NY State bus driver crackdown, which has been going on since the March 12 fatal Bronx bus crash , has now caught city school bus drivers. According to WABC 7 , “The men, drivers in Queens, had reportedly been driving with suspended licenses, in one instance for more than 15 years. They were picked up by detectives with the Queens District Attorney’s Office for obtaining new licenses by submitting false names and different dates of birth and social security numbers to the Department of Motor Vehicles.” [ more › ]

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NYC School Bus Drivers Caught With Suspended Licenses

One of Charlie Sheen ‘s temporary goddesses, 22-year-old Capri Anderson (who you may remember from the Eloise Suite at the Plaza), has invited Charlie Sheen to serve her with the legal papers she’s expecting whilst she works the pole on Long Island next month. According to the Daily News , she’ll be at The Scene on April 15th and 16th, and has invited to actor to serve the papers to here there; his attorney says, “She wants to make it a PR event where she’s served at a strip club? Well we’re not going to accommodate her career. For her to say serve me while I’m stripping, it shows who we’re dealing with.” [ more › ]

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Charlie Sheen Declines Invite To Long Island Stripper Pole

Mayor Bloomberg has largely scoffed at accusations that the Sanitation Department engaged in a purposeful “slowdown” during the Blizzaggedon , as retaliation for budget cuts in the department. But after one of the blizzard blame hearings in Manhattan Beach on Wednesday, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes ripped into Bloomberg for “blowing off” the public hearing. [ more › ]

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Brooklyn DA Rips Into "Disengaged" Bloomberg

Due to a multimillion budget gap, Newark laid off 167 police officers (13% of its force) earlier this month. Since then, crime has increased there have been numerous carjackings —victims include a staffer in the NJ Attorney General’s office and a Newark school principal—and shootings (since Thursday, four people have been shot dead and six have been wounded). Now, Newark Mayor Cory Booker says that police will be at “full force” this weekend, claiming “dozens” more cops will be patrolling. While residents and activists say the decision to layoffs so many cops is why violence has roared back (back in April, Booker was touting how Newark had its first murder-free month since 1966 ), the Essex County prosecutor’s office says it’s unclear if the crime is related to the budget-tightening. Still, one resident of the South Ward, where many recent shootings have occurred, told the Star-Ledger, “This is happening every day. I have insomnia. How do people live like this?”

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After Police Layoffs, Newark Has Troubling Crime Spike

You’d lose stuff too if there were this many people going through your evidence at the same time (CBS). Did you commit a murder in New York City in the last forty years and never got caught? Might want to be careful where you leave your DNA. See, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office this year started a DNA-based cold case squad and is slowly working through the evidence from at least 95 of the city’s roughly 3,000 unsolved murders. When they can find the evidence bags, at least. Thanks to advances in DNA science genetic testing has become much easier to pull off. Where once it took lots of saliva or blood to make a match scientists now just need a nanogram’s worth of cells or body fluids. DNA at the scene of a crime doesn’t necessarily solve a case, but it does offer up new avenues for police to explore. Especially since 2006 when the number of convictions eligible for DNA collection was expanded to include some petty larcenies, giving cops a wider net of cons to fish through. The trick in New York is finding the evidence to search for DNA in the first place. Barry Scheck, the co-director of the Innocence Project (and recent guest star on The Good Wife ), tells the News that when the Project asked the city for DNA in 46 cases from 2004-2009 the genetic evidence in 27 cases couldn’t be found. So just think about how hard it is to find evidence more than a decade old!

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DA’s New Cold Case Squad Embraces DNA

Pedro G. Espada and dad Pedro Espada Jr., holding a possible future public servant Disgraced former State Senator Pedro Espada and his son Pedro G. Espada were released on $750,00 bail today after pleading not guilty to charges of embezzling more than half a million dollars from the Bronx nonprofit health care network they managed. According to a grand jury indictment returned yesterday, Espada used the non-profit Soundview, which the senator founded 30 years ago, to live a life of semi-luxury and finance his political campaigns. The Times reports that Espada allegedly used some of the money to pay for a lavish birthday party at his Mamaroneck home, replete with petting zoo, pony rides and a videographer. And you already knew about the $20,000 in sushi deliveries , but did you know about the Bentley? Prosecutors say Espada took $49,000 from Soundview for the down payment on a $125,000 Bentley. Sadly, he never bought the car because his credit application was rejected. Espada allegedly used a Soundview corporate American Express card to cover many of his personal expenses, like $100,000 worth of meals, window treatments for his home, and Broadway shows. According to the indictment, he also used Soundview loot to pay for a ghostwriter to work on a book project, and fix the air conditioner. Pork—you can use it for anything! “The indictment alleges that funds that could and should have been applied to purchase medical equipment and enhance health care services for an historically under-served population were diverted by the defendants for their personal use and to benefit friends and family members,” said United States Attorney Lynch in a statement . “In these difficult economic times, the charged crimes are all the more reprehensible.” And Attorney General/Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo, who has also filed a multi-million dollar civil lawsuit against Espada, told NY1 , “They were living high on the hog , as they would say, and they were, in a cruel twist of fate, in a really obnoxious perversion of intent, using funds that were supposed to go to provide health care for poor people, to live a luxurious, extravagant lifestyle.” Espada and his son Pedro G (whom you may recall from his brief stint in an easy $120K-a-year Senate job his daddy got for him) face a maximum of 10 years in prison for the embezzlement charges, five years for a conspiracy count, and a fine of $250,000 for each count on which they are convicted. So please, have some respect for the Espada family during this difficult time. “Today is a sad day for Soundview and a sad day for the Espada family,” his lawyer told the Times , with musical accompaniment provided by a trio of violinists so small they were imperceptible to the naked eye.

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Espada and Son Plead Not Guilty, May Face Decades in Prison

            Like many of you, we were pretty amazed at the footage of the roof of the Metrodome collapsing after a heavy blizzard this past weekend. The Giants were supposed to play the Vikings there, but ultimately defeated them handily on Monday night in Detroit . But while the Giants may have moved on, the Vikings still have to deal with not having a home field; so in their desperation, they have begun asking their fans for help digging out the snowed-in outdoor field at the University of Minnesota campus stadium in time for Monday night’s Vikings game with the Chicago Bears. Conspiracy theorists take note: if you’re wondering who is to blame for the roof collapse, you can thank two NY-based firms who designed the roof and supplied the roof fabric.

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Metrodome Roof Was Designed By Two NY Companies

The NYPD Internal Affairs and the Queens District Attorney’s office are investigating the alleged police beating of Anna Stanczyk , a 49-year-old Polish immigrant who’s lived in Rockaway Beach for almost two decades. Stanczyk was walking her beloved terrier Psotka outside her apartment on the Friday after Thanksgiving when two cops with the 100th precinct told her to clean up dog poop that she says wasn’t Psotka’s. When she argued with them (while also scooping up the frozen excrement), the situation escalated. Here’s her interview with Eyewitness News: Stancyzk says when the heated argument resulted in her arrest, she panicked because her dog got loose in the process. “I started to scream for help. Help, help… my dog is going to be killed by a car,” she tells CBS2 . “The moment I scream I feel the punch in my face. They punch back of head, my breast.” She admits that when she was loaded into the back of the squad car, she resisted by kicking the door. That’s when one officer allegedly leaned in and, according to Stancyzk’s friend, punched her “one, two three, four, five, six, in her head and her chest.” After taking her to the station house, police brought Stancyzk to the hospital for the heavy bruising around her eye, cheek, breast and back. She was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and her lawyer says the charges will likely be dropped. Stancyzk has filed a complaint with the CCRB and also plans to file a lawsuit against the NYPD, which has not commented on Poopergate.

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NYPD Internal Affairs, DA Probe Dog Poop Police Brutality

Instead of sitting in a rubber room, some teachers now file in the Tweed Courthouse (via WallyG ‘s flickr stream). Remember back in April when the city and the United Federation of Teachers announced that by the end of the year teachers accused of misconduct would no longer be sent to the infamous “rubber rooms” (where they would collect their full salaries while sitting around)? The NY Times checked in yesterday and finds that for all intents and purposes little has changed. “There are indeed still rubber rooms,” one teacher accused of sexual harassment told the paper. “They just don’t call them that.” Now instead of being sent to a single room to wait around teachers under review are being asked to do busywork for the Department of Education since their qualifications to teach are up in the air and they have to do something. Those jobs can include processing invoices, arranging schedules, answering phones, scanning documents and helping with chores at the Department’s external affairs office in the Tweed Courthouse. One teacher currently not teaching told the Times about the time she was sent to measure every classroom, auditorium, athletic field and parking lot for the School Construction Authority. Some others still work in some of the city’s dozen truancy offices around the city—but as they aren’t necessarily provided with computers to access the DoE’s system even that doesn’t always work out. But others are still simply sitting around, doing nothing, making sure they clock in for their required six hours and 50 minutes per day. Now, thanks to people like the hooker-turned-teacher , we already knew the rooms were stil kicking—and of course it is going to take a system as large as the DoE some time to figure out exactly what to do with teachers who aren’t teaching—but at least the story, though painting a depressing picture, does offer one bit of evidence that things are already getting better: “Despite the difficulties of finding the teachers actual work, cases are moving much faster than before the April agreement…In mid-November, there were 236 teachers and administrators still in reassignment, down from 770 when the deal to close the rubber rooms was signed.”

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The Rubber Rooms Are Dead, Long Live the Rubber Rooms

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussing the WikiLeaks leaks yesterday (AP) Unsurprisingly, the fallout from the latest WikiLeaks continues. U.S. officials are working damage control here and abroad, from Rep. Peter King pushing for the website to be declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization to Attorney General Eric Holder investigating the matter promising “to the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law and who has put at risk the assets and the people I have described, they will be held responsible, ” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasting , “This disclosure is not just an attack on America — it’s an attack on the international community… There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people, and there is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations.” And then there’s Sarah Palin, saying that she wouldn’t have let the leaks happen since her book was leaked and everything . WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange isn’t sitting pretty either. He’s off defending his site’s actions in the media, dealing with his own legal problems , pimping the next leak he’s got up his sleeve ( banking scandal! ) and apparently defending his site from a massive attack . Meanwhile, the rest of the world and the media is looking on and reading through the quarter-million documents for juicy gossip. Ecuador, for instance, worried by the 1,600 cables sent from the U.S. Embassy in Quito found in the latest dump, has offered Assange residency “without any problem and without any conditions.” And then there is the case of the ever-present Taiwanese animators, who of course have turned the whole thing into an entertaining CGI short . The upside to the whole mess? The Times makes an argument for the leaks in an editorial pointing out that they not only “illuminate American policy in a way that Americans and others deserve to see,” but will also most likely not threaten national security and, in fact, paint the Obama administration in a generally flattering light in comparison to its predecessor.

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WikiLeaks, Under Attack, Gets the Taiwanese Treatment