I-80 traffic stop turns up $407,700 in marijuana
More than $400,000 worth of marijuana was found by state police Friday during a traffic stop on Interstate 80.
At 2:40 p.m., police pulled over a 2006 Freightliner car hauler on I-80 in Boggs Township. During the stop, “indicators of criminal activity were observed,” police said.
After the driver gave consent to search the truck and the seven cars loaded onto its trailer, police deployed Spencer, a drug detection dog, to search for narcotics.
After a positive identification by the dog, a hand search revealed 90 pounds of high-grade marijuana in the trunk of a 2010 Chevrolet Impala sedan.
The truck and cars it was carrying were taken to state police barracks at Rockview, where a more thorough search commenced, revealing no further narcotics.
The operator of the vehicle and a passenger, both from Babylon, N.Y., were released pending further investigation.
The confiscated drugs have an estimated value of $407,700.
Police had released no further information on the find by Saturday afternoon.
Checkpoint yields 11 citations, 1 DUI arrest
A sobriety checkpoint on U.S. Route 220 in Worth Township, conducted by state police in the Rockview and Philipsburg barracks on Friday, resulted in one DUI arrest, 11 traffic citations and six warnings, out of a total of 15 vehicles stopped.
1 injured in multivehicle Boggs Twp. crash
A three-vehicle crash on Interstate 80 in Boggs Township resulted in one injury, and a second man barely escaped harm after jumping out of the way of the accident.
Edward Drum, of Mentor, Ohio, lost control of his 2007 Volvo TT and crashed into a 1999 Ford Explorer that had pulled off the road in heavy rain at 8:42 p.m. Friday. Drum suffered minor injuries, but Brandon Mull, who had been driving the Explorer and was outside the vehicle, heard the sound of heavy braking and jumped over the guiderail.
Drum’s Volvo ended up off of the right side of the roadway, while Mull’s Explorer was pushed into the right lane of I-80.
Drum will be cited in district court, according to the police report.
Woman pleads guilty in boyfriend’s stabbing
LEBANON — A woman pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault in the stabbing death of her boyfriend last summer.
The Lebanon Daily News said 30-year-old Gina Melendez entered the plea Thursday before Senior Judge Robert Eby in Lebanon County Court.
She faces 31/ 2 to seven years in prison when she is sentenced
June 22.
Lebanon police said Melendez stabbed 36-year-old Roderick Dunham with a kitchen knife in their city apartment on July 28. They said she told investigators that the stabbing followed an argument and physical altercation between the two.
Urban Outfitters denies stealing jewelry design
Urban Outfitters has strongly denied allegations, fueled by a Twitter frenzy, that it stole a necklace design from a jewelry artist in Chicago.
In a statement issued Saturday, the Philadelphia-based fashion-and-accessories company said it “unequivocally” did not copy the work of jewelry designer Stevie Koerner.
Koerner took to her Twitter account midweek to accuse the chain of illegally copying her work. The jewelry designer, who makes silver necklaces in the shape of American states with hearts punched through them, posted pictures of her necklaces alongside photos of strikingly similar ones sold by Urban Outfitters.
“Way to rip me off,” she tweeted on Wednesday in a complaint that quickly went viral.
Soon, singer-actress Miley Cyrus was weighing in, and Urban Outfitters found itself besieged with online criticism. The former star of TV’s Hannah Montana has more than a million Twitter followers, many of whom belong to the teens-and- 20s demographic the company’s Urban Outfitters stores target.
On Saturday, Urban Outfitters responded with a blog post decrying Koerner’s allegations as false. It noted that several other designers feature lines with similar necklaces, and it posted pictures of them on its website.
“We are not implying that Koerner stole her necklace idea from one of these other designers,” the company said in its statement. “We are simply stating the obvious — that the idea is not unique to Koerner and she can in no way claim to be its originator.”
