Sheriff Mark Curran of Lake County, Illinois, walked into his own jail on Wednesday to spend a week as a prisoner, saying he was divinely inspired to learn what it was like to be confined and to sample jail programs designed to reduce recidivism.

“The biblical adage that we reap what we sow is very true in criminal justice,” said Curran, 45, before exchanging his business suit for a prison jumpsuit at the Waukegan, Illinois, facility near Chicago.

Illinois “has historically had one of the worst-run prison systems in the nation … treating inmates like caged animals only to see them released back into their communities angrier and more bitter than they originally were,” he said.

Curran will spend time in the general population of some 600 inmates who are awaiting trial on charges of murder, rape and lesser crimes, though at times he will have his own cell.

He will sit in on high school equivalency classes, and spend a night in the high-security unit and in the medical unit.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Eunice Lopez has been charged with bigamy, accused of marrying 10 men between 2002 and 2006 without divorcing any of them, federal immigration authorities say. The Miami Herald reported Saturday that a records search by the newspaper found seven additional marriages under the bride’s name and birth date.

Lopez arrived in South Florida from Cuba in 2002 and was a legal U.S. resident.

“I can tell you that none of the individuals she married had any type of residency,” said Terry Chavez, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade office of the state attorney.

Prosecutors say she charged her husbands an unspecified amount to help them secure immigration status and continued asking the men for money long after the wedding, threatening to expose them if they didn’t pay.

Chavez said the state attorney’s office began investigating after being tipped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Lopez was released on $18,000 bond. Her last known address was in Hialeah, just north of Miami. A telephone listing for her could not be located, and it was not known whether she had an attorney.

Las Vegas police were searching for the suspect after the Sunday night theft marred the service for 30-year-old David Rabun.

Officer Martin Wright described the man as a white male in his 30s who was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a red T-shirt, black jacket and blue jeans at the time.

“I hope the ironworkers don’t find him first,” Ruth Brown, Rabun’s grandmother, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. She traveled to Las Vegas from New Orleans to attend the service.

None of Rabun’s family knew the man who went to a microphone and told mourners he didn’t work with Rabun often but wanted to express his condolences, Sandra Alton, Rabun’s mother, told the paper.

At some point, the man snatched of a bag full of photos, cash, checks, a toy for Rabun’s 4-year-old son, cards and a Bible and left the funeral home, Jesse Alton, Rabun’s sister, told the paper.

“He looked like an ironworker type of guy, a little rough but not homeless,” she said.

Several mourners searched the area and recovered the bag with some of the items. The money, estimated at $10,000, was gone, family members said.

Rabun, a member of Ironworkers Local 433, died Tuesday when he fell about 50 feet during a mishap while attaching a steel beam to an upper floor the Cosmopolitan high-rise site.

A letter sent to officers in Brussels’ northern police district, and published in a Belgian daily Tuesday, urged them to set a good example and earn the public’s respect.

“These officers think their duty hours are to be used to drink alcohol in bars, practice sports…, visit brothels or massage parlors, and entertain (intimate) relationships with residents of the neighborhood during their patrol,” said the letter from a local police chief.

“It is only by setting a good example that the police can make itself respected,” the letter said, urging officers to adopt more conservative behavior.

A police spokesman confirmed the letter was authentic, but said the police chief had only reacted to rumors of officers behaving badly while on duty.

“There was no concrete evidence to substantiate any wrongdoing by police officers … If there had been, they would have been prosecuted,” said spokesman Roland Thiebauld.

And according to a national trade group, the outfits are the best-looking state police uniforms in the country.

The patrol, which has been wearing the peaked hats and distinctive bow ties for about 70 years, recently was named America’s “Best-Dressed State Law Enforcement Agency” by the National Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors.

The agency has taken runner-up honors before, but this is the first year the attire has been recognized as tops in the country, said Capt. Bill Hilton.

Judges were impressed by the Washington troopers’ formal uniform, which includes the black bow tie on a long-sleeved blue shirt, with darker blue pocket flaps, epaulets and cuffs.

