Milford police have arrested a woman who is accused of stealing several Michael Kors purses from a local Macy’s.

Police started investigating on Jan. 17 when they received a shoplifting report from the store at 1201 Boston Post Road.

Police obtained a warrant for Stacy Merrick, 31, of Hartford, who is accused of taking several Michael Kors handbags from the store without paying for them. The combined value of the bags was $932, according to police.

She was arrested on Tuesday and charged with fifth-degree larceny. Bond was set at $2,500 and Merrick is due in court on April 28.
 

Police have issued a Silver Alert for a 10-year-old Bridgeport boy who has been reported missing.

The Silver Alert for Everton Mahoney Jr. says he is an endangered runaway.

Everton is 4-feet-6 and weighs 80 pounds.

He was last seen on Tuesday wearing a red hooded sweatshirt with a blue body and red sleeves, blue pants, and black sneakers.

if you have any information on where Everton is should call Bridgeport Police at 203-576-7271.
 

State police have arrested two men suspected of being involved in a 2009 murder in Hartford.

Kendall Jules, 26, has been charged with the murder of 29-year-old Kenneth Carter, who was found in a car near 10 Liberty Street with several gunshot wounds just before 11 p.m. on July 25, 2009, police said.

James Raynor, 31, has been charged as accessory to murder.

Police said Carter, who was shot in the neck and chest, tried to drive away from the scene and hit two unoccupied cars. He was transported to the hospital, where he later died, police said.

Jules and Raynor have been linked to Money Green Bedroc, a large-scale drug trafficking operation in the North End of Hartford that was the focus of an investigative grand jury, according to state police.

Jules, whose last known address was in Brooklyn, New York, was arrested in Staten Island, New York on Monday and charged with murder. Police said federal marshals took him into custody.

Raynor was arrested on Feb. 5. He was in custody of the state Department of Correction on unrelated charges.

The arrests came after the 18-month grand jury investigation.
 

One person was injured in a house fire in Clinton on Wednesday morning and the cause was smoking-related, according to fire officials.

Deputy Fire Marshal Bill Robbins said they received a call at 2:30 a.m. reporting a fire at 36A Hammock Road.

The fire was ruled accidental, the cause was determined to be smoking related and one person was transported to Yale-New Haven Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

Fire departments from Madison and Westbrook provided mutual aid.

Celebrities and companies did not disappoint this April Fools’ Day. Some unique pranks surfaced this year that you may not have noticed. Here's a look at some of the most creative.

The Honda Selfie Car

Honda says it prides itself for being on the forefront of the latest automobile technologies. The company "rolled out" its 10 camera-equipped HR-V that is equipped to take selfies. They said the technology uploads photos hands-free to social media sites via HondaLink.

'Twelfie Stick'

Twitter unveiled its "Twelfie Stick" Wednesday, a "highly sophisticated and first-of-its-kind device" that the company says would allow users to tweet out "selfie" pictures directly. Twitter said the device will be available in time for the holiday shopping season for $39.99.

Army Drones to Deliver Pizzas

The U.S. Army proposed using drones to deliver 3-D printed pizzas to men and women on the front lines across the world. Calling this "an expected breakthrough," the Army said the first drone pizza deliveries are to be made by April Fools' Day 2016.

Sam Smith is Straight

The "Stay with Me" singer tweeted that he is straight, which had a female fan asking, "Can you date me now?" One hour later, he posted that is was all a joke.

A Samsung Smart Knife?

Samsung presented its Galaxy BLADE edge, "the world's first smart knife with smart phone capabilities." The phone features a "razor-sharp diamond edge that is tough enough to cut through a lobster tail and sharp enough to slice through tender heirloom tomatoes."

Selfie Shoes

Are selfie sticks too much to handle? Why not get Selfie Shoes from Miz Mooz? The company said the tool adds functionality without sacrificing "comfort our women on-the-go have come to love about our footwear." How does it work? Just insert your phone into the port at the front of any shoe, raise your photo to the perfect angle and click the internal button with a tap of your toe to take a selfie.

