CITYWIDE

Opponents Make Last-Ditch Effort To Stall Atlantic Yards Plan

Three years to the day since developer Forest City Ratner unveiled plans for the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, opponents are asking members of the Public Authorities Control Board to postpone the project’s final approval, which could come at a meeting next Wednesday. Opponents – including civic groups and some local elected officials – said at City Hall yesterday that the environmental review of the 8 million square-foot project was flawed and incomplete, and that the public costs had not been properly measured. A postponement would give the incoming Spitzer administration the opportunity to review the plan.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

Bloomberg To Outline City’s Environmental Goals

Mayor Bloomberg today will deliver what City Hall is billing as a major address to outline environmental goals for the city through 2030. The speech, to be given at the Queens Museum of Art, comes less than three months after Mr. Bloomberg announced the creation of an office of long-term planning and sustainability, as well as an advisory panel to study environmental policy. The city is currently conducting a “greenhouse gas” inventory to assess the city’s hand in contributing to carbon emissions.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

Legal Group Calls For Changing the Way Judges Are Picked

A task force for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York is calling for an amendment to the state constitution that would change the way state trial judges are picked. The task force, in a report released yesterday, urges the Legislature to hold a statewide referendum to consider a proposal giving the power to appoint state judges to either the mayor or the governor. The task force’s report recommends that only judicial candidates who have been vetted by nonpartisan qualifying commissions would be eligible to be chosen. Under the current system for picking state judges, candidates for the bench are selected at nominating conventions held annually by the Republican and Democratic parties. The bar task force’s report responds to a federal court ruling earlier this year that declared the present system unconstitutional because of the control that it gives to party leaders.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

Westchester Principal Reaches Agreement in School Case

A former school principal who allegedly failed to report a suspected case of child abuse has reached an agreement with prosecutors that would get the charge dismissed, both sides say. Victoria Graboski, who headed Bedford Hills Elementary School, is to make six presentations in six months to other teachers about the importance of reporting the slightest indication of abuse, said Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore. “If she does what’s been asked of her, then the misdemeanor is dismissed,” Mr. Chalfen said last week. Prosecutors said Graboski’s failure to report suspected child abuse last year caused a 9-year-old girl to be sexually assaulted repeatedly over an eight-month period.

— Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

Lawyer Accuses TV Producer of Failing To Pay His Legal Bills

An attorney who represented TV producer David Gest, is accusing him of failing to pay more than $31,000 in legal bills, according to papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday. Lawrence Omansky said he has repeatedly tried to collect payment. “Sent him a few letters, hasn’t returned phone calls,” he said. Mr. Gest, a 53-year-old television and concert producer, gained celebrity when he ended his marriage to Liza Minnelli in 2003 after claiming she physically abused him. Maxine Ganer, Mr. Gest’s accountant, said Mr. Gest didn’t know about the litigation, but that he intends to counter-sue Mr. Omansky for $100,000 for “failure to perform.”

— Special to the Sun

Life Sentence in Killing Of Actress duFresne

A young mugger who shot aspiring actress and playwright Nicole duFresne to death while robbing her on a Manhattan street was sentenced yesterday to life in prison without the possibility of parole plus 30 years. Rudy Fleming, 21, was sentenced on his Oct. 12 conviction of first-degree murder in the death on Jan. 27, 2005, of the Minnesota native during the gunpoint holdup of her and three of her friends on the Lower East Side. Prosecutors said Mr. Fleming deliberately fired a .357 Magnum bullet through Ms. duFresne’s chest because she challenged him. Witnesses said they pushed each other and she said to him after the robbery, “What are you going to do, shoot us?”

— Associated Press

In Federal Court, Man Charged With Bomb Hoax

A man was charged yesterday with carrying out a bomb hoax to protest what he called the government’s “illegal surveillance,” federal prosecutors said. Paul Cortina, 33, of Somers, N.Y., was charged in U.S. District Court with making a false bomb threat after he allegedly sent an e-mail to The Associated Press in late November claiming he had built “a bomb to protest the government’s involvement in illegal surveillance.” He was arrested Nov. 29 after FBI agents seized what appeared to be a bomb from his home, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said. Prosecutors said it was later revealed in court documents and proceedings that Mr. Cortina had placed a grenade shell inside a backpack and run wires from the pin of the grenade shell to the backpack’s zipper.

— Associated Press

Closing Arguments In Bow-and-Arrow Trial

A man with 20 years experience as a deer hunter knew exactly what he was doing when he aimed and fired a bow and arrow at a stranger who had sassed him during an argument, a prosecutor said Monday at his murder trial. “He certainly knew what he was doing. This is not someone who failed to perceive the risk; his goal was to kill this man,” Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Denise Merrifield told jurors during summations in the trial of Thomas Sirico. Mr. Sirico, 35, is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the Jan. 8, 2006, death of Juan Carlos “Angel” Munoz, a 27-year-old father of three who died following the brief encounter in a suburban neighborhood in Mastic, Merrifield said. The murder charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years to life; the lesser charge has a sentence of four years in prison.

-— Associated Press