MANHATTAN

PRIEST ACCUSED OF TAKING MONEY SAYS HE WON’T GIVE IT BACK

A Catholic priest who was accused of bilking an 88-year-old parishioner out of nearly $500,000 says the woman gave him money, gifts, and securities freely and he has no intention of giving them back.

Monsignor John Woolsey, the suspended pastor of St. John the Martyr Church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, stated his position in court papers filed in reply to a lawsuit alleging he used undue influence to get Rose Cale to sign over at least $490,000 in cash and stock to him. Cale died on January 12, 2003.

Monsignor Woolsey, 66, says in court papers that the executor of Cale’s estate, Janet Naegele, “requested that defendant return all gifts of cash and stock made by Miss Cale to the defendant and that the defendant refused such request.”

The priest’s papers say he “is the rightful owner of all gifts of cash and stock knowingly, freely and voluntarily made by Miss Cale…”

Ms. Naegele’s court papers allege that besides the cash and stock Monsignor Woolsey got from Cale, he took for his personal use part of a $241,500 gift Cale made to the church and got Cale to buy him a $100,000 beach condominium in Monmouth Beach, N.J.

– Associated Press

QUEENS

NTSB RULES CO-PILOT AT FAULT IN 2001 CRASH

American Airlines Flight 587 lost its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighborhood in November 2001, killing 265 people, because the co-pilot improperly used the rudder to try to steady the plane, federal safety investigators ruled yesterday.

The National Transportation Safety Board also said a poorly designed rudder system on the Airbus A300-600 and inadequate pilot training by the airline were contributing factors.

The decision prompted angry reaction from Airbus Industrie, which manufactured the plane, and American Airlines, which trained the co-pilot. Each said the other was more to blame.

The crash occurred shortly after the jet bound for the Dominican Republic took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport. The plane encountered turbulence caused by a Boeing 747 that took off just ahead of it. According to investigators, co-pilot Sten Molin tried to steady the aircraft using pedals that control the rudder, a large flap on a plane’s tail. When his initial movement failed, Molin tried again and again. His actions placed enormous stress on the tail. Within seconds, the tail broke off and the plane crashed.

NTSB investigator Robert Benzon said Molin’s use of the rudder was “unnecessary and aggressive.” He said the only time pilots should use the rudder is when they’re landing or taking off in a crosswind, which was not the case for Flight 587.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

NEARLY 200 SCHOOLS LACK ART TEACHERS

Almost 200 schools in New York City have no full-time art teachers, education officials admitted yesterday at a City Council hearing.

Not only that, but the per-pupil spending on the arts dropped this year to $57.22 from $63 last year, even as the Department of Education rolls out a new curriculum and standards for arts and music instruction.

Eva Moskowitz, the chairwoman of the Committee on Education, who held the hearing, quizzed the education department’s senior instructional manager for arts education, Sharon Dunn, on why so many schools are without arts teachers, how much it would cost to give each child a satisfactory arts education, and why the department didn’t follow through on a promise that each elementary school with more than 500 students would have two art teachers.

Ms. Dunn said the fact that there’s no full-time art teacher in a building doesn’t mean there is no arts education since there can be volunteers and part-time arts teachers. She said she didn’t know how much a good arts education would cost. On the broken promise, she said it came before her time, and would cost about $100,000 for each school.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COUNCIL MEMBERS WANT MORE CHECKS ON GUARDS

Private sector security guards should be subjected to more comprehensive background checks and required to undergo increased training, members of the City Council said at a hearing yesterday.

The committee on public safety considered a resolution urging the state to allow local municipalities, such as the city, to adopt more far-reaching requirements for the security personnel who guard commercial buildings, many of which have been identified in the past as being terrorist targets.

An audit conducted from January 2001 to December 2002 by the state comptroller found the state itself had hired under-trained guards and that some companies were employing guards with histories of robbery, assault, and weapons possession.

Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., chairman of the committee, said yesterday that a national fingerprinting database, rather than the statewide database that currently exists, was a must. Otherwise individuals with police records in New Jersey can easily get hired for security jobs, he said during a packed hearing.

Representatives from Local 32BJ, which represents private sector employees in the city, testified in favor of the resolution, along with Local 1199, the health workers union. Officials from the NYPD testified about how they coordinate with the private sector. Deputy Inspector Michael O’Neil said the measure could work if it did not infringe on any existing agencies.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SUBWAY TURNS 100 – SOME STATIONS SHOW IT

At the city’s five worst subway stations, as selected in an August survey by the New York City Transit Riders’ Council, it’s easy to see how some stations still seem to be stuck in 1904, when the system first opened.

The A line, for example, is showing its age at 59th Street and 125th Street, where paint is peeling paint and walls are filthy. With construction barricades, chain-link fences, and missing tiles, some subway stations seem as though they have yet to be completed, much less ready to celebrate 100 years of service this year.

“It’s very nasty,” said Dayatra Coleman, 32. A Bronx resident, she travels on the D and 2 trains each day on her way to school in Manhattan. Of all the stations she passes through, Ms. Coleman considers the Norwood station at the end of the D line in the Bronx the worst. The Riders’ Council survey agreed, as it was listed as the system’s single worst station.

The other three worst subway stations, according to the survey, are 174th-175th Street on the D, Atlantic Avenue on the L, and Mosholu Parkway on the 4.

– Special to the Sun

LONG ISLAND

EX-LOVER TESTIFIES PELOSI ADMITTED TO KILLING

The man accused of bludgeoning an East Hampton investment banker to death in October 2001 admitted to the crime in an all-night conversation with a jilted lover, the woman testified yesterday.

“He said, ‘I bashed his [expletive] brains in and he cried like a bitch and begged for his life,’ ” witness Tracey Riebenfeld told jurors at the murder trial of Daniel Pelosi.

Mr. Pelosi, 41, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Theodore Ammon, a multimillionaire businessman who was found brutally beaten in the master bedroom of his mansion three years ago.

Ammon, 52, who ran the private equity firm Chancery Lane Capital and was chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center, was within days of finalizing a bitter divorce from his wife, Generosa.

Ms. Riebenfeld also became the first witness at the murder trial to testify that Generosa Ammon and two other people were in the house at the time of the killing.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

AUTHORITIES CHARGE 22 IN ALBANIAN CRIME RING In a multi-agency effort to crack down on organized crime, federal investigators announced yesterday the indictments of 22 alleged members of the Rudaj Organization, an Albanian crime ring and a Bronx-based mafia force called New York’s “sixth crime family.”

The investigation of the group, which first began as a probe into bootleg cigarettes four years ago under Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, resulted in criminal charges including attempted murder, loan sharking, racketeering, extortion, and illegal gambling shops engineered to take bets on European soccer games and “anything else,” according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, David Kelley.

Law enforcement authorities arrested 20 of the alleged members in a pre-dawn sweep spanning the Bronx, Westchester County, and Astoria, Queens, federal prosecutors said. Ringleader Alex Rudaj, along with others, faces prison sentences of 1o years to life for attempted murder, racketeering, and a bounty of other charges, according to the indictment.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun