Another State Calls for Punxsutawney Phil's Head

Maryland's Montgomery County PD issues wanted poster for groundhog
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 26, 2013 8:41 AM CDT
Another State Calls for Punxsutawney Phil's Head
Phil is perhaps America's most wanted groundhog. (Photo altered slightly to reduce negative space.)   (Montgomery County Police Dept.)

Seems Punxsutawney Phil is on everybody's not-so-hot list after promising an early spring that didn't exactly come to pass. Days after an Ohio prosecutor indicted the weather-predicting groundhog, calling for the death penalty, a Maryland police department has issued a wanted poster, DCist reports. The critter is wanted for fraud because he "claims he is a weather forecasting groundhog," yet Montgomery County is "still waiting" on that early spring. Tip from cops: "He may be hiding in a hole."

But Phil has been issued a reprieve by the Ohio prosecutor, after the groundhog's handler took the blame for the faulty forecast. "I'm the guy that did it; I'll be the fall guy. It's not Phil's fault," Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, tells the AP. He explains that he didn't interpret Phil's "groundhog-ese" correctly, and that Phil actually did predict six more weeks of winter. In return, prosecutor Mike Gmoser has dismissed the charge. (More Punxsutawney Phil stories.)

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