We’ve reported on the Duct-Tape Bandit who wrapped his head in duct tape, the idiot who tried to rob a California drive-thru with fresh cookie dough smeared over his face, and another weirdo in England who covered himself from head to foot in a colorful “skin” of baking-flour paste and ketchup. Now, we pause to honor the creative genius of Robert C. Lavery.

It is unknown if Brilliant Bobby used a trowel to plaster his entire noggin with lumpy drywall compound before sticking up the New Cumberland Federal Credit Union in Fairview Township, Penn., but witnesses reported that his own momma would never have recognized him. It worked pretty well, and he scampered away with $7,910 in his lunch bag. It was obvious he had taken pains to look about as nondescript as possible with his choice of clothing, and he should have gone to the same lengths with his getaway car.

Apparently there aren’t that many distinctive Rusty Wallace NASCAR license plates tooling around Fairview Township. Several witnesses noticed it, and then put two and two together with the news of the bank robbery. Bobby and his driver, Robert Miller, were still cleaning up drywall mush when the cops arrived.

Lost Dope

Federal agents reportedly “felt sure there was something fishy” about Leroy Carr, but they couldn’t pin anything on him. On four occasions over a period of months, he was stopped while either coming back from Canada or lurking near the border with thousands of dollars in cash, night-vision goggles and a GPS device programmed with coordinates along a known drug-smuggling trail. Something fishy?

Each time, Carr just smiled and kept his mouth shut, and was released without charges. Then he called the feds to ask if they had found his cocaine stash.

Carr explained that he had hidden two blue backpacks containing 68 pounds of cocaine in the woods near a Boy Scout Camp just south of the border. He returned the following day to pick ’em up, but he couldn’t find them. He was hoping the feds had found his dope, and they would put out some kind of news release saying the cocaine had been seized. That way, Carr said, his “employers” might believe his “lost dope” story. He figured they would otherwise think he had stolen their drugs and they’d sort of stuff him in a shallow hole somewhere.

The problem for the feds was that even with Carr’s weird confession, they couldn’t arrest him without some evidence that the cocaine actually existed. That proof came two weeks later, when a Boy Scout stumbled across Carr’s coke, packaged just as he had described it.

Officers promptly scooped up Stupid, probably saving him from execution at the hands of his employers, and assuring him of “three hots and a cot” for several years.

It Ain’t Over Yet!

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who seemed to be on a campaign to earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for strangest laws and policies, suffered a setback — before his really big setback — in his battle to issue New York driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Oh, of course he didn’t call ’em that — such a phrase might make illegal aliens feel “illegal” — or even alienate them!

First, Spitzer proposed simply issuing driver’s licenses to “unsolicited guests” without all that messy proof and documentation that citizens have to go through. All they would have to do is say, “I’m an illegal alien.” Of course, they wouldn’t have to say it in English; translators would be provided at taxpayers’ expense.

New York, by the way, does not consider driver’s licenses issued by any other state to be proof of identity. Spitz was shot down on this plan by the federal government, which let him know that if he did as he planned, New York driver’s licenses would not be accepted as identity by federal agencies — or by the airlines. That includes agencies like ATF, like, for the purchase of firearms. Under the original plan, illegal aliens might be accommodated, but New York residents who are U.S. citizens couldn’t fly anywhere or buy guns. Come to think of it, that might have been part of Spitzer’s plan all along.

Next, The Former Gov proposed to issue different kinds of licenses: one variety to “real” citizen-residents, and another kind to “other” residents. “Real” residents would receive — get this — “Real ID.” The others would get what? “Unreal ID,” perhaps? He didn’t clarify.