CITYWIDE

MAYOR TO VERIFY NONINVOLVEMENT IN VELELLA RELEASE

Mayor Bloomberg has asked the Department of Investigation to make sure no one in his administration influenced a commission, which voted to release former state senator, Guy Velella, after serving only three months of a one-year sentence for bribery.

Velella, a Republican of the Bronx, was charged with accepting at least $137,000 in bribes from contracts from 1995 to June 2000. He pleaded guilty in May to a single felony count of fourth-degree conspiracy, as part of an agreement that protected his father, an alleged co-conspirator, from trial.

Two members of the City Council asked earlier this week why Velella, who has been in politics for three decades, was released so early. The Conditional Release Board, which made the decision, is appointed by the mayor. Mr. Bloomberg asked the department to look into the matter after saying for days that neither he nor his administration had anything to do with the board’s decision.

“Our investigation to date has determined no evidence of any influence by administration officials,” said the DOI commissioner, Rose Gill Hearn, yesterday.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

ALBANY

BRUNO NAMES TASK FORCE ON REFORM

Responding to the widespread outcry for change at the state Capitol, the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, is appointing a task force on government reform to consider changes in how the Legislature conducts its business. The task force is to include all 37 Republican senators, and will be chaired by Frank Padavan of Queens and Dale Volker of Erie County. Mr. Bruno’s announcement yesterday came two days after a group of 17 Assembly Democrats proposed changes in Assembly rules that would shift power from the leadership to rank-and-file members. Their proposal was based on recommendations from New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, which released a study this summer that described New York’s Legislature as the most dysfunctional in the nation. In response, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced on Wednesday that he would appoint a task force to study rules changes.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

NYU PROJECT WOULD BLOCK I.M. PEI-DESIGNED TOWERS

New York University is looking to build a new science center on the spot now occupied by a supermarket on LaGuardia Place. Community groups are claiming the development will block the Silver Towers complex, designed by I.M. Pei and built in 1966.They are holding a rally Sunday to oppose the development. The Silver Towers consists of three high-rises, two of which house NYU faculty. The third is an affordable residential cooperative. Land for the Silver Towers was given to the university by the city 40 years ago as part of the Robert Moses urban renewal plan, and opponents claims the development violates that agreement. Community members are pushing to get landmark status for the Silver Towers complex, which contains New York’s only outdoor sculpture by Picasso. A landmark designation would thwart the university’s plans.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WESTCHESTER

ALBINO WALLABY ESCAPES

There’s a wallaby on the loose in Westchester. The little albino wallaby, nicknamed Mickey, is a part of philanthropist Michael Steinhardt’s menagerie, and it may have escaped yesterday during preparations for Sunday’s annual Fall Party. Several witnesses saw the animal, which is slightly larger than a jackrabbit, along the side of the road in the upstate town of Bedford. Police officers there tried to corral Mickey but drove him into the woods instead. Mr. Steinhardt was not available for comment, but the manager of his estate, John Daddona, said he wasn’t too worried about Mickey’s safety.

“He eats all kinds of grasses and leaves, and he’s too big for a fox,” Mr. Daddona told The New York Sun. This is not the first time one of Mr. Steinhardt’s eight albino wallabies has escaped. The last time was about five years ago, Mr. Daddona said. That time the animal came back of its own accord.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

AFTERNOON STABBING IN BENSONHURST

An elderly woman was stabbed to death in the middle of the day while walking along a street in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, and police are seeking two suspects. The 72-year-old victim was stabbed six or seven times in the torso. She was at the intersection of Bath Avenue and Bay 20th Street at 1:35 p.m., and managed to stagger two blocks to the 62nd Precinct before collapsing, police said. Witnesses saw the assailant, described as a white man in his 40s, attack the woman while another suspect, a white man in his 60s, sat in the driver’s seat of a Cadillac Seville parked nearby, according to police sources. The victim, who has not been identified pending family notification, was taken to Lutheran Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MAN ARRESTED IN DOMESTIC INCIDENT

A Riverdale man, who served time after a 1996 attempted assault conviction after a police officer was mortally injured in a domestic incident arrest, was arrested during another domestic assault yesterday. Anthony Rivers, 40, was arrested at 7:04 a.m. at a Sedgwick Avenue apartment for allegedly punching his girlfriend in the face, police said. In May 1996, Police Officer Vincent Guidice, 27, responded with four other officers to Rivers’s Riverdale apartment for a domestic dispute. A mirror shattered during a struggle, and Guidice sliced an artery in his leg. The officer died the next day.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun