Perfume spraying incident leads to arrest
http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20080711/HURBLOG/164347976/1224&title=Perfume_spraying_incident_leads_to_arrest
Published: Friday, July 11, 2008 at 3:27 p.m.
HOUMA, La. – The cologne-wafting woman local police believe caused at least two men to feel ill and light-headed was arrested Thursday, after being pulled over near the Hollywood Video parking lot on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
Patches Wegmann, 22, of 1449 Spanish Oaks Drive in Harvey, was charged with simple battery and unlawful solicitation after she sprayed perfume on a 26-year-old man’s arm outside a store in a Martin Luther King Boulevard shopping center, said Maj. Malcolm Wolfe, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman. She was with three other men who were released and not charged.
The woman admitted to spraying cologne on a man Thursday and to spraying cologne under the nose of an 18-year-old last month in front of a Grand Caillou Road restaurant, Wolfe said.
But Wegmann also contends she did not intentionally hurt anyone.
“She claims she thought she was selling legitimate perfume and didn’t know it was harmful,” Wolfe said.
The June 9 victim told Houma Police officers an attractive woman approached him, asked if he was interested in buying some cologne and waived a sample under his nose. After the teen returned to his job, he passed out and was taken to Leonard Chabert Medical Center, where he underwent tests and observations. He was released later that day, Houma Police said, and no long-term effects are expected.
His symptoms included dizziness, shortness of breath and numbness in his extremities.
Thursday’s victim of the spraying, a 26-year-old man, reported that the perfume fumes made him feel light-headed and the perfume irritated his skin, Wolfe said. He was taken to Thibodaux Regional Medical Center.
“The case we had was nowhere near severe as the City Police had,” Wolfe said.
The woman was arrested by on-duty Louisiana State Trooper, who was flagged down near Radio Shack after eating lunch at Sicily’s.
Trooper Brian Harding said the victim’s girlfriend flagged him down and told him about the perfume incident. She described the perfume sellers’ car as a white Nissan Altima, which Harding said he’d previously seen when walking out of lunch.
“I think it was more I was in the right place at the right time,” Harding said.
When he went looking for the car, he turned north on Martin Luther King and saw it come out of a lot near Hollywood Video. He pulled the car over, told the driver to park at the video store’s lot and contacted the sheriff’s office.
The passengers said they sell the cologne in New Orleans all the time, Harding said.
Sheriff’s Office is still investigating the incident. At this time, it is unknown what, if any, noxious fumes are in the perfume mixtures.