Free Republic

He was perhaps too buzzed on Thanksgiving. A Florida business owner has been busted after his girlfriend accused him of drunkenly battering her with her sex toy. Christopher Pacitto, the 45-year-old CEO and owner of Velocity Engineering Services, was arrested after a 4:30 a.m. bust-up with his girlfriend at a St. Petersburg motel on Thanksgiving Day, an arrest affidavit shows. During an argument, the 6-foot-2, 300-pound business owner started packing his bags — then throwing all of his girlfriend’s items out onto the floor, the complaint says. “During that process” he “hit her with a sex toy on her torso,...

TEMPE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - Gerald Goins, 84, has been calling this studio-sized motel room in Tempe home for several months. And even though it's small, he said it was enough room for him and his son Andy. But last week, his son up and left. "I went to the doctor’s office. After an hour, two hours, I got a ride to come here and he was gone,” said Goins. Goins said all that was left in his motel room was a handwritten note from his son with instructions on how he was supposed to take care of himself. “He...

What happens when homeless people are sent to motels? Some are welcomed, some treated warily, some kicked out Erik Teasley was happy to leave behind the ragtag encampments at the Santa Ana River Trail where he and hundreds of other homeless people had lived until last week, when the county resumed its mass dispersal of an entrenched tent-city community. A comfortable motel sounded good to Teasley, 47. A homeless man from Santa Ana, he’d spent two years sleeping in different spots on the banks of the flood-control channel. But, last week, when he initially was moved away from the riverbed,...

<p>MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) - Police say officers responding to a report of a possible dead child at a southwest Ohio motel found a pair of young siblings with serious injuries and arrested their mother and two other adults.</p> <p>Middletown police say they found a 5-year-old child with life-threatening injuries Wednesday night, and while investigating, they discovered the child's 6-year-old brother seriously hurt and hidden under a blanket.</p>

Two cross-dressing men who were shot at by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who picked them up for a motel “party,” police said Tuesday. One suspect was killed and the other was injured, along with an NSA police officer, as the driver of the stolen SUV apparently tried to get away from the guards. The SUV’s owner, a 60-year-old man from Baltimore who has not been publicly identified, told investigators that he had picked up the two strangers in Baltimore. They arrived around 7:30...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Myrtle Beach police say three people have been shot and killed and another person injured at a motel in the popular resort city. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Three people were killed and a fourth person was wounded in a shooting at an oceanfront motel in Myrtle Beach, one of South Carolina's most popular tourist destinations. The shootings took place around 11 p.m. Saturday in front of crowds of tourists at the Bermuda Sands Motel along the beach's new boardwalk, Myrtle Beach Police Capt. David Knipes said.

ELIZABETH — It's a scene that played out at least a half-dozen times in recent weeks at motels along Routes 1&9 in Union County, authorities said. The gunman would allegedly stalk the couples as they walked toward their rooms. When they opened the door, he would force his way inside and make his demands, ordering the couples to perform sexual acts on each other as he watched. Then, authorities said, he'd lock the man in the bathroom so he could have his way with the woman.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (CBS Charlotte) – One man made sure a Charlotte motel was going to pay for him running out of toilet paper. Upset about the lack of toilet paper that was available in his room, a man destroyed $2,090 worth of hotel property on Monday, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report. The identity of the man remains unknown. The incident, which happened at the Charlottetown Manor, happened around 10 a.m. Monday. According to the report, the man grew irate after learning he didn’t have toilet paper and proceeded to walk upstairs to a vacant room that was being renovated....

Police have arrested a mentally-ill man in connection with the death of his parents, whose bodies were found at their home on Friday. David William Hamilton, 26, from Huntersville, North Carolina, was arrested at a motel on Friday night after his sister reportedly found their parents' bodies. Huntersville Police Captain Michael Kee said Hamilton was living with his parents - James and Stephanie Hamilton - at the home after being released from a mental institution earlier this year.

KENNEDY TWP., Pa. -- The Allegheny County medical examiner is investigating the death of a man whose body was found in a Kennedy Township motel room with nine animals. Police said the man, whose identity had not been released, was found inside a room at the Motel Six on Beecham Drive. Triangle Pet Control Services said the man was found with a purebred German Sheppard puppy, seven ferrets and a scorpion. All of the animals were found alive.

