A former police officer from Staten Island turned alleged scam artist who is accused of collecting nearly $150,000 in disability payments by lying about having depression related to post-9/11 trauma, bragged about his influx of cash in online videos, according to a report from ABC News.

Vincent Lamantia, 43, of New Dorp, whom prosecutors charged back in January with faking psychiatric problems in order to get federal disability benefits, posted videos online saying, "They keep paying us. They keep downloading money every single week. We're getting emails that said, 'Congratulations, you have money,'" according to the report.

A former police officer died while trying to set ablaze a food cart belonging to a blogger who exposed crooked cops and other corrupt city officials. ArkansasMatters.com reported Friday that former Little Rock Police Officer Todd Payne died when blogger Ean Bordeaux (pictured above) tackled him as Payne tried to flee the scene of the attempted arson.

Bordeaux is the proprietor of the Corruption Sucks blog, a webpage dedicated to exposing corruption in the Little Rock local government and in the state government of Arkansas. At about 4:30 a.m. on Friday, he awoke to find the hot dog cart he operates for a living in flames.

“I looked outside and my hot dog cart’s on fire,” he told KARK. The cart operated on propane tanks, which, Bordeaux said, “could have blown up the house.”


He called 911, then ran outside in a bathrobe to put out the blaze. That was when he noticed a heavyset man in a mask running away.

Bordeaux was too busy trying to put out the flames then, he said, but about 15 minutes later, the man in the mask came back. The blogger watched from inside his house as the masked man tried to restart the fire.

Running outside again, Bordeaux said, he tackled the man as he tried to flee, hoping to hold him until police arrived.

Payne hit the pavement face-first, however, and died from his injuries. Bordeaux said his only desire had been to immobilize the perpetrator and hand him over to authorities.

He quickly realized, however, that the dead man was former LRPD officer Todd “Creepy Todd” Payne, who was fired from the force in 2010 for multiple violations, including a DUI crash in which Payne attempted to leave the scene, incidences of witness intimidation, lying to superiors and dereliction of duty.

Bordeaux had written extensively about Payne at Corruption Sucks, and believes that the former cop was attempting to strike back at him for exposing his crimes.

“Your attitude is 100% why you received these tickets…I normally just pull people over to look for drugs.”

SAN JOSE (CN) - A police car dash cam captured Santa Clara deputies plotting to plant drugs in a woman's home after their first illegal search turned up nothing, the woman claims in court.
Allison Ross, who was arrested after the second search of her home, sued the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, its crime lab, Sheriff Laurie Smith, and 12 of her officers, in Federal Court.
Ross says that the deputies came to her home around 11 p.m. on New Years' Eve, 2009, after arresting her husband several houses down the street from their family home. When the deputies approached, Ross was outside talking with a neighbor.
The deputies "unlawfully detained Ross while they proceeded to illegally enter and conduct an illegal search and seizure of her home. This was done under the false pretense of conducting a 'safety sweep' of the home for an attempted 'home invasion,'" the complaint states.
Ross says she never gave the deputies permission to enter her home or gave them keys to do so.
The audio transcript from one of the sheriff vehicle's dash cameras indicates that one of the officers said something to the effect of: "negative on the home invasion - we are sweeping the house," the complaint states.
Deputies then re-entered the home and ransacked it, opening and rummaging through drawers in the bedrooms and kitchens. They placed personal property from around the house into one area in an effort to make it appear that the items were in plain sight, the complaint states.
While Ross was being held outside, she says, she overheard a deputy say that they had been denied a search warrant for the home.
Because the deputies failed to find any drugs in the home, "they planted narcotics which were kept in one of the sheriff's vehicles. Statements to this effect can be heard over the vehicle dash camera on one of the defendant's vehicles," the lawsuit states.

A Texas prosecutor appeared in court this morning to face charges after she allegedly brandished a pistol at a man during a road rage incident last Friday, police said.

Susan Sciacca, 55, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. According to the Tomball, Texas, police, she said she became angry after a vehicle cut her off as she drove along a suburban Houston highway last Friday afternoon. She then followed the vehicle into a local credit union parking lot and pulled up alongside the car, police told ABC News.

Police said the car's driver, John Leazer, 40, told them that Sciacca appeared “enraged” and pointed a shiny silver pistol at him while screaming obscenities as he exited his vehicle. Leazer's wife was also in the car at the time.

"I'm basically scared. I honestly thought she was going to shoot me," Leazer told KHOU-TV.

Leazer called 911, and when police arrived they arrested Sciacca on the spot, the police told ABC News.

An East Texas man says a deputy responding to a burglary call shot his dog on Friday morning. The incident happened in the 6800 block of Farm to Market 514 in Rains County.

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Middleton said when the deputy arrived to investigate, the deputy claimed the dog was about to bite him and shot the dog to defend himself.

“She’s barking when he pulls into the driveway letting me know someone’s at our house, an intruder is here, or a person who she would think was an intruder that she’s unfamiliar with. She’s barking. The officer gets out of his car, and all the while we’re headed up [there]. He gets out of his car and shoots my dog in my front yard,” Middleton recalled.

Middleton says the dog was shot in the head. He begged the deputy to finish off his cowdog named Candy since the dog was suffering.

“I was so upset. I went over there to her and she was still alive and I begged and pleaded with him to please shoot her again because I don’t have any firearms. They got stolen. He went and got in his vehicle and backed out of my driveway,” Middleton explained.

Middleton had trained Candy to be a cow dog, and Middleton says his dog was a natural.

“And then I had to do the unthinkable, the otherwise unthinkable. I had to kill my dog with my bare hands and put her out of her suffering, praying for this to be over with,” Middleton said.

"We are getting information he is a pizza deliveryman; so, it is a possibility he thought he was being robbed," Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Richard Ross said.
According to police, two plain-clothed 12th district Philadelphia police officers using an unmarked vehicle identified themselves as police when they approached Holland shortly before 10:00 p.m. Tuesday at 51st Street and Willows Avenue after responding nearby to a call of shots fired.

"They see male with a hoodie on, he's got his hands in his pocket. As I understand it, they asked the male to stop," Ross said.

Ross said the male, in quick fashion, got in his car and he backed up at a high rate of speed towards the officers.

"The officers then discharged out of fear for their lives," Ross said.

According to police, Holland was shot at least three times.

As the car reversed and shots rang out, resident Holly Danesi ducked for cover.

"I saw gunshot sparks. I don't know who was shooting at who. I ran, hid behind a car," Danesi said.

The car crashed several feet from her.

The police officers were not injured.

Holland was rushed to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is expected to survive.