Pac-Man Returns?

Google announced in celebration of April Fools' Day that you can now play Pac-Man on Google Maps. How does it work? Open maps in your browser, scroll to the bottom left and click on Pac-Man. Before you know it, you'll have something to eat.

Nearly years since the disappearance of a 31-year-old Waterbury man, his mother and sister will return to court in late April to fight a defamation lawsuit filed by his ex-girlfriend with an appeal that argues they had First Amendment rights to post missing person posters and other publicity.

Tow truck driver Billy Smolinski disappeared on Aug. 24, 2004 and his family never heard from him again, according to court documents.

His ex-girlfriend Madeline Gleason, a Woodbridge bus driver, who was reportedly the last person to see him alive, filed a civil lawsuit against his mother, Janice Smolinski, his sister, Paula Bell and Waterbury Observer publisher and editor John Murray in 2006 seeking damages and claiming defamation. She also argued she experienced emotional distress and invasion of privacy due to information spread about her in connection to the case of Smolinski's disappearance, according to the court documents. In 2009, all counts against Murray were dismissed. Meanwhile Janice Smolinski and Bell are appealing a second time.

Gleason claims Smolinski and Bell harassed her, her friends and people she dated by putting up missing persons fliers along her bus route and areas she frequented, accusing her of being connected to his disappearance and following her on numerous occasions, according to her complaint. She also said that they mentioned her name in a television program featuring the cold case and took videos of her that they sent to news outlets, according to the complaint.

However, Janice Smolinski and Paula Bell are arguing that putting up the missing person fliers was not malicious and that they were exercising freedom of speech to disseminate information about their missing loved one that provided valuable public information that has yielded leads to his whereabouts, the court documents state.They also said in their appeal that Gleason and her friends tore many of the posters down and in some cases vandalized them. The defense is also arguing that the posters contained no reference to Gleason and just shared general missing person information.

Gleason and Bell lost their first appeal in the lawsuit and filed another appeal that will take the case to the Connecticut Supreme Court in New Haven for a hearing on April 27.

You can read the full history of the original lawsuit and the most recent appeal briefings on the state judicial website.

Fire destroyed a mobile home fire in East Hartford on Wednesday afternoon.

The fire was contained to one mobile home at 33 Cheyenne Road, according to the fire department.

No one was injured.

Police have arrested the man accused of robbing a Cumberland Farms in Naugatuck.

According to police, Eric Peil, 29, of Prospect, demanded money from the clerk at the North Main Street gas station. He didn't show a weapon but had his hand inside his sweatshirt pocket the whole time, police said.

Authorities believe Peil got away with less than $100 cash and fled in a silver Subaru with New Hampshire license plates.

Investigators found him driving in Waterbury and took him into custody. Police said Naugatuck detectives found evidence that linked Peil to the robbery.

Police charged him with first-degree robbery, sixth-degree larceny and breach of peace.

Peil was held on $150,000 bond ahead of his court appearance Wednesday.

Police say they've spoken with the driver who hit a 55-year-old man in Norwalk, then fled the scene Wednesday morning and expect to file charges soon.

Police said they responded to the Interstate 95 South on-ramp from West Avenue at 5:22 a.m. and found Robert Hartman lying in the road with serious injuries.

An ambulance transported him to Norwalk Hospital and the ramp was closed for several hours. Police said Hartman remains in the hospital in serious condition.

Authorities seized the car involved in the hit-and-run crash and said the driver showed up at the police department for an interview Wednesday afternoon.

The driver has not been charged but police said an arrest warrant is pending.

Anyone with information is asked to call Officer Chris Wasilewski at 203-854-3035, email cwasilewski@norwalkct.org, call the Norwalk Police Tip Line at 203-854-3111 or send an anonymous Internet tips through the Norwalk Police website.

Anonymous text tips can be submitted by typing "NPD" into the text field, followed by the message, and sending it to CRIMES (274637).

East Windsor police arrested a man and seized several guns after responding to a report that a man was threatening a neighbor with a rifle.

