Remember Lisa Nowak, the astronaut turned would-be kidnapper? She stole a car to race to Florida, wearing a diaper so she wouldn’t have to stop since she was in such a hurry to put on a wig and mace her romantic rival, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Well, Lisa just went to court. She originally faced felony charges, like attempted kidnapping, which could have gotten her life in prison, but the charges were reduced to misdemeanor battery and burglary of an automobile. And a judge also took it easy on her, only sentencing Lisa to a year of probation and requiring her to send an apology letter to Colleen, promising to stay far, far away. Colleen is now married to the man Lisa attacked her over, and since the happy couple lost their jobs in the fallout from the incident, they moved to Alaska to freelance. All’s well that ends well? [Newser]

With all the talk about legalizing gay marriage and decriminalizing marijuana, we started thinking about the super-important stuff that we wish the po-po would come in and regulate. After the jump, 30 unacknowledged crimes that should be illegal.

The December issue of Vanity Fair contains a pretty shocking article called “A Crime Of Shadows.” The piece is about a convicted sex offender named “J” who was coaxed by Pennsylvania detective Michele Deery into meeting for sex in a parking lot. While this is not a crime, Deery had posed in a chat room as “Heather,” a mother with two kids and she made it very clear to J that she wanted her young children—who she said were ages 8 and 11—to be involved. Deery and J had quite a lot of nasty back-and-forth before their meeting, where a bunch of cops, not a mother and her two kids, showed up and slapped J with a slew of charges, landing him time in prison. But what about his side of the story? That’s what this piece focuses on.

What is the worst possible way to be woken up from your slumber at 4 a.m.? By a car crashing into your bed! No, this is not a cockamamie plot from a Hollywood action film; this is a real-life nightmare. Last week, University of Nevada students Kristin Palmer and Trent Wood were sleeping soundly when they were awoken by a car crashing through their bedroom window. At first they thought it was an earthquake, but soon discovered it was a car when they were engulfed in motor fluid and metal. Fearing an explosion or permanent paralyzation, they waited anxiously at first, and then they tried to stay calm while emergency workers freed them with chainsaws. Miraculously, they were able to wiggle out from under the car and did not sustain any serious injuries. How? They say they owe it to the saggy-ness of their bed—it prevented their bodies from being crushed. 

Paul and Brandy Romero, a couple from Louisiana, got themselves in a bit of a pickle when they bought two children from Donna Greenwell in exchange for a cockatoo and $175. Though Donna wasn’t the children’s mother, the biological parents knew they were living with her and she claims she was just trying to find a suitable home for the unwanted kids. I guess Paul and Brandy fit the bill, since they were unable to have children but happened to be selling an exotic bird and somehow the subject of kids came up during the bird-buying transaction? Both parties were charged with two felony counts of sale of minors, which apparently only gets you a five-year prison sentence. The Romeros had their sentences suspended for testifying against Donna, who awaits her trial in November. I wish every conversation on Earth were recorded, so we could hear what really went down. Something like “Nice bird!” “Oh thanks, want some kids?” “Oh totally! That would be awesome—we’re barren.” “Super, I’ll give you two for 175 and the cockatoo.” “Word.” [AOL News]

Elizabeth Smart was found more than six years ago, but her kidnapper, Brian Mitchell, has still not gone to trial. His lawyers claim that he’s a complete looney, and it’s been an uphill battle to prove that he’s fit to stand trial. Makes you oh so proud of our legal system, right? Yesterday, at Mitchell’s official competency hearing, Elizabeth took the stand for the first time to tell what exactly happened to her in the nine months she was missing. The details are horrifying: After Mitchell took her at knife-point from her house, he made her hike three miles into the mountains to a campsite he’d set up. There, he performed a “marriage ceremony” and raped her. She was 14 at the time. He raped her every day for the next nine months. She said, “Anytime I showed resistance or hesitance, he would turn to me and say, ‘The Lord has commanded you to do this. You have to experience the lowest form of humanity to experience the highest.’” Mitchell forced her to drink alcohol, to take drugs, and to watch porn. At one point, Mitchell chained her to a tree. Elizabeth says that Mitchell planned to kidnap a second girl to “marry,” though luckily the plot didn’t work out.

