Year in Review: The oddest news of 2011

Usually, lists of the top news stories of the year include 10 items. We looked back at 2011 and decided 10 wasn't enough. It wasn't appropriate, either.

The year was so bad -- the economy, housing, jobs, blah blah -- that the Week in Review staff figured unlucky 13 was the best number.

So here are 13 of the weirdest Las Vegas stories of 2011. They're not in order because, really, we can't judge which one's the weirdest.

■ "Bellagio Bandit" Anthony Carleo, the son of former Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge George Assad, was sentenced to three to 11 years for the Strip casino heist, and six to 16 years for a heist at the suburban Suncoast.

In both cases Carleo robbed the casinos while armed and disguised in motorcycle gear before making a quick getaway on a bike.

■ Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass, known for presiding over the trial that sent O.J. Simpson to prison, became a TV star.

She replaced Nancy Grace, known for being bats--- crazy, as the host of the courtroom show "Swift Justice."

■ The man with the 100-pound scrotum. That's no typo. Google "Vegas scrotum" and see what comes up. Surprisingly, it's not porn.

Wesley Warren Jr. wants surgery. He needs $1 million. Want to help? Email him at: benefitballsack@yahoo.com.

■ Apparently, we can't wait until a place on the Strip gets old to blow it up.

The Harmon Tower, a 27-story unfinished hotel and condominium tower, was to be part of the $8.5 billion CityCenter development.

But engineers said the building could collapse in an earthquake. Owner MGM Resorts wants to implode it, but the general contractor says they can fix it. It'll all be hashed out in court.

■ North Las Vegas had some trouble this year.

The city is up, uh, poopy creek without a place to dump treated effluent from the city's new plant.

After feuding with Clark County, the city began discharging from the plant into the Sloan Channel, which the county owns and says the city can't use. The mess is in two different courts now.

Also, after a City Council race was decided by one vote, two men spent much of the year blowing money on lawyers in hopes of winning the right to represent a city teetering on the brink of economic collapse.

Councilman Richard Cherchio lost to Wade Wagner. Now they're fighting in court.

■ Fossilized dinosaur footprints were found in Red Rock Canyon.

A retired FBI agent ran across them while hiking. Experts said it was the first solid evidence of dinosaurs at Red Rock and the first fossilized dinosaur footprints documented in Nevada.

It makes us wonder when a fossilized dinosaur buffet will be found.

■ Runners fell ill during the Rock 'n' Roll Las Vegas marathon, providing ample opportunities to publish the phrase "explosive diarrhea," which made the Week in Review staff giddy for a week.

Some runners blamed the water. But health authorities ran tests -- this is where we get to print the phrase "stool samples" -- and said a virus was more likely.

■ For a dead guy, Arthur Gerald Jones carved out a nice life in Las Vegas. The Chicago commodity trader who disappeared in 1979 and was declared legally dead in 1986 resurfaced alive here. He pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge and was ordered to pay restitution.

■ Elena Caro, 42, a mother of three, died after her buttocks enhancement surgery in the backroom of a tile shop went horribly wrong.

The perpetrators, Ruben Dario Matallana-Galvas, 56, and Carmen Olfidia Torres-Sanchez, 47, went to prison.

■ This is a two-for-one. Clark County Deputy District Attorney David Schubert, who prosecuted drug cases, resigned after cops accused him of buying crack. Similarly, Henderson City Attorney Elizabeth Quillin declared herself "f---ed up" during her DUI arrest. She resigned, too.

There's nothing like government malfeasance to brighten up the Week in Review page.

■ Family Court Judge Steven Jones and prosecutor Lisa Willardson claimed they weren't seeing each other. That matters because Willardson appeared in Jones' courtroom.

But District Attorney David Roger said evidence suggested otherwise, so he fired Willardson and launched a grand jury investigation.

In one email, Willardson referred to Jones as the "honorable (and freakin' HOT) Steven E. Jones."

■ Nevada's best-known brothel owner declared that he wants to open an alien-themed bordello called Alien Cathouse.

Dennis Hof, the star of HBO's Cathouse reality series and owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, said he will bring in Hollywood Madam turned Pahrump resident turned frequent Week in Review star Heidi Fleiss to design the place.

■ White Pine County rancher Hank Vogler told state regulators he plans to call more than 8,000 witnesses to testify against the Southern Nevada Water Authority's water pipeline project. It turned out he was talking about his livestock.

Sadly, it also turned out that he was kidding, which meant the capital building in Carson City would continue to contain only metaphorical bull-dookey, not the real stuff.

Maybe next year.