Police said they responded to 16A Mill Street at 7 p.m. on Tuesday to investigate a threatening complaint and arrested Allen Gaudet, 58, who threatened a neighbor.
During the investigation, police seized seven rifles.

Gaudet was charged with brandishing a firearm and second-degree breach of peace.

He posted $100,000 surety bond and is scheduled to appear in court in Enfield on April 14.

Students at New Milford High School have been dismissed early because of a bomb threat.

School officials said they immediately called police to investigate after receiving the threat.

As a precaution, the students were evacuated to the football field and the bleachers while they waited for buses to arrive for early dismissal, school officials said.

All after-school activities at the high school and adult education classes have been canceled for the day. Other New Milford Public Schools will dismiss at the regular time.

The police officer seen on video apparently verbally abusing an Uber driver in an at-times xenophobic roadside tirade in the West Village earlier this week has been placed on modified duty and transferred, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Wednesday.

"That officer's behavior reflected poorly on everyone who wears our uniform," Bratton said at a news conference before apologizing to the driver and the two passengers. 

Officials with the NYPD's detective union said earlier the officer seen in the now viral video is a member of the NYPD's Joint Terrorism Task Force, an elite group that handles counterterrorism cases in the city alongside FBI agents. The union said in a statement that the officer was leaving the hospital, where he was visiting a injured fellow officer, at the time of the rant.

"He really should not be judged by one isolated incident," said Michael Palladino, the president of the union.

Bratton disagreed, saying, "In that kind of encounter, anger like that is unacceptable. In any kind of encounter, discourtesy like that and language like that is unacceptable."

"No good cop can watch that without a wince," he said. "All good cops know that the officer just made their jobs a little bit harder." 

The altercation, which was captured on video by one of the Uber driver's passengers and has been viewed more than 600,000 times on YouTube, is being investigated by the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board.

The passenger who captured the video, Sanjay Seth, tweeted on Wednesday that he had been interviewed by the body.

According to Seth's YouTube post, his Uber driver honked his car horn at the officer later seen screaming in the video because the officer was trying to park on a Sixth Precinct street in the middle of the afternoon without using any blinkers or hazard lights, and the Uber driver's path to a green light was blocked.

The officer, seen wearing a green tie and blue shirt at points in the passenger video, got out of his unmarked car, which had flashing blue and red lights on the dashboard, and flagged down the Uber driver.

The three-minute video begins as the officer approaches the Uber driver's window and starts yelling at the driver, raising his voice over the Uber driver's muted apologies and efforts to interject.

"Stop it with your mouth, stop it with your, 'For what, sir,'" the officer is heard saying in the video as he curses. "Stop it with that ... and realize the three vehicle and traffic law violations you committed."

"You understand me? I don't know what [epithet] planet you think you're on right now," the officer yells, making fun of the Uber driver's accent.

The officer then slams the hood of the Uber car and walks away; the Uber driver tries to apologize to his passengers, who tell him it was not his fault and inform him a video of the exchange was recorded. One of the passengers said it appeared the officer was on a "power trip"; the other called the man's behavior "really inappropriate."

The officer returns to the Uber car about 90 seconds after slamming the hood and storming off, the video shows, and continues to curse at and belittle the driver. The driver keeps trying to defuse the situation with respectful apologies. Then the officer goes off on him. 

"I don't know where you're coming from or where you think you're appropriate in doing that," the man yells, apparently in reference to the car honk from earlier. "That's not the way it works. How long have you been in this country?"

"Almost how long? Two years?" the officer yells after the driver whispers a response. "I got news for you, and use this lesson: Don't ever do that again. The only reason you're not in handcuffs going to jail and getting summonses in the precinct is because I have things to do.

"That's the only reason that's not happening, because this isn't important enough to me, you're not important enough," he says.

The officer turns toward the passengers in the back seat, asks if they are fares and says something about the Uber driver wasting their days, too. The officer hands the driver some kind of piece of paper that looks like a ticket and leaves as the passenger cellphone video pans to the flashing lights on the dashboard of his vehicle, parked behind the Uber car. 

