Buster Archive

A New York City clothing designer has withdrawn his application to trademark the name of Beyonce and Jay-Z’s newborn daughter after a government lawyer gave a preliminary thumbs down to his bid.

United States Patent and Trademark Office records show that Joseph Mbeh this week abandoned his effort to secure a mark for “Blue Ivy Carter NYC.” As TSG reported earlier this month, Mbeh, 35, applied to place the child’s name on “infant, toddler and junior clothing” including dresses, skirts, and undergarments.

Mbeh abandoned his bid immediately after a USPTO attorney cited several reasons for refusing to register the trademark. The lawyer noted that Blue Ivy Carter, now three weeks old, is a “famous infant” and that consumers would incorrectly conclude that a line of apparel bearing the baby’s name “is connected with the child though through the control of her parents.”

Mbeh’s trademark application was done without the consent of Beyonce and Jay-Z.

While Mbeh’s application is dead, a second “Blue Ivy” trademark application remains pending. A Queens-based clothing firm last week filed to trademark “Blue Ivy Carter Glory IV” for use on fragrances, skin creams, facial scrubs, and body glitter. Curiously, the company claims to somehow have been using the phrase “in commerce” since February 2011.

A Miami man who exited an airplane lavatory smoking is facing a federal felony charge after he tangled with flight attendants who sought to have him extinguish his cigarette.

The incident Tuesday evening came an hour into a United Airlines flight from Houston to Ontario, California, according to a U.S. District Court criminal complaint. Flight attendants told the FBI that passenger Manolin Villaverde, 37, “came out of the restroom smoking a cigarette.”

When told that he could not smoke on the flight, “Villaverde responded that he did not care,” reported FBI Agent Gregory Morse. A flight attendant took the cigarette from Villaverde and extinguished it in the bathroom.

Undeterred, Villaverde lit up another butt inside the Boeing 737. A second flight attendant “grabbed Villaverde’s cigarette and extinguished it and again told him to sit down.” Villaverde was eventually subdued with plastic handcuffs after he sought to push past attendants. He claimed that “the captain wanted to speak with him.”

Pictured in the above mug shot, Villaverde was charged yesterday with interfering with flight crew members. He is being held in advance of a detention hearing tomorrow morning in federal court in San Antonio (where the United flight was diverted).

Villaverde’s rap sheet, which dates back to 2000, includes arrests for weapons possession, larceny, assault, and aggravated battery.

After North Dakota cops pulled over a vehicle and recognized the strong odor of pot, the driver’s four-year-old daughter gave officers the lowdown on the ownership of drug paraphernalia found in the car.

"That’s mommy’s," the girl said in reference to a glass marijuana pipe that police found in the auto’s back seat (where she was seated with her one-year-old brother). The child then added, "Mommy smokes weed all the time," according to a Grand Forks County Sheriff’s Office report.

Kaitlyn Campbell, 20, was charged with felony child endangerment and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia in connection with the traffic stop last Thursday. A passenger in the 2007 Chevrolet Malibu was hit with the same charges (and a drug possession count after she claimed ownership of pot found in the car).

Campbell, pictured in the above mug shot, is currently free on bail. She is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on February 27.

In a development sure to chill minimum-wage sandwich artists everywhere, a 19-year-old Subway worker was actually arrested yesterday for providing discounted food to his friends.

That’s right, the manager of a Subway in South Carolina (in tandem with a security officer) called cops to report that Camron Frost provided pals with “sub sandwiches, drinks, and cookies at an unauthorized discount rate ($1.50).”

Subway officials contacted the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office after reviewing security camera footage and credit card records from Monday, when the discounted food was allegedly provided to Frost’s cronies.

According to a sheriff’s report, Frost was questioned by a deputy yesterday at Subway, and recalled that his friends, who were short on cash, “texted him and asked if they could get some subs.” Frost acknowledged providing the food, which he rang up solely as cookies priced at $1.50.

Frost, pictured in the above mug shot, was arrested inside the Subway for breach of trust, a misdemeanor. After three hours in custody, he bonded out of the county jail by posting $1000 bond. Frost has been barred from returning to his former place of employment.

The report does not offer any insight as to why Subway officials opted to call in the cops--instead of just firing Frost--over a few embezzled $5 Footlongs.  

The jailed Amish bishop accused of spearheading a beard- and hair-cutting campaign against religious foes today told a federal judge that he is willing to install electricity in his home to accommodate an electronic monitoring device if granted bond before trial.

In a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Akron, Ohio, Samuel Mullet, 66, asks Judge Dan Polster to reconsider an order of detention originally entered following his arrest, along with several codefendants, last November.

A lawyer for Mullet, a married father of 16, noted that his client “is certainly not opposed to allowing electricity service his home” if it would help spring him from custody.

While the Amish do not believe that “electricity is per se evil,” according to Mullet’s motion, they stay off the public grid because they believe “electricity allows for the introduction of modern appliances that can cause family and community members not to reply upon each other.”

Edward Bryan, Mullet’s attorney, adds that it is “not uncommon for Amish to own and use electric generators to power electric power to tools they use for work and trades.” In fact, Mullet uses such a generator “for work,” Bryan reported.

According to federal prosecutors, Mullet, pictured in the above mug shots, controlled the Bergholz Amish sect “by taking the wives of other men into his home, and by overseeing various means of disciplining community members, including corporal punishment.”