• Mark McGowan of Pittsburgh faces 33 counts of animal neglect after Chomp, his 5-foot-long alligator, escaped and was found along a street, leading to the discovery of 32 animals, including three more gators and other exotic pets, living in substandard conditions, police said.
• Joe Sedinger, sheriff of Autauga County, Ala., said a search for jail contraband revealed that inmates were making some truly "disgusting" alcohol out of fermenting vegetables, adding that the jail stopped serving fruit years ago because the prisoners used it to make wine.
• Serina Wolfe of Buffalo, N.Y., faces a felony grand-theft charge after police in Clearwater, Fla., said she used her boyfriend's credit card to leave a $5,000 tip on a $55 cafe bill after becoming angry when he refused to buy her a plane ticket home.
• Wlodzimie Lapkiewicz, 30, of Metuchen, N.J., convicted of illegally importing scorpions, giant millipedes and other invertebrates, some of which escaped inside a postal delivery truck in 2015, was sentenced to six months of home confinement and four years of probation.
• Mickey Paulk, 35, of Alabama, accused of feeding methamphetamine to what authorities called an "attack squirrel," was charged with illegal possession of wildlife in addition to the weapons-possession and other counts he already faces, authorities said.
• Andrew Adams, 47, a circuit judge in Clark County, Ind., pleaded innocent to battery charges stemming from a May 1 fight outside an Indianapolis fast-food restaurant in which he and another judge were shot and wounded.
• Steve Bansbach, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said agents at Chicago's O'Hare Airport confiscated and destroyed 32 pounds of African rat meat that a man declared having after his flight arrived from Ivory Coast.
• Cayden Melia, 21, who told police he drunkenly broke into a nature center in Chattanooga, Tenn., where he tried to play fetch with a female bobcat named Evi and accidentally allowed the creature to escape, was cited for criminal trespass and vandalism.
• Mark Char, 60, of Hawaii, convicted in March of attempted murder and assault after a 2016 road-rage incident, appeared in court with his head and face blackened with a marker, telling the judge "you treating me like a black man, so today I am a black man," before he was sentenced to life in prison.
A Section on 07/04/2019