Cops: Man Solicited Maid for Dirty Business

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M O N R O E, Ohio — He wanted a housekeeper to make his bed, and lie in it too, police say.

Mervin Back, 59, was arrested after allegedly propositioning an undercover police officer who was posing as a maid responding to Back's newspaper ad.

Back had taken out the advertisement — saying simply "House cleaning — part time. Light housework " — in the classified section of the Middletown Journal.

Police set up the sting operation after receiving complaints from two women who had interviewed with Back for the position, said Det. Mike Staples.

The undercover officer arrived last Thursday wearing a hidden microphone.

"At first he started talking to her casually about the job," Staples said, "And then the conversation quickly turned to talking about sex with his wife.

"He said, I'm just going to be straightforward and say this job has sex in it."

Back offered to pay $12 an hour for the housework and sexual favors.

When Back told the undercover officer to come in his bedroom and give him a "sneak peak," she used a codeword to signal her colleagues to enter the apartment and arrest Back.

Back, who has no previous criminal record, was charged with solicitation, a third-degree misdemeanor.

Inmate Swallows Tobacco, Retrieves It Later

V A L P A R A I S O, Ind. — What's stuffed with tobacco and named after a pack animal?

Nope, not a Camel.

Police say it's a mule, otherwise known as a Porter County Jail inmate Charles Hankerd.

Hankerd was sentenced to serve weekends for a year in the local, non-smoking lockup for a gasoline-theft and marijuana conviction, but apparently couldn't last a two-day hitch without his smokes.

So police say before showing up to do his time each week, Hankerd swallowed plastic bags of loose-leaf tobacco, along with rolling papers, matches, and a "strike stick" to light the cigarettes, along with as-yet unidentified pills.

He then recovered the contraband after he was in jail.

"He comes into jail and lets nature take its course and sells [the cigarettes] to other inmates," said Sgt. Tim Emmons, of the Porter County Sheriff's Department.