Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:33:28 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Catriona Stuart :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Catriona+Stuart istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-arrest-19-break-up-drug-ring-at-harlem/12973/ Thu, 28 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST A violent Harlem-based drug ring, suspected of trafficking at least 2,000 pounds of marijuana a month into the city, has been dismantled with the arrests of 19 individuals, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday. On the street, they were known as the Two-Mile Posse, a name that grew out of their common roots at Kingston, Jamaica. They had a reputation for brutality and for vengeance against rival drug dealers or estranged colleagues. Now, many of the posse could face the death penalty... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-arrest-landlord-71-in-hospital-bed/12804/ Tue, 26 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST As he lay recuperating in a hospital bed yesterday afternoon, police arrested Benjamin Odierno, 71, in the killing of his wife during what allegedly became a violent domestic dispute Sunday night at their Upper East Side townhouse. Christine Odierno, 57, and her husband both lay bleeding on the first floor of their home when police arrived, according to the authorities. Officers from the 19th Precinct had been summoned to the scene by a concerned neighbor's 911 telephone call. Ms. Odierno had... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/700-evacuated-after-electrical-fire-in-subway/11896/ Fri, 8 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST More than 700 subway riders were evacuated yesterday morning after an electrical fire knocked out service on four major train lines and filled uptown tunnels with thin clouds of smoke, transit officials said. At least three riders were reported to have been taken to hospitals suffering smoke inhalation. At 11:02 a.m., as track workers were setting up for routine signal maintenance at the substation at 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, an electrical fire broke out in a nearby transformer... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/missing-chinese-deliveryman-found-alive/11740/ Wed, 6 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST After getting trapped in a broken-down Bronx elevator car for more than three days, all that a Chinese food deliveryman told authorities he wanted was a glass of water and a night's rest. Before sunrise yesterday, firefighters responding to emergency calls made from within an out-of-service elevator finally discovered the deliveryman, Ming Kuang Chen, 35, who became the subject of a intensive, borough-wide manhunt that had police searching cemeteries and parks with the aid of trained... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bioterror-test-begins-at-new-jersey/11685/ Tue, 5 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST As seriously ill patients began to trickle into local emergency rooms yesterday, authorities at New Jersey faced the grim reality that a deadly biological attack had taken place in the tri-state area. Luckily, it was only a test. In a five-day drill that began yesterday, thousands of officials and emergency service workers tested their response to a simulated chemical and biological terrorist attack at New Jersey, Connecticut, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It was the third such simulation to... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/insurance-fraud-indictment-for-mother-son-team/10977/ Wed, 23 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST A mother-son insurance fraud team who operated a ring of medical clinics that routinely over-billed insurance companies was indicted yesterday along with 13 others who allegedly assisted their scam, Robert Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, announced yesterday. Over the past decade, the clinics had billed more than 60 insurers for millions of dollars in claims. Two separate investigations led detectives directly to the mother-son duo, Isabella Pustilnik, 57, and Abraham Pustilnik, 34... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/indictment-details-terror-weapons-smuggling-scheme/10635/ Wed, 16 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Rocket-propelled grenade launchers, claymore mines, AK47s, machine guns, shoulder-launched missiles, and enriched uranium were among the weapons arms dealers offered to sell to an FBI informant last year, federal prosecutors said yesterday. At least 18 men hatched a complicated scheme to smuggle numerous assault weapons into America from Russia and Eastern Europe and to sell the arsenal to an informant posing as an arms trafficker with connections to terrorist organizations, prosecutors said in... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/effort-to-divest-from-rogue-states-working-city/10348/ Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST For at least a year, the city had been using its pension fund coffers to try to change the practices of companies that have business ties to "rogue states." According to the city comptroller, William Thompson, the campaign is working. He announced yesterday that Cooper Cameron Corporation, a Texas based manufacturer of oil and gas pressure-control equipment, has agreed to divest from a business venture in Iran. This follows a shareholder resolution by the city's pension funds, Mr. Thompson said... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/two-teachers-arrested-after-students-brawl/10298/ Wed, 9 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Two teachers and six students were arrested after police were called in to break up a bathroom brawl in a Bronx high school late yesterday morning, police said. Six female teenagers were involved in a schoolhouse spat that quickly became a full-on fight in a first-floor bathroom of the New School for Arts and Sciences at Hunts Point, police said. Officials said they were unsure what had sparked the fight, but police said officers, called in to quell the altercation, were confronted by the two... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/detectives-officers-took-bribes-from-peddlers-da/10062/ Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Two detectives and three police officers are accused of taking bribes from a street peddler in exchange for tips on counterfeit raids and favors, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, announced yesterday. Four of the officers turned themselves in to police yesterday morning after an internal investigation found that they allegedly accepted merchandise from Jamil Faied, 45, a peddler who, the prosecutor said, hawked counterfeit handbags, caps, and sports jerseys on West 17th Street... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-officer-girlfriend-found-dead/9851/ Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST A police officer and his longtime girlfriend were found dead in their Woodside, Queens, co-op yesterday morning of gunshot wounds to their heads. The revolver that killed them lay inches from their bodies. Officers made the discovery after Finbarr Mahon, 38, a 13-year veteran of the police force who worked as a training instructor at the police department's firing range in Rodman's Neck, failed to show up for his 7 a.m. shift, police said. When a squad car sent to check on the missing officer... