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Are Cop Sex Charges Just Smokescreen for Bigger Scandal?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:41:52 +0000

After a year-long investigation, the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau has brought departmental charges against two officers who engaged in hanky panky and lied about it when confronted. Deputy Inspector Valentim Neves and his subordinate Officer Mareli Hnatko face dismissal from the force after investigators determined that they had sex “well in excess of 100″ times, “both on and off duty, in and out of department facilities, including vehicles.” We can only assume that there was wanton misuse of departmental handcuffs. The investigation started after Neves, 53, had a fight with his wife in January 2009 and she tipped off the IAB that he was having a “personal” relationship with Hnatko, 41, who worked for Neves in the NYPD’s School Safety Division. The Daily News reports that in a separate suit, Officer Robin Marable accused Neves of “treating other women under him unfairly… while lavishing Hnatko with overtime and special treatment.” After Neves denied the allegations, the IAB used video cameras, subpoenaed hotels and motels, and reviewed cell phone, E-ZPass and roll call records to allegedly catch them red-handed. Compared to other NYPD sex scandals , this is pretty tame. But Marable’s lawyer, Eric Sanders, says the IAB has not pursued other allegations brought by Neves’s wife, particularly that Neves prepared taxes for high-ranking NYPD officials who protected him through the years. “I don’t care about [Neves's] sex life,” Sanders tells the News. “This case is about corruption and the Police Department is throwing him to the wolves to cover up who he was doing business with.” But were the high-ranking NYPD officials having sex with Neves? If so, it might be worth looking into.

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Are Cop Sex Charges Just Smokescreen for Bigger Scandal?

BFD: Obama In NYC For Wednesday View Taping

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:30:14 +0000

President Obama will become the first sitting president to visit a daytime TV talk show when he visits with the ladies of The View this week. It’s part of the show’s “Red, White & View” series (VP Biden was on in April) and ABC News reports , “The president will take the hot seat among the show’s five female hosts, who represent a range of backgrounds and political views, at a time when his administration grapples with challenges from the economy to the BP oil spill.” We also expect Shirley Sherrod to come up! Obama will tape the segment on Wednesday (expect motorcade action near Lincoln Center) and it’ll air on Thursday. His last View appearance ( video ) was during the 2008 campaign.

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BFD: Obama In NYC For Wednesday View Taping

Rutgers Declines To Grow All Of NJ’s Legal Pot

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:50:41 +0000

Rutgers may be the Garden State ’s state university, but the school has declined Governor Chris Christie’s request that it grow all of New Jersey’s medical marijuana. The idea for Rutgers to be the sole grower —and for hospitals to be distributors—allegedly helped “minimize some of Christie’s concern about the program posing a security and safety threat.” But Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences dean pointed out the Star-Ledger that “almost every aspect of the school’s business – from providing financial aid, to obtaining research grants, to seeking immigration visas for visiting professors and other guests – is tied up in federal funding.” Robert Goodman said, ” Higher education is infinitely tied to the federal government, operating under the presumption we are not violating federal law. ”

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Rutgers Declines To Grow All Of NJ’s Legal Pot

