Theft of Bradenton's New Year's Eve Ball a Prank

Bradenton police have resolved the second official police case of the new year: the and dropped at midnight during the party downtown, has been solved.

By all accounts it was a clumsy and drunken prank. The ball was returned unmarred and the pranksters donated money to breast cancer research, avoiding prosecution in the end.

Trevor Flathman, one of the culprits, apparently went to Cork's a couple of days after the theft and confessed to James "Cork" Miller, according to the Bradenton Police report. Miller told his son Wayne Elsmore about the confession. Elsmore made the 4-foot fiberglass ball and painted it pink, so he was the official owner.

Elsmore went to police and told them about the confession. The police contacted Flathman, 25, who made arrangements to return the ball to Elsmore. Later that evening Flathman's sister Shaya Flathman, 23, went to the police station and told them that it was her birthday and she was "very intoxicated" when she and a friend decided to steal the ball after spotting it in the back of a pickup truck.

They hid the ball in some bushes downtown and went home, according to the police report. When they got home, Shaya Flathman told police, they thought it would be funny to go back and steal the ball. So she and her brother along with two friends took Trevor Flathman's business truck and went back to get the ball.

Elsmore told police he was happy with the outcome and didn't want to press charges after the ball was returned and the Flathmans agreed to make a donation to breast cancer research.

When Elsmore initially reported the pink ball missing, embossed with 2012 and breast cancer awareness ribbons, he estimated its value at $10,000. Once the culprits confessed, Elsmore told police it actually cost him about $800 to make the fiberglass ball.