Times Square Characters Are No Strangers to Trouble

Cookie Monster stands accused of shoving a 2-year-old. Super Mario was charged with groping a woman. And Elmo was booked for berating tourists with anti-Semitic slurs.

New York's Times Square is crawling with entrepreneurs who dress up as pop-culture characters and try to make a few bucks posing for photos with visitors to the big city.

But some of these characters are unlike anything you've seen on "Sesame Street" or at Disney World.

They smoke, they use foul language, and they can be aggressive. At least three of them have been arrested in the past seven months.

This week, a man dressed as Cookie Monster was accused of manhandling a little boy when the youngster's mother didn't immediately hand over money for a picture with the shaggy blue character.

(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)