Guy Gets A+ for Effort to Conceal His DWI Arrest

The owner of a weekly Western New York newspaper says a man bought hundreds of copies in an unsuccessful effort to keep people from reading about his drunken-driving arrest. State police arrested Joseph Talbot on Dec. 29 in Wayne County and charged him with driving while intoxicated, reports the AP. Police also charged him with refusing to be fingerprinted or photographed. They say he told troopers he didn't want his mugshot in the newspaper, the Times of Wayne County, which notes that he referred to their "fine publication" as "that rag." He further called the arresting trooper an "a--hole" who was ruining his life.

The 12,000-circulation Times says it obtained a mugshot from the county jail, and printed the mugshot and a story on New Year's Eve and published them online. The story might have ended there, but, as the paper tells it: "Talbot was, of course, embarrassed and was hoping to keep people from seeing the story. So….he decided to follow our delivery trucks and buy out all the Times from newsstands in Newark." This prompted publisher Ron Holdraker to go out armed with hundreds of copies and replenish the outlets Talbot bought out. In all, he says, Talbot bought nearly 1,000 copies at $1.25 apiece. Unfortunately, his extraordinary efforts to go unnoticed have since gone viral. (More strange stuff stories.)