SI Fatal Fire: Possible Murder-Suicide, Teen Son Suspected

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:13:26 +0000

Photograph of mourners at a memorial outside Wee Care where some of the victims attended day care by Swoan Parker/AP The house fire that claimed the lives of a mother and her four children in Staten Island’s Port Richmond section yesterday morning may have been arson—and police suspect it was a murder-suicide committed by the eldest child. The Staten Island Advance reports , “Police believe 14-year-old C.J. Jones slit the throats of his sisters, 7-year-old Melonie and 10-year-old Brittney, torched his family’s apartment on the second floor of 302 Nicholas Ave., then ran a razor across his own throat.” The fire, which eventually went to three alarms, not only burned C.J. and his sisters, but also killed his 2-year-old brother Jermaine and 32-year-old mother Leisa as well (heartbreaking pictures of the children here ). It’s unclear if Jeramine’s or Leisa Jones’ throats were slashed , because they were so badly burned . According to the Advance, during the investigation yesterday, officials, who were examining whether it was arson, found “C.J. was found slumped over a bed in a back bedroom, his throat also slit, Paul Browne, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, told reporters yesterday. A straight razor was discovered underneath the boy’s body.” Two police officers who had been on patrol a few blocks away smelled the smoke and knocked on residents’ doors —many residents credit the cops for saving their lives. But the flames were too intense for the cops to reach the Jones home. The Post reports that one neighbor recalled C.J. playing with matches, while another “said CJ was a quiet boy who often was responsible for caring for his siblings by himself. He never had any friends visit his home.” But apparently he had been suspended from school recently for fighting and was kicked out of a public pool for setting a fire there. A family friend told the Daily News , “You’d think only a monster could do this, not a little boy… He was a troublemaker when he was younger but we thought he grew out of that. He was the man of the house. I don’t know why he did this, he must have been going through something no one could see.” Leisa Jones was a cosmetology student, and the admissions director at her school once noticed how C.J. wasn’t smiling, “I said, ‘Hey, why won’t you smile?’ He wouldn’t look at me. He was very quiet. So serious.” But the boy’s grandmother Marcia Anderson told the Post, ” I don’t believe it. We don’t buy that. Nothing about my grandson is a murderer .” Still, another family friend said Leisa Jones was “stressing out” because of his issues .

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SI Fatal Fire: Possible Murder-Suicide, Teen Son Suspected

Marine Who Beat Girlfriend’s Dog Says He’s Sorry

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:55:00 +0000

The Marine who nearly beat his girlfriend’s Yorkie dog to death in January has received a no-jail deal that the Post reports will leave him with no record. Instead, he will serve 200 hours of community service. The six-pound dog was under the care of 30-year-old Joseph Graves when his girlfriend, Broadway actress Ashley Yeater, was out of town. During that time he kicked and whipped the dog so brutally that he was left with six broken ribs. The dog, Emmit, also had to have his left eye removed as a result of the ordeal. Allegedly there is surveillance video showing that the dog bit his hand before he lashed out, however, afterwards Graves took him for a walk and he looked healthy. It wasn’t until two days later he noticed the dog was ill, and took him to the vet. According to the paper, Graves—also a Harvard Business School graduate—left the courtroom yesterday hand-in-hand with Yeater. She told the press of her dog’s status, saying: “He’s fine!” The happy couple were reunited after Graves spent 40 days at Rikers, and Yeater says he has since apologized. But “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it in the real world. Graves has been receiving hate mail from animal activists, and Yeater wants them to back off—yesterday she declared, “Society really has to get its priorities straight. I mean, this is a dog.”

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Marine Who Beat Girlfriend’s Dog Says He’s Sorry

Construction Watch: PS90’s Garden and Lobby are Officially Ready for Recess

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:48:57 +0000

Even if the kids aren’t showing up for school, the school’s still gonna be there. And at Harlem’s public-school-turned-condo PS90 , where only 14 of 55 market-rate units had buyers last time we took attendance , the amenities still need to get finished. The latest to be done at PS90 are the gardens and lobby, and blogger Harlem Bespoke swung by the open house for some photos. The gardens and lobby both look a little more school than condo to us, but maybe the threat of detention will kick any on-the-fence buyers into gear? · Architecture: PS90 Gardens and Interiors [Harlem Bespoke] · PS90 coverage [Curbed]

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Construction Watch: PS90’s Garden and Lobby are Officially Ready for Recess