Matching blue pants sport a dark blue stripe down the side, and the peaked, flat-brimmed dark blue felt cap tops it all off.

There are several variations of a Washington trooper’s uniform, depending on duty, and many don’t wear the formal bow tie in day-to-day service.

But the full complement of clothes can project a certain bearing, Hilton said.

“You check to see that things are straight before you head out the door, and the brass is shined up,” he said. “Sometimes, my wife will comment that it’s taking me a bit of time to get ready.”

Deputies added charges of possession of a controlled substance after finding a vial containing a yellow substance in her purse. A drug field test suggested the substance was methamphetamine, The Tampa Tribune reported.

Hunter had protested, saying the substance was dehydrated cat urine for her son’s science project and that it had been purchased at an animal clinic. She was released Thursday after lab tests found the substance was, in fact, cat urine.

Hunter pleaded guilty to petty theft and a judge gave her time served. It was not clear if she had an attorney and why the substance might have tested positive for methamphetamine.

“I wasn’t carrying a shank in my bra. If it’s so dangerous, why did they give it back and let me put it on?”

Patrick McDonald, the U.S. Marshal in Boise, said appropriate security protocols were followed in the Sept. 20 matter, and guards suggested she simply remove the bra in her car outside, or find a restaurant bathroom.  “She’s inflating it,” McDonald said. “All of a sudden she just took it off. It wasn’t anything we wanted to happen and it wasn’t anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast.”

Plato, of Bonners Ferry, said she was parked on a busy street and wasn’t familiar with downtown Coeur d’Alene businesses. So her husband held up his coat to shield her from the rest of the people in the courthouse lobby while she removed her bra underneath her shirt.

Generally, McDonald said, undergarments aren’t considered a danger to security.

“I don’t think they’re considered a weapon, really, the last time I looked,” he said.  He declined to discuss other ways the federal courthouse guards could have screened Plato for weapons.  Plato wants the Marshals Service to apologize and stop forcing women to disrobe.  “It was very humiliating,” her husband, Owen Plato, said. “They could have handled it with a much more professional attitude.”

Bystanders gave chase on hearing the screams of a housewife at a coffee shop in Ipoh, capital of the northern state of Perak, when the thief grabbed her handbag, the New Straits Times said.

The man was taken to a police station, where a check of his identification papers showed he was a policeman.

Perak police chief Zulkifli Abdullah confirmed the suspect was a policeman, but declined further comment, saying police would investigate, the paper added.

All three pharmacies are in grocery stores. Investigators say the man climbed through the ceiling in a restroom in at least two of them.

The burglaries have been caught on surveillance cameras but the suspect is wearing a baseball cap that partly obscures his face.

Police say the man picks and chooses among the prescription drugs for the ones he wants.

The most recent burglary was Thursday. The other two were on July 27th and August 24th.

Laurie Hurst, 29, admitted misconduct and agreed to a three-year suspension, with the understanding she would serve only serve six months with the rest of the suspension stayed upon successful completion of 2 1/2 years of probation, according to documents submitted Thursday to the Colorado Supreme Court’s Presiding Disciplinary Judge William Lucero.

Lucero will decide whether to accept the recommendation from a panel of lawyers.

Hurst, previously known as Laurie Steinman, was fired on Dec. 22. Grafton M. Biddle, 57, resigned his position after Hurst was fired.

A complaint filed in April said the affair began in the spring of 2006. Both admit to having sex in the judge’s chambers and “on a number of occasions Judge Biddle would `sneak’ into the women’s shower facilities in the courthouse early in the morning,” the complaint said.

A message left after business hours for Hurst was not immediately returned.

Allegations of misconduct in Hurst’s case include misuse of judicial officer chambers, disrepute upon the judiciary and the district attorney’s office, and potential tainting of bias in the two trials.

Biddle’s case is still pending.

“It was unique to have people who were dealing drugs calling us when they’ve been ripped off,” police spokesman Zach Friend said.

After the thieves made off with his stash, the dealer telephoned police. When police arrived, the dealer’s story became progressively confused.

