Jockstrip: The world as we know it

New Yorker gets 2 years for killing dog

NEW YORK, April 19 (UPI) -- A New York man who "went ballistic" and threw his mother's dog five floors to its death for eating oatmeal from the man's bowl has been sentenced to prison.

Allan DeCosta, 34, was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for the incident last November, in which he shoved his mother against a wall and then threw her pit bull, Gemini, from a window.

"He went ballistic because he thought she gave his cereal bowl to the dog," defense attorney Johnathan Weinrich told The New York Daily News. "The mother said a roach had crawled into the oatmeal so she gave the bowl to the dog."

DeCosta, who pleaded guilty to the charges, also should get psychological counseling while in prison, probation officials recommended.

Man charged in neighbor's cat killing

ISLIP, N.Y., April 19 (UPI) -- Neighbors allege that a New York man who rehabilitates birds in his suburban back yard may be a serial cat killer.

Richard DeSantis has been charged with taking his neighbor's cat to the pound, falsely claiming ownership and having it put to sleep.

A spokeswoman for the town of Islip, which operates the pound, said that DeSantis has been there before.

"The shelter's records indicate that since 1995, this gentleman has brought in five cats to be euthanized," the unidentified spokeswoman told the New York Daily News.

Regina Fagone pressed charges against DeSantis after she learned Saturday that her cat had been euthanized at the pound without her consent.

Fagone believes that two of the cats euthanized in the past were hers, both put down in 1998. She said that at the time she had just moved to the neighborhood, so she kept her mouth shut and ignored Fagone.

$854,000 winning Powerball ticket expires

HEBRON, Ky., April 19 (UPI) -- Somebody was almost $853,492 richer from an Oct. 19 Powerball ticket bought in Kentucky but six months later and past the deadline they're just "coulda been."

No one claimed the prize, the second-largest unclaimed prize in Kentucky history after a $1.2 million Lotto ticket sold in 1991.

While a Hebron, Ky., BP gas station and the state school fund have gotten their share of the prize, no one ever presented the ticket by Monday's 5 p.m. deadline.

Gas station clerk Rahul Patel said 70 percent of his customers mentioned the ticket, but the winning piece of paper that matched all but the Powerball number never was presented.

David Thompson said he and Cincinnati Lamb co-workers checked all their tickets bought at the gas station and found only $3 winners.

"We can't believe some idiot has $800,000 and doesn't know it," Thompson told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "Those are the people who always win it."

2 arrested for trying to sell FEMA trailer

SLIDELL, La., April 19 (UPI) -- Two Texas men, one of whom was a Federal Emergency Management Agency contractor, are accused of trying to sell a stolen FEMA trailer in Slidell, La.

FEMA contractor James Wiginton of Friendswood, Texas, and Rolando Aguilar, 34, of Houston were charged last week with possession of stolen property.

Police arrested the pair when they attempted to collect $5,000 for the FEMA trailer stolen from a Lacombe, La., distribution center, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

Slidell police, aided by the FBI, said more arrests are possible in the thefts of trailers brought in as temporary housing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.