A 19-year-old man has received a prison term of nearly 3½ years for stealing a pricey dog from a woman in St. Paul and then trying to sell her pet for a quick buck.

Lonnie Ray Jenkins, 19, of St. Paul, was sentenced in Ramsey County District Court after pleading guilty to first-degree aggravated robbery in connection with the theft of the French bulldog-Boston terrier mix named Clementine on April 24 near the intersection of York Avenue and Arkwright Street.

With credit for time in jail after his arrest, Jenkins is expected to serve about 2¼ years of his term in prison and the balance on supervised release.

The criminal complaint referred to another male involved in the crime, but police have yet to announce an additional arrest.

According to the complaint:

The dog’s owner said she Clementine, also affectionately called Tiny, were on their way to get ice cream late in the afternoon when two males started following her. She crossed the street out of concern for her safety, and the two males did the same. Once she got to her front steps, one male pushed her to the ground while the other grabbed Tiny and ran off.

The woman told police that Tiny is worth thousands of dollars and is embedded with an electronic identification chip. She feared that if Tiny didn’t get her medication, the dog would fall ill, she said.

Surveillance video showed two males walking in the area and wearing masks. Moments later an SUV picked up the males with Tiny.

One of two reports of sexual assault since September in an Eagan park has turned out to have been made up by the woman, police said Tuesday.

Police said in a statement that after their extensive investigation into the reported sexual assault on a trail in Lebanon Hills Park around 11 a.m. on Nov. 7, “we’re able to report the assault never occurred.”

The woman “admitted that her claims were false, and the incident never took place,” the statement read. Charges will be pursued for filing a false police report, the statement continued. Police are declining to release the woman’s identity.

Police said they continue to investigate the report of a sexual assault in the park late in the afternoon of Sept. 7.

“In an effort to promote public safety, we continue to ask the public to be aware of your surroundings, watch out for each other, and report suspicious people or vehicles,” the statement said. “While this case was found to be false, we are continuing to follow up on the Sept. 7 incident, but unfortunately, we don’t have any new information to share at this time.”

ROCHESTER – For decades, residents here have tried to discourage thousands of crows from roosting downtown and leaving droppings everywhere. Now, the city is getting lethal.

Wildlife experts for the first time will cull the crow population using airsoft rifles, which shoot plastic pellets, in parts of downtown Rochester.

“We’re not trying to get crows out of one tree and they move into the next‚” said Paul Widman, Rochester’s parks and recreations director. “It’s to create a sense of danger so that they don’t want to be in the area.”

The Rochester City Council approved the escalation against the crows 6-1 Monday night, with only Council Member Molly Dennis dissenting.

Crows have been a problem in downtown Rochester since the 1980s as up to 20,000 birds flock to the warm lights at night each winter, gathering themselves in groups (appropriately for this story) called a murder. The birds themselves are largely harmless, coming in droves in the late afternoon and leaving their perches in the morning. But their droppings pile up, creating hazards wherever they stay.

Rochester has worked with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) since 2012 to haze the birds into leaving the downtown area, with mixed results.

Mike Schaber, parks and forestry operations manager, told the Rochester City Council on Monday night that city crews have started typically around November scaring the birds out of downtown with everything from laser pointers to starter guns filled with blanks, pots and pans, and even a shovel found at Mayo Clinic that made awful noises.

But the crows keep coming back, switching locations each year to congregate somewhere new. Some years it’s Central Park, where the crows have plenty of trees to roost in. Last year it was the Plummer building, where the lights made for a warm welcome crows can’t typically find in suburbs or other parts of