You're Bob Dylan? NJ police want to see some ID

By Wayne Parry, The Associated Press

Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighbourhood. Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood. A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.

"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.

The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighbourhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses. The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:

"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.

"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.

"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.

"I'm on tour," the singer replied.

A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said. The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show. The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan. The officers thanked him for his cooperation.

"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.

How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.

TAMPA, Fla. — An autopsy report shows that cocaine use contributed to the heart disease that suddenly killed TV pitchman Billy Mays in June, officials announced Friday.

The Hillsborough County medical examiner's office previously determined that the bearded, boisterous TV spokesman had a heart attack in his sleep. His wife found him unresponsive in bed in their Tampa condo June 28.

Mays was a pop-culture fixture with his energetic commercials pitching gadgets and cleaning products like Orange Glo and OxiClean.

While heart disease was the primary cause of death, a report released Friday by the medical examiner listed cocaine as a "contributory cause of death."

The medical examiner "concluded that cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and thereby contributed to his death," the office said in a press release.

The office said Mays last used cocaine in the few days before his death but was not under the influence of the drug when he died. Hillsborough County spokeswoman Lori Hudson said nothing in the toxicology report indicated the frequency of Mays' cocaine use.

Cocaine can raise the arterial blood pressure, directly cause thickening of the left wall of the ventricle and accelerate the formation of atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries, the release said.

SKATE STAR'S HARD FALL

Former United States figure skating champion Nicole Bobek "played a significant role" in a major Hudson County drug ring and has been charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, authorities said yesterday.

The former blond beauty, now 31 and a skating teacher in Florida, faces 10 years in prison if convicted. Bobek is being held at the jail on a $200,000 cash or bond bail.

"She played a significant role in this operation," said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio. The Prosecutor's Office announced on June 19 that 19 people were arrested in a probe of the drug network, which it said was bringing in $10,000 a week.

"She was actively involved in the upper echelon of this ring," said DeFazio.

Bobek won the U.S. title in 1995 and was third in the World Championships the same year, but she finished a disappointing 17th in the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano, Japan.

Bobek, who has homes in Manhattan and in Jupiter, Fla., appeared yesterday in Central Judicial Processing Court in Jersey City, via video link from the Hudson County jail in Kearny.

She was arrested in Florida as a fugitive from justice based on the charges filed in Hudson County. Bobek did not fight extradition and was brought to New Jersey on Thursday by officers of the Hudson County Sheriff's Office.

It was difficult yesterday to recognize the young woman who won hearts, if not gold medals, during the 1990s.

The green jail garb was a long way from the sequined outfits Bobek wore on the ice and the short dark hair was a stark contrast from the long flowing blond locks she sported during her skating years.

DeFazio said Bobek's involvement in the drug ring occurred in New York.

Her mother, Jana Bobek, attended yesterday's hearing, at which Bobek was represented by Jersey City attorney Sam DeLuca. DeLuca had no comment on the charges.

DeFazio said he did not release Bobek's name when his office announced the arrests last month because she was not in custody at the time.

In 1998 at the Olympics in Nagano, Japan