MANNING, S.C. – A woman who went to court to pay a traffic ticket drove there in a stolen car and ended up behind bars, authorities said.

Clarendon County sheriff’s deputies received a tip that Amber Renee Helton was going to be in a stolen car when she paid the ticket, Chief Deputy Joe Bradham said.

They arrested her as she opened the door of the 2001 Dodge Intrepid on Tuesday morning, authorities said.

Helton, 21, and her passenger, 35-year-old Terry Lynn Alvery, were charged with possessing a stolen vehicle, Bradham said.

Helton was being held at the Clarendon jail Wednesday in lieu of $5,000 bail. It was unclear whether she had an attorney, and a message left at the public defender’s office was not immediately returned.

Catfish bait plus vinegar equals jail, not heroin

LEBANON, Ohio – Three people who mixed vinegar with catfish bait and tried to sell it as heroin got hooked by undercover officers.

Authorities said the three also tried to sell fake LSD.

John Burke, director of the Greater Warren County Drug Task Force, said he didn’t know what might happen if someone actually injected a bait-vinegar concoction. Authorities don’t know whether anyone else bought the counterfeit drug.

“We have gotten no reports of anyone else getting them, but quite frankly the people who may have gotten them aren’t likely to report it,” prosecutor Rachel Hutzel said Wednesday.

William Perry, 22, of Columbus, Ohio, and Rosanne Wead, 20, of Piqua, Ohio, each pleaded guilty Tuesday in Warren County Common Pleas Court to a count of trafficking in counterfeit controlled substances. A third person, Jerry Snowden, 27, of Piqua, Ohio, pleaded guilty last month to a counterfeit substance charge. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Wead was sentenced to six months in prison; Perry has not been sentenced.

From Associated Press reports