First he showed officers a medical marijuana card and told them he bought the pot at a medical marijuana dispensary. Then he said he got the pot from a friend. Eventually the dealer admitted he had arranged to sell the marijuana to the men who stole it from him, investigators said.

The Felton dealer wasn’t arrested.

“From our standpoint, it’s more important to address the fact there are individuals out there who are willing to use a weapon to commit robberies,” Friend said.

Charlotte Moore, 36, a jail deputy, was off duty driving her 2004 Pontiac Grand Am on Saturday when she was pulled over by her husband, Elko County Sheriffs Deputy Mike Moore, a police report said.

In two separate accounts of the incident, Mike Moore indicated she initially was pulled over for either speeding or making an illegal turn.

She allegedly left before being administered a portable breathalyzer test, the Elko Daily Free Press reported.

Mike Moore pulled her over again and called for backup. He left shortly after another officer arrived.

Mike Moore was following procedure when he asked for backup, Elko County Undersheriff Rocky Gonzalez told the newspaper.

Neither Mike nor Charlotte Moore was available for comment Monday. She reportedly had been drinking approximately two hours earlier at a downtown business group’s wine walk, the newspaper said.

Charlotte Moore was released on Sunday and placed on paid administrative leave.

“One of the victims identified the officers and they are under administrative arrest for now,” a police spokeswoman in Rio said. The crime-ridden city is swarming with tourists during the Pan American Games, which end on Sunday.

The U.S. tourists were leaving a night club in Rio’s Copacabana beach neighbourhood before dawn on Wednesday, when two uniformed police officers approached them and searched them for drugs. At night, the neighbourhood is a red-light district with several brothels and strip joints.

Although no drugs were found, the officers told the tourists they would have to pay a bribe or be arrested. One of the Americans went back to their hotel to fetch the equivalent of some $2,200 (1,075 pounds) in local and foreign currency. The Brazilian policemen then took off with the money and an MP3 player.

Corruption is rife in Rio’s police force despite the authorities’ efforts to root out bad cops. Officers, who often have to confront well-armed drug gangs, complain they are underpaid and many have to moonlight as private security guards to make ends meet.

Policing in Rio has been heavily reinforced in the last three weeks during the Pan American Games. No major incidents have been reported after months of daily gun battles in the city’s sprawling hillside slums.

The FSB, Russia’s latter-day spy service, plans to publish Dzerzhinsky’s letters to the love of his life, Margarita Nikolayeva, in a book called “I Love You”.

“He is an interesting and complex person and, with the help of the archived material, readers will be able to understand more about him,” Alexander Plekhanov, of the FSB’s academy, was quoted as saying on Tuesday by Interfax news agency.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a former spy himself, and during his seven years in power ex-KGB agents have increased their influence within the Kremlin, which has pushed to transform the secret services’ image from feared to heroic.

Soviet citizens nicknamed Dzerzhinsky “Iron Felix” because of his devotion to the Bolshevik cause, and for setting up one of the world’s most ruthless internal intelligence systems.

The thin, goateed and austere Dzerzhinsky was utterly devoted to communism. Born into a Polish family in the Russian empire in 1877, he became a Bolshevik agitator in his teens.

By the time of the Russian workers’ revolution in 1917, he had already served prison sentences in Siberia.

Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik revolution, regarded him as a hero and charged him with setting up the Cheka — a powerful unit designed to root out and punish opponents.

The Cheka grew in power and pitiless efficiency and laid the foundations for the Soviet Union’s later secret services.

Dzerzhinsky died in 1926 of a heart attack but his image as one of the tough enforcers of communism lived on, and in 1958 the Soviet Union erected a statue of him outside the Lubyanka — the KGB’s headquarters and prison in Moscow.

At the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, cheering demonstrators pulled the statue down, and in former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe governments rushed to scrub Dzerzhinsky’s name from roads and squares.

But in recent years he has made a comeback. Moscow’s police headquarters now has a bust of him in its courtyard, and Belarus last year unveiled a replica of the original Moscow statue.

The FSB plans to publish Dzerzhinsky’s love letters, dating from 1898-1899, on September 11, the 130th anniversary of his birth.