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-man-kills-brothers-ex-wife-to-keep-secret/9710/ Fri, 25 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST Susan Ambrosino, 26, lived with her 8-year-old daughter, Taylor, just blocks from where she herself grew up at Franklin Square, on Long Island. The slightest hint of a belly beginning to show, the divorced mother of one was three to four months pregnant with her second child. A law enforcement source said yesterday that her alleged killer was the father of the unborn child. The suspect, Steven Schiovone, 35, allegedly shot and killed Ambrosino, his brother's ex-wife, to keep her from revealing... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/dream-team-drug-ring-is-dismantled/9484/ Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST A band of local street toughs known as the Dream Team turned the courtyards of the Queensbridge public housing project into an open-air drug market, officials said yesterday. Now, dozens of suspects face up to 25 years in prison for their alleged roles in the ring. As part of a strategy to keep violence to a minimum and police at bay, the Dream Team regulated the drug trade in the area and bound its street-level dealers in a "gentlemen's agreement" to make the Dream Team the sole wholesaler of... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/simmons-to-unveil-anti-semitism-psas/9364/ Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST A hip-hop mogul, Russell Simmons, is preparing to unveil a series of public service announcements about anti-Semitism to be aired in America, Europe, and even Israel, but some Jewish leaders said his reluctance to distance himself from a widely criticized minister, Louis Farrakhan, might undermine his message. The "I am a Jew" spots, featuring pop icons and movie stars such as Beyonce Knowles and Leonardo DiCaprio, is Mr. Simmons's latest project from the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/crowds-visiting-the-gates-get-polyglot-police/9087/ Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST When the artist Christo and his collaborator, Jeanne-Claude, unveil their installation "The Gates" at Central Park, the New York Police Department will showcase a few new projects of its own. Beginning tomorrow, several hundred extra police officers will patrol the park, both on the ground and in the air, to combat vandalism and keep order among the hundreds of thousands of expected visitors, Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday. For the first time, many officers will offer to communicate... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/womans-purse-chase-proves-fatal/8654/ Thu, 3 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST Despite the frantic efforts of subway riders who tried to pull her from the tracks, a 53-year-old Manhattan woman was struck and killed by a train on the Lexington Avenue line early yesterday morning after she tried to retrieve her purse, police said. The woman, Jean Eng, who lived in Chinatown, was waiting for an uptown no. 6 train at the south end of the station at 23rd Street and Park Avenue, shortly after 10 a.m. yesterday. Based on interviews with witnesses, police gave the following... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/women-sue-fda-for-right-to-buy-emergency-pill/8247/ Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST In what is described as the first lawsuit of its kind, women are suing the Food and Drug Administration, demanding to be able to buy a type of emergency birth control without a prescription. Plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed in federal District Court in Brooklyn late last week, include nine individuals and two advocacy organizations. They argue that FDA foot-dragging on making the emergency contraceptive, Plan B, available on an over-the-counter basis is restricting women's access to a... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/wives-see-wrong-numbers-on-phone-bills-for-inmates/8033/ Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST As the dozen women in her support group nodded their heads in silent agreement, Wanda Best-Deveaux, 49, spoke of how often she and her fellow spouses of New York inmates complained about the high cost of their special telephone bills for prison calls. With their husbands incarcerated along with 64,000 other people in New York, many of the women in her group were living as single mothers and relying heavily on infrequent phone calls to meet the challenges of keeping their fractured families... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/garment-district-shoe-merchant-fatally-shot/7264/ Thu, 6 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST A Lebanese immigrant's American dream ended yesterday when he was fatally shot at his Garment District shoe store, police said. "Every day I saw him working so that he could send some money home to his family in Lebanon," said a 22-year-old man named Hassan, who declined to give his full name and said he worked in the same building as the victim. Witnesses identified the victim as 48 year-old Ali Nassir al-Din. Just after 4 p.m., as he prepared to close his second-floor booth at 15 W. 27th St... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bounty-hunters-reality-has-little-in-common-with/6947/ Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Chet Pietrzak rattled off a list of his on-the-job injuries: one left palm slash from a knife fight in Japan; one switchblade gash on the top of his right hand; one bullet hole in his right thigh, and one scar on his nose, from when a fugitive shoved a knife through his nostril, piercing his septum, and out the opposite side of his nose. "Just for the record, this line of work is nothing like it is on TV," Mr. Pietrzak, 31, a bounty hunter and the director of instructors for the New... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-seize-12m-in-counterfeit-goods/6641/ Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Police confiscated in excess of $12 million of apparel bearing fake brand names at a Garment District warehouse in what Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the largest counterfeit seizure in NYPD history. On Monday night at about 6 p.m., officers from the New York Police Department's 13th Precinct and the mayor's Office of Midtown Enforcement entered a warehouse at 1158 Broadway with a warrant to search for counterfeit goods. Mr. Kelly estimated yesterday that police would, by day's end... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/army-sergeant-of-the-bronx-killed-in-iraq/5882/ Tue, 7 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST The last time Jessica Irizarry spoke to her husband it was the Sunday before last and the Army sergeant from the Bronx was talking about his plans to return for the holidays. He was calling from Taji, Iraq, a town 15 miles north of Baghdad that is so hotly contested that some American soldiers have reportedly refused to enter it in recent weeks. That phone call was the last time they would speak. The sergeant, Henry Irizarry, 38, died four days ago, Defense Department officials said yesterday... CATRIONA STUART http://www.nysun.com/new-york/dancing-and-floating-parade-proceeds-before-rain/5376/ Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Amid cheers, marching-band music, and confetti, millions of spectators squeezed onto packed sidewalks along Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway yesterday to mark the official start of the holiday season with the 78th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Led by a giant blue "Super Grover" balloon that towered above its waving handlers, the parade kicked off just after 9 a.m. and wended its way down the West Side toward Herald Square. This year, Macy's unveiled several new additions to its parade...