Tag: JAIL

A 57-year-old Spanish man is back in prison today, after using something called a fax machine to break free. The inmate, Juan Carlos Serna, reportedly got his wife to send a fax to the jail, posing as an official order from a regional court. The letter demanded that Serna be released, and was followed by a phone call to confirm. Police then let him stroll out of the facility, in much the same ...

Over the course of the past few months, the Egyptian government has taken a particularly hard-line stance against Facebook-based activism, many authorities believing it to pose a legitimate threat to President Hosni Mubarak. In March, a military tribunal unsuccessfully attempted to silence a controversial blogger named Ahmed Mustafa, barely three years after Egypt had jailed another writer for ...

Up until now, Lil Wayne has been something of a model citizen at Riker's Island, where he's spent the past 11 months serving a one-year jail sentence. He's been playing Uno, updating his blog, and has even found time to keep other inmates from killing themselves. With his globally anticipated November 4th release date within sight, it's been safe to say that Weezy's time behind bars has been a ...

Burning-laser tag, anyone? At the Pitchess Detention Center on Friday, guards from the Castaic complex of the Los Angeles County Jail demonstrated their very own Assault Intervention Device, a 7.5-foot-tall laser weapon that produces burning pain at whomever it's directed. The beam emitted by the device can reach up to 100 feet, and is about as big around as a CD. Prison officials hope that the ...

Joining the ranks of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and New York gubernatorial candidates Rick Lazio and (the unlikely) Carl Paladino, former NYC Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik has also come out in opposition of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. That's great news for the anti-mosque organizers, but we must remind ourselves that Kerik is also a convicted felon currently serving time in Cumberland, ...

America's killers and drug dealers might soon find themselves without even a cell phone to distract them from the everyday rigors of federal penitentiaries. As of right now, cell phones and wireless gadgets aren't classified as contraband by federal law, and prisoners found in possession of them are hardly ever punished. In a vote yesterday, though, the House of Representatives decided to close ...

Back in November, a moviegoer in Illinois was arrested and sent to jail for two days, after being caught trying to videotape segments of the latest 'Twilight' film on her digital camera. According to her team of lawyers, though, the movie theater is to blame for the entire thing. The 22-year-old woman has now filed suit against the movie theater, claiming that the manager at the Muvico ...

Remember the story about the New Zealand authorities who located a fugitive couple, thanks to the misguided Facebook status of their relative? While that mistake was out of the criminals' hands, Maxi Sopo made his own bed with the social networking site. In 2003, Sopo went from selling roses in Seattle nightclubs to committing bank fraud, making him about $200,000 richer. A natural career ...

Sure, you can use the PlayStation 3 to play games and watch Blu-ray movies -- heck, you can even use it to study gravity. But the latest interesting and unique usage of the console comes from Britain, where the country's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is alleging the gaming machine is being used to run massive crime syndicates. According to a recently-released report by SOCA, prisoners ...

Prison has a way of transforming a two-bit criminal into frickin' MacGyver, so we weren't extremely surprised by this example of inmates thinking on the fly (no pun intended, there). Two weeks ago, guards at the Danilio Pinheiro prison farm in Brazil intercepted a cell-phone-toting pigeon after they spotted the aerial accomplice perched on an electric security wire with a small bag tied to its ...

We know that prison systems around the world are in desperate need of modernization, but did you really have to give them flat-screen TVs? Huh, Scotland? Some of our staff can't even afford LCD TVs, and (to our knowledge) they're not criminals. A privately-run prison in West Lothian, Scotland is getting a makeover that makes it nicer than your average college dorm. Electronic kiosks have been ...

You may remember this little dumbell-looking Recon Scout drone we saw last year, when it had just been implemented in the military. If you'll recall, the robot selflessly allows itself to be thrown into wild and unpredictable situations deemed "too risky" for people, then transmits grainy video back to an Operator Control Unit. Well, it turns out that the California Department of Corrections ...

If you've spent much time perusing YouTube, surely you've seen a video or two of someone on two wheels performing ill-advised stunts, often with painful ends. One of those stunters was British 28-year-old Sandor Ferenci, who posted a video of himself performing wheelies and going 130mph on public streets. The Oxford police received a complaint and then were tipped to the video by Ferenci himself. ...

If you've ever owned a car out of warranty, chances are you've made at least one shockingly expensive visit to the mechanic before. You know, the one where you thought you were getting a $14.99 tire rotation but walked away with a whole new exhaust system, brake pads and rotors, and a flush and refill on your blinker fluid? That's the situation faced by a UK man who was asked to pay £1127 ...

Cellular News reports that seven prisoners in Pakistan's Camp Jail have been hospitalized after hiding cell phones in their rectums. Yes, the classic pastime of hiding things in one's anus to avoid confiscation extends to such uncomfortably bulky items as cell phones. In a sweep of the prison with metal detectors, the guards found 30 cell phones hidden in anuses around the prison. Unfortunately, ...