Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Exposure case dismissed on technicality LOS ANGELES, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- A California judge has dismissed indecent exposure charges against a woman on grounds the penal code is gender-specific. Advertisement Superior Court Judge Robert W. Armstrong of Riverside County, Calif., says because the statute mentions a person who "exposes his person," he had to dismiss charges against Alexis Luz Garcia, 40, The Los Angeles Times reported. Garcia was charged with a misdemeanor last May after neighbors said she disrobed in front of their 14-year-old son who was playing basketball outside. In opposing dismissal, the district attorney's office argued that the lack of a feminine reference in the penal code was a typographical error and that applying the law only to men would be a violation of the state's constitution, the newspaper said. Armstrong did not agree. "I'm just telling you what it says, so on that basis this case is dismissed," he said. Advertisement A spokesman for the district attorney's office says an appeal is planned, the Times said. Serbia invites dead Milosevic to vote BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Serbia's former President Slobodan Milosevic has been invited to vote in a referendum, although his March death in a U.N. detention cell was widely publicized. Belgrade's Press daily reported a voting card was sent to Milosevic's villa in the Serbian capital inviting the late president to cast his ballot next weekend, the BBC said Monday. Milosevic died of a heart attack in March while on trial at The Hague tribunal on genocide and crimes against humanity charges in the former Yugoslavia from 1991-95. The referendum is on a constitutional amendment on whether Serbia's predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province will be a part of Serbia forever. In 1999, Milosevic's police and military troops fought ethnic-Albanian separatists in Kosovo, and the conflict led to NATO's air-borne intervention against Serbian forces. Milosevic was overthrown when allegations of vote-rigging in presidential elections in October 2000, sparked a revolt of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Belgrade. Milosevic was arrested by a new pro-Western government and handed over to The Hague in 2001. Advertisement Tombstones found in Connecticut homes HARTFORD, Conn., Oct. 24 (UPI) -- At least half a dozen Suffield, Conn., families have discovered old tombstones in their homes and gardens, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant reported. State archeologist Nick Bellantoni told the Courant in the people in rural farming towns often buried their dead in the backyard rather than the town cemetery. Carol and Thomas Kaput of Suffield found two tombstones lying side-by-side on the basement floor of their 18th-century home. Another headstone was shoved into the home's wood-burning stove. Neighbors have told Kaput that officials took out tombstones and returned them to the families of the departed to make way for a road through Copper Hill Cemetery. But cemetery sexton Kenneth Seymour can't recall such a project. A more plausible explanation for the tombstones comes from Janet Banks, a member of the town's heritage committee, who told the Courant, families often replaced headstones with fancier ones and then took the original tombstones home. Defecating vandal fouls British trains LONDON, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- British Transport Police are seeking a vandal with extremely nasty habits -- defecating on trains and smearing the results around. The man has carried out at least 30 attacks since August, The Guardian reported. While they have been concentrated in the southeast of England, the man has struck elsewhere and investigators say they see no pattern to his movements. Advertisement Detective Constable Donna Fox said that the vandalism has cost at least 60,000 pounds (more than $110,000), not counting the disruption caused by rail cars being taken out of service to be cleaned. "This is obviously a serious public health issue as well as being exceptionally anti-social," he said. "We need to locate this man as soon as possible." Investigators have images they believe are the vandal captured by security video cameras.
