STAMFORD, Conn. – An alleged drunken driver will get a new trial after court officials say he was represented by a fake lawyer. Howard Seidler, 62, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested Thursday when he returned to Stamford Superior Court for his client’s sentencing.

“This was a terrible fraud on the court,” State’s Attorney David Cohen said.

Court officials charged Seidler with unauthorized practice of law and criminal impersonation. He may also face charges of first-degree larceny and forgery, Cohen said.

Authorities said Seidler claimed to be a real New York attorney named Harold Weber while representing Ismet Idrizaj of Norwalk on a drunken driving charge. A jury deliberated for just eight minutes before convicting Idrizaj, who spent $18,000 on legal fees.

Federal authorities are investigating cases across in the country in which Seidler may have posed as Weber, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Seidler was convicted in the 1980s of grand larceny, as well as posing as a lawyer or a doctor in the 1970s.

Prosecutor David Applegate, who tried the Stamford drunken driving case, said Seidler asked strange questions during jury selection.

Most defense attorneys ask standard questions such as whether jurors understand reasonable doubt.

“If you were in a forest and you came to a clearing, and you saw a house, could you describe the house,” Seidler asked one potential juror, according to a transcript.

“Just a little plain house, kind of disheveled,” the juror answered.

“That is good enough,” Seidler responded. “She is acceptable by me.”

He asked another juror whether he consumed alcohol like the fraternity brothers in the movie “Animal House,” then asked whether the juror liked animals.

After the trial, Applegate looked up Weber in a database and found two matches, then discovered Seidler’s biography was a mix of details from the men’s lives.

Officials decided to see if Seidler would show up at court for Idrizaj’s sentencing. He did, carrying a briefcase with his real name engraved on it.

The state’s legal investigators said they will probably try to get Idrizaj’s money back. He did not return a call for comment.

MARSHFIELD, Wis. – How do you become a celebrity? How about being charged with drunken driving while you and a friend are trying to drive the same pickup truck home. It worked for two men, Harvey Miller, 43, and Edwin Marzinske, 55.

“I always thought I’d be famous, just not this way,” said Miller, a paraplegic who was steering a pickup truck with Marzinske on the gas pedal and brakes when they were stopped on a Friday night in August.

“Pretty much everywhere we go it’s people coming up, ‘Hey, can we get our pictures with you? Can we get your autograph?’” he said Wednesday. “We never expected this to escalate.”

The news also got twisted somewhat, the men said, blaming it in part on a Colby-Abbotsford police report said Miller had no legs. He has his legs but a logging accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. A message left for the police department wasn’t immediately returned Thursday.

Both were cited for drunken driving and driving while revoked. They’re planning to defend themselves in court with an argument that neither had control, so neither was driving.

Miller blew a 0.16 percent blood alcohol reading on the breath test and Marzinske was at 0.09 percent, the police report said. The legal limit is .08 percent.

Miller said he takes drunken driving seriously, “but we were doing things as safe as possible.”

Police clocked them going 35 mph in a 55 zone.

Marzinske acknowledged the arrest was embarrasing.

“I asked my daughter right out, ‘Are you embarrassed about this?’” he said. “She says, ‘A little bit Dad, but it sure is funny.’ So we just have fun with it. There isn’t much else you can do.”

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German man failed his driving test after attempting the examination while three times over the legal alcohol limit, police said Tuesday.

When the man arrived for the test Tuesday morning, both his driving instructor and the examiner detected the smell of alcohol on him, though the 27-year-old assured them he had not been drinking, police in the western town of Bendorf said.

“But his driving was rather bad, so the examiner directed him to toward the police station without him noticing,” the spokesman said. “Once there, he had to get out and take an alcohol test, which revealed he was well over the limit.”

The man will now have to wait “a long time” before he can take another driving test, the spokesman said.

SEOUL (AFP) – A South Korean woman’s former boss has been ordered to pay her 30 million won (32,300 dollars) for forcing her to go drinking with the rest of the staff after work, court officials said Monday.

They said the Seoul High Court ruled last week in favour of the 28-year-old employee of a software games developer who sued her ex-employer.

“Forcing drinking against (an employee’s) limit and willingness infringes on personal rights,” the court said in a statement.

“If he or she suffered mental stress through forced drinking, it constitutes an illegal act,” Judge Kang Yong-Ho said.

The judge also ruled that the boss violated the woman’s rights by forcing her to stay at drinking parties after work.

South Korean employees in the past often felt obliged to go out drinking with their boss after office hours, but the custom is becoming less common.

The unidentified woman said she had been forced to attend at least two after-work drinking sessions a week, sometimes lasting until 4 am, after joining the company in April 2004.

After two months she quit and filed her lawsuit. A lower court ruled in her favour and awarded her seven million won in compensation but the high court in its ruling last week increased the compensation to 30 million.

The woman also filed a separate suit accusing the boss of sexual harassment. He was fined two million won and fired from the company.

SYLVANIA, Ala. – A woman who went for a horseback ride through town at midnight and allegedly used the horse to ram a police car was charged with driving under the influence and drug offenses, police said Tuesday.

“Cars were passing by having to avoid it, and almost hitting the horse,” said Police Chief Brad Gregg.

