Vaseline Man Can't Slip Cops

MAY 18--Meet Robert Chamberlain. The 44-year-old Virginia man was arrested earlier this month and charged with felony criminal mischief for damaging a Motel 6 room in upstate New York. But Chamberlain, who has spent time on the pipe, wasn't breaking windows or throwing the television off the balcony. He was nabbed for slathering Vaseline on every single thing in Room 205--mattresses, pillows, sheets, furniture, carpeting, blankets, the TV, etc. A motel clerk discovered the damage after Chamberlain checked out and called the Broome County Sheriff's Office. When Deputy Kevin Smith arrived, the greasy m.o. rang a bell--a couple of weeks earlier a room at a nearby Super 8 was also apparently slimed by Chamberlain (though the owner declined at the time to press charges). A check of Room 205's trash turned up 14 empty containers of Vaseline, drug paraphernalia, cocaine residue, and porno magazines, "which also were slathered/smeared with Vaseline," according to a sheriff's report. Shortly after the Motel 6 damage was found on May 9, Chamberlain was arrested at--big surprise here--a nearby Econo Lodge. The arrestee, of course, was "smeared from head to foot with Vaseline." Ewww. (4 pages)