Seth posted video of the exchange on multiple social media accounts. On his Facebook page, he wrote, "Our Uber driver, Humayun, was abused by a police officer today in New York. The rage, door slamming, throwing items into the car, threatening arrest without cause was bad enough -- but the officer's remarks at the end really took it to another level."

Seth wrote on Facebook that he reported the exchange to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. According to his profile, Seth works at a nonprofit in the city and used to work for the parks department.

Asked about the exchange by NBC 4 New York, Seth wrote, "This very unfortunate incident is between the driver, Uber, the officer, and the relevant authorities."

Uber called the behavior in the video "wrong" and "unacceptable," and said it appreciated the NYPD investigating.

"We are in touch with our driver-partner who was subjected to this terrible experience and will continue to provide any support he needs," Matthew Wing, a spokesman for the ride share company, said. 

Bratton said Wednesday: "I want to extend an apology to the driver of that vehicle and the two passengers in that vehicle for the behavior of that officer." 

The CCRB handles complaints about four kinds of alleged police misconduct: force, abuse of authority, discourtesy and offensive language. Bratton said "the actions engaged by the officer based on the video alone would indicate that those fall under the jurisdiction of the CCRB and their particular areas of jurisdiction." 

State police are searching for three men who broke into a home on Lake Street in Burlington and attacked a resident Wednesday afternoon.

Connecticut State Police spokesman Sgt. Shane Hassett said police were called to 16 Lake Street around 1:30 p.m.

The resident suffered minor injuries and was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Hassett said the perpetrators got away on foot and have not yet been identified.

Police are actively investigating the incident.

West Hartford police stopped a man on Interstate 84 on Monday night and said they found around 100 bags of heroin, a loaded 40 cal. handgun and thousands of dollars.

Joshua Christopher Soto, 24, of Hartford was arrested on several drug charges. He is due in court on April 9.
 

A 66-year-old man was airlifted to Bridgeport Hospital with burns over 20 percent of his body after a propane heater exploded and set fire to a woodworking shop in East Hartland on Wednesday morning, according to the town fire marshal.

Hartland Fire Marshal Peter Sevetz Jr. said Robert Burke, 66, was in the room where the fire broke out at 59 South Road.

Firefighters were called to the scene after someone reported a furnace explosion around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. They found heavy flames at the back of the building and spotted Burke, injured, in the driveway.

An ambulance brought him to Saint Francis Hospital and a LifeStar medical helicopter then airlifted him to the Bridgeport Burn Unit, Sevetz said.

One person has been taken to the Bridgeport Burn Unit after a fire at a woodworking shop in East Hartland on Wednesday morning.

The Hartland Fire Marshal is invstigating alongside the State Fire Marshal's Office. Sevetz said crews won't be able to determine the exact cause of the fire until they can interview Burke, but they suspect the propane heater contributed to the blaze.

Fire companies from West Hartland, Barkhamsted East, Lost Acres, Pleasant Valley, New Hartford and Tolland, Massachusetts provided mutual aid.

A Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, man choked his estranged wife and used a chainsaw to kill her before ending his own life with the machine, the county coroner ruled Wednesday.

Nicole Peppelman, 43, was murdered in the basement of the family's home along the 1100 block of Country Lane in Lower Moreland just before 1 p.m. Tuesday, officials said.

Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Walter Hofman said the mother of three suffered gaping cutting wounds to her abdomen from a chainsaw. She also was stabbed in the neck and choked, an autopsy revealed.

Her husband, 48-year-old Christopher Peppelman, then took the chainsaw to his right thigh and abdomen, according to the coroner's report. His death was ruled a suicide.

The couple's 14-year-old son discovered the bloody scene, officials said. The chainsaw was laying next to them. Their other two children were not home.

Friends told NBC10 that the couple had been separated and police said they had been to the home for domestic issues in the past.

Police and prosecutors continue to investigate the case.

