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(AP) E-mail scams seek to separate people from their money by promising a share of unclaimed lottery riches, bounty from a dead fugitive, work-at-home schemes and other enticements.

But an Ocean County man recently got an e-mail with a stereotypical Jersey twist: Gimme your money, and I’ll cancel the contract someone put out to kill you.

Harry E. Whitworth, 72, of the Whiting section of Manchester Township, opened his e-mail Tuesday to find a curious screed from a man named Eddy.

“I know that this may sound very surprising to you but it’s the situation,” the e-mail began. “I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer.”

The price to call off the hit: $8,000 _ half of which is to be paid up front as a sign of good faith. Sort of.

The e-mail also warned him not to tell friends or relatives, since they might be part of the plot to kill, too.

“I kind of knew it was a scam,” said Whitworth, a retired accountant who lives with his wife in a senior citizen development. “The prosecutor’s office came over to see me and asked if I had been involved in anything in the past that might have caused this to happen.”

Whitworth did some Internet research of his own, and found that someone has been running a similar scam in Arizona, with nearly identical e-mails full of typographical errors and misspellings.

The e-mailer promises to send the recipient a videotape of “his employer” putting out the contract on the recipient’s life.

But there were no instructions on how to comply with the demand for cash, and no timetable on when it had to be paid in order to avoid sleeping with the fishes.

Capt. Michael Mohel, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, said the case remains under investigation but declined further comment.

The FBI received 115 complaints of similar e-mails reaching people across the country in less than a month last winter, according to its Web site. The e-mails vary only in the amount of money demanded, ranging as high as $80,000.

Some even incorporate personal information about the recipient that is widely available from online databases, the FBI said.

Source: CBS News

(AP) The Lapeer County sheriff wants to help two bank robbery suspects tie the knot.

“I’ll volunteer to marry them in the jail if they surrender,” Sheriff Ron Kalanquin said Monday. Kalanquin said he wanted the Lapeer couple off the streets before their cash ran out and they attempted another robbery.

A 24-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman are suspected of taking about $5,000 in the Sept. 19 robbery of a Lapeer County Bank & Trust branch in Deerfield Township, about 60 miles north of Detroit.

Detectives determined that the robbery money was used to buy wedding rings, pay back rent and pay the woman’s attorney for work done in a child custody case, The Flint Journal reported.

The couple met after the man was released from the county jail and was introduced to her by another ex-inmate, Kalanquin said.

“We believe they could still be in the area, but could also be somewhere in Michigan or beyond,” Kalanquin said. He appealed to the couple’s relatives and friends to alert police to their whereabouts.

Source: CBS NEWS

(AP) Who cares if they’re free? Residents in the nation’s capital say the condoms being handed out have a serious problem.

As many as 70,000 condoms given away in a citywide campaign to reduce HIV and AIDS were returned this week by community groups. Another 100,000 condoms were returned in early September because of complaints their paper packaging can be easily damaged and could make the condoms ineffective.

City health officials agreed that complaints about the packaging were damaging to their citywide distribution campaign, but they have insisted the condoms were safe. They said this week they will distribute brand-name substitutes.

Since the problems were publicized, the city’s condom manufacturer offered to replace all remaining supplies with Trojan, Lifestyles and other products found on drugstore shelves.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian Fenty said the city has received 125,000 of the new condoms and 400,000 more are expected in the next two weeks.

Source: CBS NEWS