Cops: Man Solicited Maid for Dirty Business

— -- 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.

Another inmate tipped authorities off that Hankerd was selling the smokes for $2 a piece. They searched his cell and found the contraband, and then placed Hankerd in an isolated cell, where he expelled more cellophane-wrapped tobacco.

Hankerd was charged with trafficking with inmates, a Class A misdemeanor.

Irate Computer Customer Was Real Cracker

GRAND CHUTE, Wis. — After taking his daughter's new computer back for repairs five times, police say Gary Wilke decided to take a crack at it himself — with a sledgehammer.

Wilke, 51, was arrested last Monday for allegedly attacking the desktop PC in the foyer of the local Gateway Country Computer shop.

"It feels good in a way," he admitted to the Appleton Post-Crescent, insisting that he didn't intend to cause trouble or injure anyone.

Wilke said he'd taken the computer home from the store on Friday, but it failed to boot up once again. The machine had previous problems with its audio and CD recorder systems, among other issues. A house call by a repair technician had failed to fix it.

By Monday, Wilke had apparently had enough.

After telling the staff he would take care of the computer, he put the machine down and went and got a sledgehammer from his car and struck the machine repeatedly, police said.

"I said, 'Have a good day,' and I left," he said.

Wilke has yet to be charged in the case.

Crime Blotter, a weekly feature of ABCNEWS.com, is compiled by Oliver Libaw.