PAIN: David Gest's lingering effects of Minnelli beatings

FEBRUARY 23--Here's a bit of advice for high school administrators everywhere: If a drug-sniffing police dog somehow misses the pot you planted in a troublemaker's locker, just let it go.

Patrick Conroy, however, felt the need to tell Michigan cops about his harebrained attempt to frame a student he believed was selling drugs at L.C. Mohr High School.

Conroy, who resigned his assistant principal's post Friday when the Herald-Palladium reported on his scheme, last month laughingly told a K-9 cop about planting the pot, according to South Haven Police Department reports. Saying, "I know this isn't or wasn't ethical," Conroy, 52, told the cop he put the baggie of marijuana in the student's locker since "we both know he is dealing drugs, and I wanted to catch him so I put drugs in the locker."

The dog, named Herbie, did not cooperate, however, failing to detect the weed. For his part, Conroy repeatedly steered the K-9 team past the bank of lockers, to no avail. Conroy is now the subject of a criminal probe. (7 pages)