Crime & Punishment: Greenwich Man Grabs 12-Year Old Boy, Demands Marijuana

Right before Superstorm Sandy hit, Sam Zherka, owner of the Farmington Hills apartment complex in New Britain, slipped notes beneath tenants' doors implying the city would charge them $500 if they called 911, reports the New Britain Herald. Zherka was apparently mustering up opposition to a proposed ordinance that would fine landlords of properties that rack up a large number of nuisance calls. However, matters of immediate danger are excluded, said city officials, and the law would fine landlords, not tenants (and not at a rate like $500 a call). "People's lives were deliberately put at risk in order to build opposition to a common sense proposal," said the mayor's chief of staff. (Zherka, a real estate entrepreneur, was in the news last May when Charlie Sheen threatened to sue him over the "Charlie Sheen Room" of his Manhattan strip club, Cheetah's, where patrons can eat sushi off the skin of dancers, a practice the actor apparently enjoys.)

By Nick Keppler

November 20, 2012