DULUTH — A ring-billed gull with a taste for doughnuts has returned for the ninth straight year to the Super 8 motel in Duluth, and he’s brought some friends. The Duluth News Tribune reported that the bird, known at Steven Seagull, still taps on the glass door of the motel every morning looking for doughnuts.

(CBS) NORWALK, Calif. A Tennessee woman who sued an Artesia motel because her two pre-teen daughters were exposed to unsolicited pornography on TV was awarded $85,000 on Friday. Edwina McCombs of Nashville, who is divorced, and her daughters, who were about 7 and 8 years old at the time, were in Southern California in August 2006 to visit relatives and see local attractions, according to one of her lawyers, Eliot F. Krieger. On Aug 6, 2006, they checked into the Value Lodge at 11854 Artesia Blvd. She went to take a bath while the girls turned on the television to...

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - A motel in northern Mexico is putting steel doors on its rooms to protect guests from kidnappings and shootings in an escalating war between rival drug cartels. Owners of the Rancho El Trueno, or Thunder Ranch, began fortifying the highway motel near Monterrey a year ago but have decided to shield all 35 rooms as drug killings have worsened in the area in recent months. Complete with hot tubs, red imitation-leather beds, mirrored walls and striptease poles, the rooms are shuttered behind steel gates about 1.5 inches (4 cm) thick and some already have steel doors....

By Sonia Moghe ASSOCIATED PRESS 11:40 a.m. August 4, 2006 RICHARDSON, Texas – When Ron Patel talks to customers at the Super 8 Motel he owns, he usually does so in English. When he speaks to the housekeeping staff it's often in Spanish. When he talks to his wife, it's in the Indian language Gujarati. It's a complicated but increasingly common scene in U.S. hotels and motels, about one-third of which are owned by Indians, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. To help keep order in the multilanguage environment, many hotel operators are turning to a Gujarati-Spanish phrasebook...

Dallas, April 29: Today's great American hotel owner is more likely to be named Patel and have roots that extend to the Indian state of Gujarat, than to be named Trump and lay claim to premier properties in the New York area. Immigrants from India, almost all with ties to Gujarat, have become a dominant force in the US hotel industry. They own about half of the US economy lodging facilities and almost 37 per cent of all hotel properties here, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), based in Atlanta. This means that if a traveller stops...

MIAMI (AP) A woman who allegedly overstayed her welcome at a motel was zapped nine times with a stun gun as police arrested her. Patricia Skelly's attorney said there was little evidence that the 110-pound woman posed such a danger that repeated use of the Taser was needed. But authorities Wednesday defended the use of force, saying Skelly was extremely combative. Skelly, 47, was arrested Easter Sunday at a motel in Valparaiso in the Florida Panhandle when the owners were unable to determine whether she would leave or stay another night. ``It's just not right what happened to me,'' Skelly...

Published Monday, April 11, 2005 Autopsies Don't Explain Deaths Toxicology tests will be done on the sisters' bodies to test for the presence of drugs. By Dana Willhoit The Ledger LAKELAND -- Autopsies didn't pinpoint what killed twin sisters who were found in their motel room Friday, officials said Sunday. Toxicology tests will be conducted to determine whether drugs were in the sisters' systems, but the results of those tests may not be known for several weeks, said Dr. Stephen Nelson, Polk County's medical examiner. An examination of the bodies Sunday didn't find any trauma injuries that would explain the...

ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) -- A judge ordered that an Evansville man charged with making methamphetamine in a motel room be held in jail under a $1 million cash bond. Robert E. Espy, 41, faces felony charges of possession with intent to deal methamphetamine, manufacturing methamphetamine and other drug charges. "I've read (the charges) and I just don't agree with any of it," Espy said during a court hearing Thursday. Madison County Magistrate Stephen Clase raised Espy's bond from $20,000 to $1 million cash after reading the probable-cause affidavit. "You rented a room in a motel in Madison County to manufacture...

HEBER CITY, Utah (AP) - A fire caused about $100,000 in damage to a motel, and the Muslim owner said he has been getting threatening phone calls for about a year. Police Sgt. Jason Bradley said the fire Sunday night at the Alpine Lodge was suspicious. The fire began in a room rented by a man who paid cash, showed no identification and was seen leaving with another man just after the fire started, co-owner Mazhar Tabesh said. Tabesh said he gave the registration papers to police, but the name was scrawled and hard to read. He said the threatening...