Con Artist Gets His Comeuppance

“It was a great con,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Vezzani, “until he did something stupid.”

Vezzani was referring to a crook who would phone small businesses in L.A. and tell them he worked nearby and was expecting a package to be delivered. But, the scammer would add, he was stuck in traffic and would the business please accept it for him?

The package would arrive and a uniformed deliveryman would tell the good Samaritan that a small sum of, say, $30 was due. The owner would pay, thinking that the recipient of the package would reimburse him.

Trouble was, the deliveryman in uniform was actually the crook, who would pocket the cash and never return.

But he made one mistake. At one shop, he was asked to show his driver’s license.

Incredibly, he did.

The shop owner copied down the license information. And when she later discovered she’d been victimized, she contacted police, who delivered the crook to the hoosegow.

No one knows how many times he worked this scheme, but he pleaded guilty to three counts.

GUTTY SMILE: I want to thank Kate Yarbrough of Santa Barbara for the ad she forwarded to me. Nothing cheers me up more than seeing a happy colon (see accompanying).

ON A MORE EMOTIONAL NOTE: Jo Anne Fogarty of West L.A. came upon a church in Bel-Air that should have been used for the show “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” (see photo).

O-O-O OSCARS: What more could go wrong for the Academy Awards folks? Who knows? Maybe host Billy Crystal will come onstage Oscar night and fail to notice that he’s been given David Letterman’s disastrous monologue from the 1995 show. We’ll know if Crystal uses the names of actress Uma Thurman and TV personality Oprah Winfrey in a curious running joke that has him intoning over and over again, “Uma . . . Oprah! Uma . . . Oprah!”

AND THE AWARD FOR SHORT RENTAL . . . : C.M. Peros of Calabasas found a video shop that seems to specialize in short subjects (see photo).

Uma . . . Oprah!

Oops, sorry.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SPORTS: Mention was made here of the Long Beach Ice Dogs having sponsors for each penalty box in their arena. Well, I attended a Clippers game--yes, I admit it--and heard the public address announcer say at one point:

“This timeout is brought to you by Corona, the Official Beer of the Timeout.”

Wow.

BEFORE WE RETURN TO THE ACTION . . . : The Clippers, of course, often appear to be continuing their timeout even after their rival has resumed playing.

WELCOME TO LOS ANAHEIM: A faux pas by the rock group KISS at the Arrowhead Pond the other night was reminiscent of the TV commercial in which a performer tells the cheering crowd how much he loves Detroit, whereupon the arena falls silent. “Detroit was last night,” another band member whispers to him. The commercial is for an airline that is appealing to people who suddenly want to get away from it all.

Well, when KISS finished up in the Anaheim arena, a sign behind the stage flashed, “KISS Thanks you Los Angeles!”

Difficult to imagine KISS being embarrassed about anything, though.

Besides, Anaheim Stadium used to be the home of a football team called the Los Angeles Rams.

miscelLAny:

I liked the line on the TV comedy “Malcolm in the Middle” the other night where the family is facing hardships and the parents try to calm the children by recalling past financial crises they’ve endured. Such as the time “we were saving for Disneyland.”