Some people are willing to go to jail for the sake of art.
Police in Slidell, La., charged a 33-year-old man with criminal mischief earlier this month after a security camera caught him walking around fully nude at a shopping mall, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The North Shore Square mall's (search) security guards spotted Shawn Boylan standing in front of the box-office window at the Cinema 6 as if he was buying a ticket.
Normal enough, except for the fact that it was 3:30 a.m. and Boylan was stark naked.
By the time the cops came, Boylan was pulling on his pants. The resident of nearby Lacombe explained that he was simply taking a photograph of himself nude in a public place, something he did often.
Sure enough, there was a digital still camera mounted on a tripod at the scene. Police yanked out the memory card and issued him a summons on the spot.
"The officers should have taken a picture of him being cited so he could add that to his collection as well," Slidell police Capt. Rob Callahan told the newspaper.
Callahan, clearly not up on his art photography, said the Nov. 5 incident raised "some interesting questions."
"What does one do with a scrapbook of that nature?" the police captain wondered. "And who do you show it to?"
GREENSBURG, La. (AP) — How do you dry out $67,380 in stolen cash recovered from a beaver dam? Very carefully, as St. Helena Parish deputies found out.
First, the soggy bills were spread out in the vault at the Bank of Greensburg (search). But they started to smell — so badly that Maj. Michael Martin couldn't help wrinkling his nose just talking about it.
Then, the dough was dumped into one of the large dryers at the parish jail. But the muddy moolah simply clumped together.
That, though, was easy enough to solve. Adding an old pair of tennis shoes broke up the wet wads of bills.
Finding the proper dryer setting, though, took some time to get right.
"Regular dry" turned some bills in the first batch "a little too crispy," Martin said. The next three and a half loads on "permanent press" came out warm and fluffy, but still slightly muddy.
Muddy or not, the money is going back to where it was stolen from last week. Owners of the Lucky Dollar video poker casino (search) in Greensburg will get back all but $2,520, the amount that probably floated down the creek and into the Amite River.
As previously reported in Out There, deputies found two bags of cash stuck in a beaver dam. One had been torn open and some of the cash had apparently been woven into the dam with sticks and other materials by beavers.
Another Step Toward Prison Overcrowding
FREEHOLD, N.J. — Nira Nevins said only one of her many personalities robbed a bank, but they're all going to jail.
As previously reported in Out There, Nevins, 55, maintains that an alternate, childlike personality came over her the day she robbed the bank.
"I am so ashamed of our actions," she told Superior Court Judge Edward M. Neafsey on Tuesday.
The judge ordered Nevins to serve 18 years in prison for kidnapping the bank's head teller and forcing her to drive from the scene.
He also imposed a concurrent 13-year prison term for the armed robbery of the bank in 2002.
Nevins must serve 15 years and three months before becoming eligible for parole.
A jury convicted her in August following a trial that included the appearance of "Jimmy," the child personality Nevins said robbed the bank of just more than $5,000.
Nevins' attorney, Paul Edinger, had argued she suffered from dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder, and should be acquitted by reason of insanity.
She testified that she had considered suicide the morning of March 20, 2002. The next thing she recalled was being in a police car after the robbery.
But Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Jacquelynn Seely portrayed Nevins as a manipulative, intelligent woman who planned the robbery to pay off $124,000 in debts.
Jurors rejected Nevins' defense, saying they believed Jimmy's emergence was faked.
Hooters Takes Rival Chain to Court
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Hooters of America (search) and a rival restaurant chain began arguing in federal court over who has rights to the concept of using scantily clad women to sell food and beer.
Atlanta-based Hooters of America accuses Ker's WingHouse (search) of Kissimmee of poaching the idea coined when Hooters opened its first sports bar in Clearwater in 1983, Hooters lawyer Steve Hill said in opening statements Wednesday in Orlando.
"The evidence will show WingHouse has copied the Hooter girl almost from head to toe," Hill said. "For want of a better expression, the Hooter girl is our Ronald McDonald."
But Crawford Ker said he based his chain on Knockers, a failing restaurant with an all-female staff in Largo that he took over after retiring from the NFL, according to pretrial deposition.
He opened his first restaurant in 1994 and now has 15 locations, including five in the Orlando area. The chain had revenues of $26 million last year.
"Hooters wants to use the court system to accomplish what it can't do in the marketplace. It's going to ask you to create a monopoly," Ker lawyer Don Conwell said Wednesday. "They're a 25-year-old chain. There's new blood coming into town and they're not up to the competition."
Hooters said in a trade dress infringement lawsuit filed last year that Ker's WingHouse stole everything from the design of its parchment menus to staff calendars and celebrity photographs on the walls.
Hooters said other ideas swiped by its rival include hula hoops for waitresses, Christmas lights and surfboards hanging from the ceiling and traffic-style signs on the walls warning "Double Curves" and "Caution: Blonde Thinking."
Hooters earns more than $750 million a year from nearly 400 restaurants and that success has inspired a host of copycats, Hooters Senior Vice President Michael McNeil said.
"We believe we are defending the integrity of our intellectual property rights," McNeil said outside the courtroom Wednesday.
You're Supposed to Eat the Meat Loaf
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A cafeteria food fight on "meat loaf day" led to the suspension of the entire eighth-grade class at a Memphis school. The students were suspended after refusing to clean up the mess they caused.
"Given an opportunity first to apologize for their behavior and help with the cleanup, most of the class refused to cooperate," school spokesman Vince McGaskill said.
The food fight broke out Wednesday at Geeter Middle School (search), which has 637 students in grades six through eight. Meat loaf and chicken were on the menu.
Principal Jada Meeks suspended students who were in the cafeteria during the fight, meaning the youngsters' parents must meet with school officials before the children can return to class.
The cause of the disturbance was not immediately known. No serious injuries were reported.
"Suspending students is never desirable," McGaskill said. "In this case, the principal felt that strong, some may say shocking measures, were called for to spur change."
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Paul Wagenseil.
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