For the first time in state history, cities and towns across California must implement mandatory restrictions to reduce water use during the fourth consecutive year of drought under an executive order announced Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The unprecedented move follows the lowest snowpack ever recorded. Snowpack in the Sierra mountain range melts during spring and provides water for an estimated 25 million Californians.

"Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow. This historic drought demands unprecedented action," Brown said Wednesday. "Therefore, I’m issuing an executive order mandating substantial water reductions across our state. As Californians, we must pull together and save water in every way possible."

Mandatory water reductions will be put in place by the State Water Resources Control Board across California to reduce water usage by 25 percent -- a saving that will amount to about 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months, according to Brown's office.

The drought's effects are rippling across the state, hurting wildlife and forcing farmers to leave fields unplanted. So far this winter, wildfires are burning through nearly four times as many acres as usual.

Brown's order announced Wednesday will:

• Replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought tolerant landscaping in partnership with local governments;
• Direct the creation of a temporary, statewide consumer rebate program to replace old appliances with more water and energy efficient models;
• Require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to make significant cuts in water use; and
• Prohibit new homes and developments from irrigating with potable water unless water-efficient drip irrigation systems are used, and ban watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.

Water restrictions approved earlier this month banned restaurants from offering water unless customers ask and forced hotels and motels to offer guests a chance to deline fresh towels and sheets.

Those restrictions will require local water departments to cut back the number of days residents can water their lawns. If they don't, residents must follow a state rule limiting their sprinkling to twice a week. Homeowners are also barred from using sprinklers on days when it rains and for the next two days after.

Agricultural water users will now be required to report more water use information to state regulations.

Additional actions required by the order announced Wednesday include:

• Taking action against water agencies in depleted groundwater basins that have not shared data on their groundwater supplies with the state;
• Updating standards for toilets and faucets and outdoor landscaping in residential communities and taking action against communities that ignore these standards; and
• Making permanent monthly reporting of water usage, conservation and enforcement actions by local water suppliers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The owner of Mystic Pizza, the restaurant made famous by a 1988 movie of the same name, has pleaded guilty in federal court after skirting income taxes and funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into his family's bank accounts, according to federal prosecutors.

The U.S. attorney's office said restaurant owner John Zelepos, 48, of North Stonington, diverted more than $330,000 into his personal bank account, two of his wife's checking accounts and his three children's savings accounts between 2006 and 2010.

He also made 61 similar transactions totaling $522,658 between January 2010 and January 2011, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Federal prosecutors said Zelepos made all deposits in amounts less than $10,000 to prevent the bank from filing currency transaction reports. In 2006, he declared only $388,957 in taxable income when in reality he had earned $551,858.

As part of a plea deal, Zelepos admitted to carrying out similar schemes between 2007 and 2010, costing the federal government a total of $234,407 in tax revenue, according to the U.S. attorney's office. He has agreed to pay it back as restitution, along with interest and penalties.

Zelepos will also turn over the $522,658 he allegedly diverted into his personal accounts.

He'll be sentenced June 23. Zelepos could face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $500,000.

It's not the first time Zelepos has been in trouble with the law. Last September, the Department of Labor accused him of depriving his employees more than $105,000 in wages.

A Canadian diplomat's 15-year-old son -- already charged with murder in a deadly shootout with drug dealers police say he and his brother were trying to rob -- now faces new charges, after police say he threatened to shoot a detective in the head while in custody.

But the boy's father has said his younger son didn't kill anyone and was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, looking out for his older brother.

The younger teen is in custody and his 17-year-old brother was killed in a shootout when police say the pair -- both sons of Roxanne Dube, a prominent Canadian diplomat working in Miami -- tried to rob the drug dealers in a deal gone wrong. Another man is also charged.

The brothers' father, Germano Wabafiyebazu, told Canada's Global News that he was stunned by his older son's death and defended his younger son, who he said fired shots only to alert police.

"You can’t believe. You can’t believe. Terrible. You can’t believe that happened, but what can I do?" Wabafiyebazu said in an interview that aired Wednesday on NBC 6.