He said DUI charges can apply even when the vehicle has four legs instead of wheels.

Police in the northeast Alabama town received a call around midnight Saturday about someone riding a horse on a city street, Gregg said.

Officer John Seals found Melissa Byrum York, 40, of Henagar on horseback on a nearby road and attempted to stop her. Seals asked the woman repeatedly to get off the horse, but she kept trying to kick the animal to make it run, the chief said.

“She wouldn’t stop. She kept riding the horse and going on,” Gregg said.

After ramming the police car with the horse and riding away, the woman tried to jump off but caught her foot in a stirrup, Gregg said. The officer took the woman into custody and discovered that she had crystal methamphetamine, a small amount of marijuana, pills and a small pipe, the chief said.

York was charged with DUI for allegedly riding the horse under the influence of a controlled substance. She was also charged with drug possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest, assault, attempting to elude police and cruelty to animals.

Gregg said the horse, which belonged to York, “wasn’t in the best of health, but it’s still alive.”

York was released from the DeKalb County Jail on $4,000 bond and was being transferred to the jail in Jackson County, where authorities had a warrant for her arrest on unrelated charges, Gregg said.

Jackson County officials said Tuesday that York had yet to be booked, and there were no records indicating whether she had a lawyer.

RALEIGH, N.C. – When John Cornwell graduated from Duke University last year, he landed a job as software engineer in Atlanta but soon found himself longing for his college lifestyle. So the engineering graduate built himself a reminder of life on campus: a refrigerator that can toss a can of beer to his couch with the click of a remote control.

“I conceived it right after I got out,” said Cornwell, a May 2006 graduate from Huntington, N.Y. “I missed the college scene. It embodies the college spirit that I didn’t want to let go of.”

It took the 22-year-old Cornwell about 150 hours and $400 in parts to modify a mini-fridge common to many college dorm rooms into the beer-tossing contraption, which can launch 10 cans of beer from its magazine before needing a reload.

With a click of the remote, fashioned from a car’s keyless entry device, a small elevator inside the refrigerator lifts a beer can through a hole and loads it into the fridge’s catapult arm. A second click fires the device, tossing the beer up to 20 feet — “far enough to get to the couch,” he said.

Is there a foam explosion when the can is opened? Not if the recipient uses “soft hands” to cradle the can when caught, Cornwell said.

In developing his beer catapult, Cornwell said he dented a few walls and came close to accidentally throwing a can through his television. He’s since fine-tuned the machine to land a beer where he usually sits at home, on what he called “a right-angle couch system.”

For now, the machine throws only cans, although Cornwell has thought about making a version that can throw a bottle. The most beer he has run through the machine was at a party, when he launched a couple of 24-can cases.

“I did launch a lot watching the Super Bowl,” he said. “My friends are the reason I built it. I told them about the idea and hyped it so much and I had to go through with it.”

A video featuring the device is a hit on the Internet, where more than 600,000 people have watched it at metacafe.com, earning Cornwell more than $3,000 from the Web site.

Cornwell said he has talked to a brewing company about the machine, but right now only one exists. Asked if he might start building some for sale, he said: “I’m keeping that option open, depending on interest.”

When Cornwell was a student at Duke — an elite, private university in Durham — he participated in the engineering school’s robotic basketball contests, said mechanical engineering Professor Bob Kielb. He said students tried to build a robot that could retrieve a pingpong ball and toss it into a small hoop.

“He always did well in it,” Kielb said. “He came up with completely unique ideas.”

CLAYTON, Ga. – Well, that’s a DUI of a different color. Heather Darnell, 22, of Mountain City, Ga., faces a drunk driving charge after she steered the horse she was riding onto the highway and tangled with a car, authorities said. Darnell also was cited for entering a traffic lane.

She remains in fair condition after being airlifted to the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville, Ga.

The horse apparently survived, officials said.

Three people who were in the Pontiac Bonneville that struck the horse Friday night were treated at Mountain Lakes Medical Center in Clayton, Ga., and released: Ancella Gragg, 32, of Lakemont, Ga., who was at the wheel; and a 13-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy.

Trooper Anthony Coleman said Gragg did not see the horse until too late and was unable to avoid hitting it.

“If it’s on the public right-of-way, you’re under the same jurisdiction as if you’re in a car,” Coleman said.

LONDON (Reuters) – Women going on boozy nights out have been warned by police to “wear nice pants” in case they fall down drunk in the street.

A Suffolk police safety campaign magazine shows pictures of young women slumped on the ground next to messages urging them: “If you’ve got it, don’t flaunt it.”

“If you fall over or pass out, remember your skirt or dress may ride up,” the magazine says. “You could show off more than you intended — for all our sakes, please make sure you’re wearing nice pants and that you’ve recently had a wax.”

Readers are also told to stick with friends, book a taxi home and watch the amount they drink.

Police said the Safe! magazine’s gossipy, tongue-in-cheek style was designed to alert young women to the dangers they could face if they get drunk during a night out.

“We need to raise their awareness of potential problems,” said Chief Superintendent David McDonnell. “They become more vulnerable whilst under the influence of alcohol.”