I know what you’re thinking—there’s a typo in the headline and that it should be “Chris Brown Starts Community Service.” But you’re wrong—Brown’s judge specifically sentenced him to hard “labor,” and his supervising police chief has grand plans for him to remove graffiti, pick up trash, wash cars, and maintain grounds. Chris whacking weeds has already drawn lots of media and fans who want to watch (thanks for the boring videos, guys?), so he had to personally pay for extra guards to protect him. Hopefully after six months worth of hard labor, Chris will think twice before laying a hand on a lady. Also, someone make him put a shirt on. [LA Times]

Australians Courtney and Amelia Prentice—19-year-old twins who look like bad-ass versions of Lauren Conrad—used to be part of an all-girl gang that spent a lot of time getting drunk and roaming the streets looking for fights. Last year, the group encountered two chicks on the beach and beat the crap out of them, knocking them to the ground, punching them, and yelling “Stab them! Stab them!” repeatedly before taking all their money. When the police rolled up at the twins’ house to arrest them, one of the girls punched an officer, so the whole arrest had to go down at gunpoint. Still, this week in court, the girls were sentenced to 18 months of probation instead of jail time. Why couldn’t the judge stick them with a worse punishment? Because the twins looks so darn much alike, no one could tell “who did what” during the fight. Ditto for the punching of the police officer.

I’ve heard of pulling pigtails before, but Stephfon Bennett of Columbus, Ohio, had a whole new idea on how to get a girl. Diana Martinez was sitting in her car outside her apartment building with a friend, when three guys surrounded them, one holding a gun to her head through the window. They demanded all her money before she opened the door, knocking one of them over and getting away. She called the police and after filing her report, went inside her apartment. An hour later, she opened her front door. And Stephfon, whom she identified as one of the robbers, was standing there. Her cousin frantically called the police, scared that Stephfon would do something violent. Instead, he shyly asked Diana if she had a boyfriend and would like to go on a date. Too bad the police quickly arrived and arrested him—from his mug shot he actually looks kind of cute. Note to all the dudes out there: armed robbery is hardly the way to a girl’s heart. Who said chivalry was dead? [WBNS 10 TV]

I was sure I had the trophy for “Worst First Date” in the bag, after I went out with a guy who, within the first five minutes of meeting, told me, “You’ve got great cans.” I felt like karma had worked its magic when, two minutes later, a pigeon pooped on him. But a woman in Detroit totally has me beat. She met a dude at a casino (something should have told her this wasn’t a good idea) and agreed to go out with him a few days later. She picked him up, and the two went for a (romantic?) dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. When the bill came, he said, “Oh, I think I left my wallet in your car.” She gave him her keys to go retrieve it. Only, he never came back. He not only skipped out on the bill—he stole her 2000 Chevy Impala. This dude goes on trial on Thursday, and faces five years for unlawfully taking the car. We think they should tack on an extra year for giving dudes a bad name. [Yahoo News]

Holy creepy. Last night, Philip Garrido, the man who allegedly kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard, kept her in a compound in his backyard, raped her, and fathered her two children, called a reporter from jail. Listen to the recording above. He says, “In the end you’re going to find the most powerful heart-warming story.” Yeah, somehow I just don’t think that’s gonna be the case. Happy Friday! More info on this horrific case, after the jump…

This is one of those stories that involves so many layers of nastiness that it sort of resembles a rotten onion. In 2006, a Nebraskan dude named Aurelio Vallerillo-Sanchez raped a 14-year-old girl. When he found out that the young girl was pregnant, he realized he was in deep trouble and was very likely going to get caught. So he asked his son to serve as a look-out while he stole a 300-year-old portrait of the Virgin Mary worth about $100K from Omaha’s St. Cecilia Cathedral. He then grabbed the girl he’d raped and fled with her to Mexico, where he sold the painting for $3K and took the girl to an abortion clinic. When he discovered an abortion wasn’t an option, he kept the girl there until she gave birth and forced her to give it up for adoption. Luckily, this horrible guy got caught, and plead no contest to the charges of first-degree sexual assault and theft. Hopefully, when he’s sentenced this week, he’ll get the full 70 years. [Fox News]

Yesterday we reported on the horrific health-club shooting in which woman-hater George Sodini walked into a Pittsburgh LA Fitness Club and open fired on a bunch of women taking a Latin Impact dance aerobics class. He killed three and injured nine others before killing himself. New facts are emerging about this crazy dude and they are totally disturbing. After the jump, find out more about George Sodini’s life.

