commit suicide by sitting in his car with
a pipe pumping fumes from his exhaust pipe. Unfortunately, the
car seized up. Undeterred, Bentley tried again, but police conducting
a routine vehicle check stopped the man before he succumbed to
the fumes. Bentley's streak of bad luck ended when he finally
found himself in front of a judge. The lenient magistrate gave
Bentley a 15-month suspended sentence for stealing his clients'
money.
Dateline: Finland--A distraught Fin who claimed he was
embittered with society took his own wife hostage last Friday
until police arrived and ended the tense standoff with an offering
of beer. The unidentified man claimed he was armed and threatened
to blow up his apartment building in downtown Helsinki with explosives
unless police complied with his list of demands. Police met only
one of the demands--for a six-pack of beer and some cigarettes--and
the man surrendered peacefully.
Dateline: Egypt--Last Monday an Egyptian court ordered
the dismissal of a hospital janitor put on probation for illegally
circumcising boys. Ragab Abdallah, an operating theater cleaner
at a Cairo hospital, was taken to court after one of his young
"patients" developed a genital disorder following his
amateur circumcision in March 1998. Abdallah and two accomplices
had offered to perform the operation on the five-year-old for
a lower fee than that charged by the hospital. The boy suffered
severe bleeding after the surgery and was taken by his father
to another hospital. During his trial, Abdallah admitted to performing
several other circumcisions, but denied taking money, insisting
that he was only trying to help the poor.
Dateline: India--Two cats that pranced around the central
hall of India's parliament during a televised presidential address
last month will be punished with sterilization. The Asian Age
newspaper reported that, "A special drive has been launched
to punish the cats in Parliament House for their appearance before
live cameras during the president's customary address to a joint
sitting of the two houses of parliament." The two cats are
among an estimated 10 to 12 that live in the government building
to help control the growth of rats in the canteens. A spokesman
for a local Society for the Eradication of Cruelty to Animals
insisted that the sterilization is aimed only at controlling the
parliament cat population and not at eradicating it.
Dateline: New York--Alleged bank robber Lucy Amador apparently
posed as a loan applicant before making off with more than $10,000
from the Marine Midland Bank in New Rochelle, N.Y. Unfortunately,
Amador, 38, left behind the loan application with her name and
address on it. Amador, who lives only a block and a half from
the bank, was arrested a few hours after the heist and charged
with first-degree robbery. "This was an unusual and rather
amateur attempt," said a New Rochelle police captain.
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