The older son was killed in the Monday shootout following a drug deal gone wrong, police say. Another 17-year-old named Joshua Wright was also killed, that teen's family confirmed. The Canadian government is working with Miami police to investigate.

Police believe Dube's and Wabafiyebazu's sons had been planning to rob the drug dealers, as NBC 6 first reported. The pair showed up to the drug deal in a Canadian government vehicle with official consular plates, multiple law enforcement sources told NBC 6.

The shooting began after the older Dube son went into Wright's apartment, one law enforcement source said. The younger brother had stayed in the car outside to act as a lookout, sources said.

Wabafiyebazu told Global News that after his younger son heard the gunshots, he rushed into the house to find his older brother dead, then began shooting in the air, drawing police to the scene and leading to his own arrest.

The older teen had been getting into trouble recently, Wabafiyebazu said, and appeared to have developed a problem with marijuana.

He said he had worried about what might happen when his children moved with his ex-wife to Miami, and about what kinds of friends his older son might make there.

"I would lie to you if I didn’t notice or expect it, that something like that would happen to him," the teens' father said, adding that he had not had any such worries about his younger son.

One of the accused drug dealers in Monday's shootout was also arrested and charged with felony murder.

Anthony Rodriguez, 19, who had been wounded and driven away, was caught and charged with felony murder and possession of marijuana with intent to sell.

Rodriguez had been arrested back in February on gun and drug charges, after police said they found a loaded stolen gun, drugs and $4,000 in cash in his car at a gas station. The charges against him were dropped.

Gov. Dannel Malloy has announced millions of dollars in new budget cuts to help deal with a projected deficit.

The cuts will affect 20 departments, including $5.8 million for the Office of Early Childhood, $2 million in cuts for the University of Connecticut, $1.5 million for the Board of Regents, $1 million for the University of Connecticut Heath Center and more.

The governor said he is not requesting similar cuts to the legislative and judicial budgets and is not asking for voluntary cuts to the elections, ethics or freedom of information commissions.

“As we have assured CT residents, we will make the difficult but necessary decisions to keep our budget in balance. That said, the April tax receipts will determine whether further action is needed,” Office of Policy and Management Benjamin Barnes said in a statement.

In all, there have been $99.9 million in recisions. Following are the $13,731,331 in cuts Malloy announced on Wednesday.

Following is the list:

Agricultural Experiment Station

• Personal Services $225,000

Board of Regents

• Charter Oak State College $25,886
• Regional Community - Technical Colleges $500,000
• Connecticut State University $1 million

Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities

• Personal Services $80,000

Connecticut State Library

• Personal Services $42,627

Dept. of Administrative Services

• Workers' Compensation Claims $400,000

Dept. of Developmental Services

• Personal Services $200,000
• Autism Services $131,876
• Supplemental Payments for Medical Services $93,905

Dept. of Economic and Community Development

• Personal Services $225,000
• Capitol Region Development Authority $100,000
• Amistad Vessel $17,988

Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection

• Personal Services $250,000
• Environmental Quality $247,768

Dept. of Labor

• Jobs First Employment Services $200,000
• Intensive Support Services $11,200

Dept. of Mental Health and Addiction Services

• Jail Diversion $38,151
• Prison Overcrowding $56,745
• Persistent Violent Felony Offenders Act $5,739
• Employment Opportunities $89,441

Dept. of Rehabilitation Services

• Personal Services $20,000
• Educ Aid Blind/Visually Handicap Child $50,000
• Employment Opportunities $20,000

Dept. of Revenue Services

• Other Expenses $346,463

Dept. of Social Services

• Personal Services $300,000

Dept. of Veterans' Affairs

• Personal Services $150,000

Office of Early Childhood

• Child Care Services-TANF/CCDBG $5,835,882

Office of Higher Education

• Personal Services $11,647

Office of Policy and Management

• Project Longevity $26,250
• Focus Deterrence $23,750

Office of Protection and Advocacy

• Personal Services $2,000
• Other Expenses $4,013

University of Connecticut

• Operating Expenses $2 million

University of Connecticut Health Center

• Operating Expenses $1 million