La-Z-Boy in DWI case on eBay

A motorized La-Z-Boy driven by Dennis Leroy Anderson, 62, of 143 5th St., Proctor, Mn. is up for sale to the highest bidder on eBay. Dennis was charged with, and plead guilty to, a DWI charge after crashing the La-Z-Boy into a parked car in August 2008. He was given a suspended 180-day jail sentence and fined $2000.  Click here for the complete story.

The La-Z-Boy motorized chair is powered by a eight horsepower Kohler lawnmower engine and comes equipped with a stereo, built-in cup holders and headlights.

The vehicle is controlled with a steering wheel protruding from the seat cushion. It even has a driver-side side mirror. Sorry, no seat-belts on this model. It is adorned with, among other things, the logo of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA).

Police Chief Walter Wobig says he's starting the bidding at $500 on Thursday (10/29/09) and it will be up on eBay for five days. Chief Walter Wobig cautions that the chair isn't "street legal," so any buyer would have to park it in the living room. The proceeds will go to the police, state and the prosecuting attorney.

Not to be outdone, the family of Dennis Anderson is also putting up on eBay an autographed photo of him (Dennis) riding the La-Z-Boy. They say the proceeds will go toward helping Dennis with his expenses.

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5 Kids Drowned - Dad Charged

Chanton Jenkins, 32, from Huston had been drinking. He was talking on his cell phone while driving a car with six kids and one other adult. He was driving in heavy, pouring rain. He lost control of the car and veered off the road. The car went down an embankment and ended up in over 9 feet of water.

The Result - Five dead kids, one of whom is still missing. Chanton Jenkins, his adult brother and 10-year-old Jada Barnes managed to scramble out of the 2000 Lincoln LS and make it to dry land. He has been charged with with four counts of intoxication manslaughter and, if convicted on all counts, could spend the next 80 years behind bars.

It took 2-1/2 hours to find the car in the ditch, which had filled with 9-1/2 feet of fast-moving water. Police said the vehicle was swept 100 feet from the spot where it left the road.

Dead are: 4-year-old Devin Jenkins, 7-year-old Malik Barlow and 11-year-old Dreyton Thompson - all found in the submerged car. The body of 1-year-old Karrington Jenkins was found a half mile from the crash. The body of 4-year-old Hallie Jenkins has not yet been located.

The accident occurred in the 2200 block of Greens Road on the evening of Saturday April 18, 2009. Jenkins was traveling eastbound in the rain when he received a call from his girlfriend, Tracey Easley, the mother of Karrington and Hallie. He was on the way to pick her up.

“It was a freak accident,” she said. “We were talking on the phone and he was like ‘dang,’ and I assumed he dropped the phone.”

Easley said that when she lost contact with Jenkins Saturday evening she felt a pang of fear and rushed to the area where she thought he had been driving. Police officers at the bayou held her back from the scene. “I knew,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Easley described Karrington as “the boss of the family. She was the baby in the family and she ran everything.

Hallie was the princess. She was the little diva,” Easley said. “She was prissy and she always walked on her tiptoes.”

Devin was a little pistol who liked to challenge everything he was told, Easley said.

Brothers Malik and Dreyton played football and basketball and participated on a step team that their 24-year-old uncle Travis Campbell helped organize.

“If you knew them, you would have just fallen in love with them,” said Malik’s godmother Tywanna Harris.

The two were inseparable.

“If Dreyton had a chance to get out of that car, I bet he thought, not without my brother. That was just his mentality,” said the boys’ aunt, Sonya Diamond.

Officials said Chanton Jenkins failed a field sobriety test at the scene but they did not release the results of a blood test.

Jenkins has an extensive criminal history dating back to 1994. He has a number of felony convictions related to illegal possession of firearms, unauthorized absence from a community correctional facility and convictions for the manufacturing, delivering and possession of a controlled substance. He was recently released from jail.

Two DWI Charges in One Night

Joseph S. Kelley, 52 from Canton, Mass. was lost in Upstate New York, trying to find his way back home, so he did what most of us would do - he started to look for a police station to ask for directions. It was 4 a.m. when Joseph found Troop K headquarters located in Millbrook. He got out of his car to ask for help.

One minor observation - Joseph Kelley was drunk, very drunk when he stopped to ask for directions.

While the police were giving Kelley directions, they realized that he appear to be intoxicated. They decided to check him out and discovered that he had a blood alcohol content of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit in New York (0.08). He was charged with driving while intoxicated and troopers called a taxi and released him to the driver to take Kelley to a hotel in the Town of Poughkeepsie.

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=millbrook&daddr=Poughkeepsie,+New+York+to:Stanford,+New+York&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=41.832735,-73.722382&sspn=0.479892,1.235962&ie=UTF8&s=AARTsJrxm0mQAUHqaly9P-pyP5hthtYUrA&ll=41.802031,-73.800659&spn=0.819003,2.746582&z=8&output=embed&w=500&h=200]

Legend: A=Millbrook, B=Poughkeepsie, C=Stanford

While en route to Poughkeepsie, Kelley asked the cab driver to stop at an ATM so he could withdraw some cash to pay for his ride. When the cabbie stopped, Kelley got out and ran back to Troop K headquarters. He recovered his car, a Toyota Highlander, and drove north on the Taconic State Parkway while being followed by the taxi driver.

State troopers stopped him in the Town of Stanford and again arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. He was taken back to Trooper K headquarters and this time his blood alcohol content was 0.14.

Kelley was arraigned in front of Town of Stanford Justice Frank Weber Jr. and sent to Dutchess County Jail on $5,000 bail or $10,000 bond. He is due back in the Town of Stanford court to answer to the charges.

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Students Traumatized by School

Imagine being told that a loved one of yours was dead, killed in a car wreck - only to be told hours later that it was all just a hoax. How would you feel? This is exactly what happened at EL Camino Real High School, Woodland Hills, Ca.

On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students, 26 of them, had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend. The students were unaware that it was an elaborate scheme put together by the school, the police and "missing student" accomplices. It was designed to get their attention on the dangers of drinking and driving. It worked - very well.

Classmates wept. Some became hysterical. Michelle de Gracia, 16, was in physics class when an officer announced that her missing classmate David, a popular basketball player, had died instantly after being rear-ended by a drunken driver. She said she felt nauseated but was too stunned to cry. The plan was to tell the truth to the students at an assembly later in the day, but some students became so distraught that teachers had to immediately tell them that it was just a hoax. According to Michelle "It was pretty hectic." However many student were left in the dark until the "dead" students turned up hours later.

''They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized,'' said guidance counselor Lori Tauber, who helped organize the shocking exercise and got dozens of students to participate. ''That's how they get the message.''

At school assemblies, some students held up posters that read: ''Death is real. Don't play with our emotions.''

''You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust,'' said 15-year-old Carolyn Magos. ''But then I felt selfish for feeling that way, because, I mean, if it saves one life, it's worth it.''

Oceanside Schools Superintendent Larry Perondi said he fielded only a few calls from parents, while the PTA chapter said it had not heard any complaints. Perondi said the program would be revised, but he would not say how. And he said he was glad that students seemed to have gotten the message.

''We did this in earnest,'' he said. ''This was not done to be a prankster.''