Yale Finds Velazquez Painting in Basement

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:16:19 +0000

“The Education of the Virgin” ( Bloomberg.com ) After rotting in a basement since 1925, Yale University has discovered that a lowly, unsigned painting received as a donation is actually a work by Diego Velazquez. The painting, “The Education of the Virgin,” was over 300 years old and in very poor condition when it was donated, and Yale threw it in with the rest of the artifacts they deemed unfit to put on public display. But in 2002, the Yale University Art Gallery was preparing for renovations, and the painting caught the eyes of curator Laurence Kanter and art historian John Marciari. Marciari told Bloomberg.com , “One day it hit me. It couldn’t have been more obvious. That’s early Velazquez.” Marciari spent years consulting with other experts to determine whether the painting was in fact a work by the 17th-Century Baroque artist. Though they can’t prove beyond a doubt that it is a Velazquez, Marciari said, “We did find the pigments and the canvas are all consistent with what Velazquez used when he was in Seville in the first years of his career.” The work was painted in 1617, but damaged by the 1626 flood of Seville. Kanter says it will be ready for public viewing at Yale in about two years. Though Kanter says the work will never leave Yale, the school could earn a pretty penny if it were put up for auction. Another Velazquez work went for $17 million at an auction in London in 2007.

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Yale Finds Velazquez Painting in Basement

Mom Sues, Says Teacher Duct Taped Student’s Mouth

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:39:38 +0000

Did a Brooklyn teacher duct tape a special ed student’s mouth shut? That’s what one mother, Cathy Allan, is claiming. She has now filed a $3 million lawsuit against the NYC Department of Education. Details are scarce, and the city is talking for now, but according to the NY Post , after Allan “complained about the punishment of her son, Nathaniel Harrell, 12, in April 2009, the school suspended the boy.”

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Mom Sues, Says Teacher Duct Taped Student’s Mouth

Trial Begins For Killer Date Who Kept Body In Bed For Days

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:51:49 +0000

2007 image of Michael Lenahan Yesterday, the trial began for the Chinatown resident who prosecutors say killed a date and then kept her body in his bed while he searched online for ways to dispose of her body. Prosecutor Joan Illuzi-Orbon said that Michael Chin Lenahan bragged to a neighbor about the “girl” in his bed, but Lorna Santiago was dead: “As she lay next to him in the bed, he accessed web sites on how to preserve a dead body … and visited sadomasochistic web sites.” The Post also reports that Lenahan, “an out-of-work, coke-addicted artist,” allegedly “visit[ed] strip clubs and pool halls, and us[ed] his victim’s credit card to buy booze.” Lenahan is accused of strangling Santiago in 2007 after a Saturday-night date during which they had dinner at a restaurant on Third Avenue and then went to a strip club, Rick’s Cabaret, where he bought her $50 in lap dances before they went to his apartment—which he shared with his grandmother—at 20 Confucius Plaza. They got into a fight, where Lenahan ended up throwing her against a wall and choking her . He later confessed to his brother that he made a mistake; Lenahan’s mother ended up finding the body in his bed under garbage. Lenahan’s lawyer claims the killing was an accident and that his client’s sleeper hold lasted too long. DNAinfo adds , “The lawyer said the incident was similar to a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian. A driver can panic and leave the scene irrationally, Sosinsky said. He said his client’s cocaine use contributed to his bad decisions after the alleged accident.”

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Trial Begins For Killer Date Who Kept Body In Bed For Days

Central Park: You Are Safe From Rabid Raccoons, For Now

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:35:00 +0000

Back in December the Bad Old Days had returned in Central Park, but this time it wasn’t the threat of man that concerned locals, it was animal! The number of rabid raccoons had gotten out of control, and an official warning was put out by the Department of Health. And since the city’s population isn’t foaming at the mouth now, we can only assume that we dodged some I Am Legend style outbreak, right? Right! According to the Daily News , the vaccination program the DoH instituted may have just worked. Bob Marino, the head of the NY Council of Dog Owners group, told the paper, “We haven’t heard of any new official or anecdotal reports of incidents with dogs or people in the park, and we definitely would have heard. I think the spate [of cases] last year made the city more responsive. They did a remarkable job, because capturing these things is not easy.” Indeed, between February and April 237 raccoons were trapped, vaccinated and released, others that appeared ill were euthanized, while some were found dead. Currently no rabid raccoons have been spotted in the park for 3 weeks—and to put that number in perspective, back in April approximately 11 were found every week . But are we really safe? Because those opposums have been eerily quiet as of late…

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Central Park: You Are Safe From Rabid Raccoons, For Now