When you imagine a crime spree, you probably think of a beefy guy in a ski mask with maybe, I don’t know, a weapon? Well, in Mississippi last week, a 24-year-old woman carjacked another woman in her driveway, allowing the woman to remove her kid from the car first. Then, she tried to rob an RV dealership. She told the dealership employees that she was packing heat and told them to cough up the cash. But the employees didn’t believe her. Why? Probably because she was wearing a bikini during this entire venture. Where are you going to hide a gun when you’re wearing four triangles of clothing? [Yahoo! News]

A South Carolina woman is being charged today with criminal neglect, a felony that could land her up to ten years in the slammer. Why? Because her 14-year-old son weighs 555 pounds. The kid’s mother, Jerri Gray, was poor and often had to work back-to-back shifts, so her son was home alone a lot. Gray claims there wasn’t a lot of junk food in the house, but that her son was stuffing his face in school, eating several lunches each day and feasting on snacks given to him by his friends.

Joshua Walter used to walk down the catwalk in his underwear, but it looks like he’ll soon be donning something with a few more stripes on it. The former undies model was arrested Thursday after an alleged robbing spree of 24-hour stores in Queens and Brooklyn, New York. Joshua was nabbed by police after running out of the Astro van getaway car that he and three other guys supposedly used in the robberies. The 20-year-old boy-toy turned bad-boy lives with his girlfriend, Gina Salamino—a 37-year-old ex-second grade school teacher who was fired for having sex and a love child with Joshua when he was 17. Joshua is charged with robbery and criminal possession of a firearm. But now he can add a mugshot to his modeling portfolio! [NY Daily News] 

There is an old adage along the lines of “real life is stranger than fiction.” Apparently a man from my sleepy town in Connecticut was arrested for having sex with his cow…again. Oh yes, the local dude was arrested once before a few years ago for doing the nasty with his cow. I am not sure what was the most disturbing element of this story: the fact that he was caught having sex with his cow, that he was caught again, or that he was single at the time of the first arrest and he was (and, to my knowledge, still is) engaged at the time of his second arrest. Inspired by this bizarre story I went to searching for other random crimes committed in the past few days. Read about the weirdest and wackiest ways the law has been broken, after the jump.

It’s hard to go more than a few months in the United States without a juicy cheerleading scandal. (Don’t believe me? Check out my book CHEER!: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders.) Today, a case in Oklahoma is eerily reminiscent of Wanda Holloway, the infamous Texas cheer mom who tried to have her daughter’s cheer rival offed in the 1990s. Find out what happened this time time around, after the jump…

Talk about being an overly-involved parent. Last week, mom Carolina McNeal was charged with hacking into a Pennsylvania high school’s computer system to make her daughter come out at the top of her class. Caroline worked as the school’s secretary, and used other people’s passwords to change four years worth of grades, test scores, and SAT scores for her daughter Brittany…even giving her daughter’s classmates crappier grades and scores! McNeal is accused of changing 200 scores and is charged with 29 counts of tampering with public records—third-degree felonies that warrant up to seven years in prison and $15,000 in fines. (For each count…yikes.) Nutso mom got caught when a guidance counselor noticed that Brittany’s SAT score of 1370 was listed as 1730 in the school’s computers…which totally could have just been a dyslexic mix-up, right? Also, 1370 is practically perfect on its own! I guess that’s motherly love to the extreme—doing time so your daughter could get into a good college? But my guess is that Brittany would rather have a mother than good grades.  [Yahoo News]

You may think your mother is bad, but this mama takes the cake. No really, she probably took it. Arizona mother Cynthia Robertson has been charged with masterminding 20 cases of armed robbery and aggravated assault in Phoenix, Arizona. How did mama Robertson do it? She used her bad financial situation and unemployment to guilt her two young sons, ages 12 and 14, and their friends into robbing people. Seriously, I know the economy sucks, but geez.