A Pennsylvania couple is accused of theft after going on a shopping spree with $120,000 that was mistakenly deposited into their bank account, according to a report. Robert Williams and his wife, Tiffany Williams, appeared in court Tuesday after they spent two and a half weeks blowing through most of their accidental windfall on expenses such as cars, bills and a camper, news station WNEP reported. Both Robert, 36, and his 35-year-old wife were arraigned on charges for theft and receiving stolen property. State police said that BB&T Bank deposited the dough into the couple’s account on May 31 in a clerical error by a bank teller. But by June 19, the pair had spent six figures on purchases that included an SUV, two four-wheelers and a car trailer.

They also allegedly used the money for bills, car repairs, cash purchases, as well as gave $15,000 for friends, WNEP reported. On June 20, the bank contacted Tiffany about the mistake — and to notify her that the money had been taken out of the account, resulting in a $107,416 overdraft fee, the Williamsport Sun-Gazette reported. She told the bank that she “would speak to her husband and attempt to construct a repayment agreement,” police said. But when the couple went dark on the bank, authorities were contacted to help recoup the stolen money. Robert admitted to investigators in late July that he and his wife had known the “mislaid money did not belong to them, but they spent it anyway,” the newspaper reported. Read More

Boner Candidate #3: POOP BOMB

A 49-year-old man who had a falling out with a friend was sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation for filling a plastic toolbox with dog feces and setting it to explode when his former friend opened it. Robb Alexander Stout told a judge that he went to a wrecking yard, retrieved an old air bag and packed it into the tool box with dog droppings covering it. “So when it was open, it would just blow the dog crap on him,” Stout said. Police say Stout set the device on the back of his former friend’s Camaro on April 16, and that when his friend fell for the trap, “it exploded with such force that it sounded like an M80 going off and the dog scat was blown out of the toolbox,” according to a probable-cause affidavit. The friend wasn’t injured. Tuesday, when Judge Edward Jones asked Stout why he did it, Stout explained that he believed his friend was holding onto some of his tools, and wasn’t going to give them back. “I guess the right way would have been to get a police officer involved,” Stout told the judge, of his dispute over ownership. “…But you can see my history. …I’m not psyched where I’m calling the cops, unfortunately.” Read More

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A Michigan trophy hunter who paid $400,000 to kill a rare black rhinoceros in Africa in 2018 is seeking a federal permit to allow him to import its skin, skull and horns to the United States, according to government records.The hunter, Chris D. Peyerk of Shelby Township, Mich., applied in April for the permit, which is required by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Under the Endangered Species Act, it is illegal to import trophies of endangered species unless it’s determined that doing so would help the survival of the species. Mr. Peyerk paid a Namibian wildlife conservation organization for the opportunity to shoot and kill a black rhino bull in May 2018 in Mangetti National Park in Namibia. The 29-year-old rhino was interfering with breeding by younger bulls and harming population growth, according to documents from Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism. Mr. Peyerk’s payment was to be earmarked for rhino conservation and the rhino’s meat was distributed to rural communities surrounding the park, the ministry said. About 5,500 black rhinos remain in the wild and are considered a critically endangered species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Nearly half are in Namibia, which is allowed under international convention to permit five male rhinos a year to be legally killed by hunters. “Legal, well-regulated hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation,” Laury Parramore, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, told The Associated Press. Mr. Peyerk was represented by John J. Jackson III, a Louisiana lawyer who provides free legal help to trophy hunters, including others who have been granted this permit in the past, through a nonprofit group called Conservation Force, The A.P. reported. Read More

A year after Crazy Rich Asians opened No. 1 at the box office (on its way to a $238.5 million global gross) and raised Asian representation in Hollywood to new heights, its sequels have been slow to launch. Although director Jon M. Chu had hoped to keep the creative team intact, co-writer Adele Lim no longer is involved with the project, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. At issue is pay parity: Co-writer Peter Chiarelli, as an experienced feature scribe who broke out with 2009’s The Proposal, was to be paid a significantly higher fee than Lim, a veteran TV writer who never had penned a feature until Chu hired her to work on the screenplay. (Before Chu boarded the project, producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson of Color Force already had enlisted Chiarelli to adapt Kevin Kwan’s 2013 best-selling novel.) “Being evaluated that way can’t help but make you feel that is how they view my contributions,” says Lim, who believes that women and people of color often are regarded as “soy sauce” — hired to sprinkle culturally specific details on a screenplay, rather than credited with the substantive work of crafting the story. She declined to provide specific figures, but sources say that Warner Bros.’ starting offers were $800,000 to $1 million for Chiarelli and $110,000-plus for Lim. Warners explained to Lim’s reps that the quotes are industry-standard established ranges based on experience and that making an exception would set a troubling precedent in the business. The talks escalated to studio chairman Toby Emmerich, who backed his business affairs department’s stance. Read More