Adele Ferguson

Ripoffs and Rotters

OK. this is the last batch of ripoffs and rotters of 2012:

March 27—Kitsap County sheriff’s officers investigating suspicious activities at Bethel Road property found two people trying to strip parts off cars. Neighbors called the cops who found a 26-year old woman and a 52-year old man standing inside a barn by two Hondas whose hoods were up. The pair said they had permission to take the parts but deputies found both cars had been stolen two weeks earlier and arrested them.

April 11—Strangers donated a beautifully embroidered wedding dress, two rings and the honeymoon time share to a New York woman they believed to be dying of cancer. Jessica Vega, 25, was indicted on charges of fraud and grand larceny for getting her “dream wedding” by falsely claiming she was dying of leukemia.

April 11—Thieves disguised as construction workers stripped $40,000 worth of copper pipes and aluminum from an old building in the Cascade neighborhood of Seattle, police said. They shut down power to the building and several other buildings around it in order to steal fuses and wiring.

April 11—An alleged shoplifter stripped off all her clothes in an apparent attempt to prove she hadn’t stolen anything from a JC Penney store at the Columbia center mall in Kennewick. She had four children with her, a 9-year old who pulled a box of jewelry out from her shirt and three others, ages 4, 6 and 13 who were reportedly running around the mall unsupervised. The city attorney will review the case for possible charges.

April 19—A Snohomish County judge has ruled that a woman accused of starving and beating her boyfriend’s younger sister is fit for trial. Mary Mazalic, 35, is charged with first degree assault of a child and first degree criminal mistreatment. Prosecutors said the 10—year old girl who came to live with the couple in 2010, was repeatedly starved, burned with cigarettes, beaten with electrical cords and threatened she would be drowned and killed. Doctors said she was covered with bruises, abrasions, scars and ulcers.

May 2—A caretaker charged with stealing nearly $1 million from the retirement account of a 106-year old Kettle Falls woman found living in squalor last year wired much of the money to men he met online, a lawyer said. John “Herb” Friedlund, 78, would meet men on a website for gay men, then wire money from Frances Swan’s retirement account to help the online acquaintances in Ghana, England, Texas, California and New York pay for health problems they claimed to be battling. Friedlund said Swan authorized all of his payments but the Swan family lawyer said it did not, after she was found by police in a home littered with rotting food, guns and dog feces.

June 5—The federal General Services Administration has handed out more than $1 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses since 2008 to dozens of employees who were under investigation for misconduct. GSA is already under fire for its lax oversight of spending, including the nearly $1 million spent at a Las Vegas event which featured $7,000 worth of sushi rolls, a mind reader for entertainment and $20,000 worth of gift iPods. The matter has been referred to the Department of Justice.

Sept. 13—Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gave a speech in North Carolina in February in which she urged President Obama be re-elected and the state elect a Democratic governor, a violation of the Hatch Act which bars federal employees from using their official position to sway an election. A White House spokesman said she would not be penalized. It cost no taxpayer dollars, the spokesman said, and the matter should be put to rest.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)