Hillsboro, Ore. man allegedly stole many Lego blocks

A man accused of stealing massive quantities of Lego sets from Target stores and reselling them on the Internet was indicted on felony theft and attempted theft charges Friday.

William Swanberg, 40, is being held in the Washington County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bond.

Authorities say Swanberg had been selling the stolen Legos on a Web site called Bricklink.com., similar to eBay but used only by buyers and sellers of Lego items.

Records from Bricklink.com indicate Swanberg has sold nearly $600,000 worth of Legos since 2002.

Based on information from detectives, the U.S. Postal Inspectors office became involved. Agents served a search warrant in Reno, Nev., on Swanberg's residence and needed a 20-foot truck to haul away the evidence. Target estimates its loss at $200,000.

Detectives contend that Swanberg devised a way to replace the bar code on expensive sets with ones from less expensive sets. He purchased Legos at the reduced price and sold them for close to the retail price.

Bruce Lee's birthday

a time for memorials

Martial-arts film star Bruce Lee is being remembered around the world Sunday, which would have been his 65th birthday.

A bronze statue is being unveiled in Hong Kong, where the Bruce Lee Club organized a weeklong festival of his movies, as well as tours of his homes and studios where the movies were made.

Lee was one of the first martial-arts film stars in the early 1970s with "Fists of Fury" and "Enter the Dragon." He died in 1973 in Hong Kong of a brain injury at the age of 32 and is buried in Capitol Hill's Lake View Cemetery.

Lee was born in San Francisco, but his family returned to Hong Kong, where he grew up. He returned to study philosophy at the University of Washington and married in 1964 in Seattle, where he opened his first martial-arts school. A Seattle memorial for Lee is scheduled for noon Sunday at Lake View Cemetery.

Inmate moved

because of gang

William Schorr has been moved from the Pierce County Jail because officials feared a newly formed gang could hurt him or persuade him not to testify against a co-defendant.

Chief of Corrections Eileen Bisson said jail staff recently became aware of a jailhouse gang calling itself the "Gunslingers," with about 10 inmates identified as members.

Schorr, 30, pleaded guilty last week to killing Snap-On Tools dealer Bob Shapel in February 2004 near Yelm and agreed to testify against his friend and co-defendant Jeremy Hosford.

Schorr says Hosford suffocated Shapel with duct tape in what he says was intended to be a robbery. Hosford is charged with aggravated first-degree murder.

Seattle

Bush calls 2 troops

with ties to Seattle

Two of the 10 U.S. troops who received Thanksgiving Day phone calls from President Bush have ties to the Seattle area.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Tom Hines lives in Seattle with his wife and children. He serves as a deck watch officer for the Coast Guard Cutter Healy. Hines was recently selected as his unit's sailor of the quarter for his outstanding leadership, among other qualities. His unit is one week away from returning home to Seattle after a six-month trans-Arctic passage to the North Pole.

Bush also called Nicole Boals, an information-systems technician third class serving at a naval base in Kuwait. Boals, who serves with Naval Coastal Warfare Squadron 33, was recently honored as one of the best sailors in her squadron. Her family lives in North Bend.

Times staff and news services