Priest Accused Of Gambling With Church Funds

Gambling can take its' toll on anyone and priests are no exception.

A long-serving pastor of a Roman Catholic parish suspected of using church money to feed a gambling habit has been permanently removed from his parish.

The pastor, the Rev. Patrick Dunne, of Our Lady of Sorrows Church in White Plains, took a “very significant amount of church money” because of a “very powerful” gambling addiction, Msgr. William Belford told parishioners.

Although he took a vow of poverty, he could not resist the temptation of going for the gusto.

Texas Democratic Caucuses

There are 67 at-large delegates at stake here in Texas, depending mostly on the results of the state senatorial district and county conventions. Obama was the caucus winner on primary night, and an Associated Press delegate count showed he might be holding his ground.

Obama's campaign late Saturday said he would win, claiming he would receive 38 delegates to Clinton's 29. Clinton's campaign says Obama should wait for the official results before declaring victory.

If the Obama campaign prediction is accurate, that would give Obama a total five-delegate advantage over Clinton in the Texas primary/caucus contest.

Obama won all of the Houston-area conventions, except Senate District 6, a heavily Hispanic community that went for Clinton in the popular vote. That district's results were the subject of an ongoing dispute late Saturday.

People Love To Try And Dig Up Dirt

The following excerpt, from the New York Times, leads me to believe that newspapers have a thirst for trying to dig up dirt on politicians even when there is nothing scandalous to report:

When Gov. David A. Paterson was the State Senate minority leader, he got in touch with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a fellow Democrat, with what seemed like a routine request: Would he meet with a representative of a small Harlem hospital that was in need of financial assistance?

As it turned out, the hospital’s representative was Mr. Paterson’s wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, who was responsible for lobbying the State Legislature for aid. Mr. Silver agreed to meet, but warned that it would be improper for the senator to be present. As a result, Mr. Paterson did not attend the session, held on April 7, 2003; he would later say that arranging the meeting was a mistake.

But that meeting was not the only thing Mr. Paterson did for his wife’s employer. He also directed state grants of at least $150,000 — with a pledge for as much as $500,000 more — to the hospital over the next two years, a period that overlapped substantially with his wife’s employment there from 2002 to 2005.

The article went on to say that he did not want to do anything unethical. So what is the problem? If Gov. Patterson did not come forward to say that he tried cocaine in his early twenties, there would have been a reporter trying to snoop into that period of his life. We are all human and as such we all make mistakes.

Whoremonger, Eliot Spitzer May Have Told More Lies

The 'House of Eliot' keeps fallen down. How many bricks will be left standing when we discover who is the real Eliot Spitzer ?

According to a recent news report, Gov. Eliot Spitzer lied to the public last year about his role in an effort to discredit a political rival and may have misled the district attorney’s office itself in an interview last year.


In sworn testimony, Darren Dopp, Mr. Spitzer’s former communications director, portrays Mr. Spitzer as keeping closely abreast of aides’ efforts to compile evidence that the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, the state’s top Republican, misused state cars and helicopters, according to the report. Mr. Dopp goes as far as to describe the governor as enthusiastically issuing the final order to release Mr. Bruno’s travel records to the press.

Mr. Spitzer, by contrast, told the public — and the district attorney’s office — that he was barely involved in the release of the records and had been misled by his own staff about the collection and release of the documents about Mr. Bruno.

It is time for Eliot to release his own travel records so we can see his whoremonging activities. If he would have been like Stan "Pampy" Barre, III, he would have just performed oral sex on the prostitute and be done with it.

Hip Hop Artist Found Quilty Of Assault

Ms. Remy Smith, aka Remy Ma was accused of shooting Ms. Joseph on July 14 during a struggle over Ms. Joseph’s purse, after they celebrated the birthday of a mutual friend in a meatpacking district club. Ms. Smith had asked Ms. Joseph to hold her purse, and claimed that when she retrieved it, $3,000 in cash was missing.

As they were leaving, she pulled her Cadillac Escalade up to Ms. Joseph’s Nissan Maxima. Then she got into the Maxima with a cocked gun and tried to grab Ms. Joseph’s purse so she could search it for the cash, the prosecutor said.

During the struggle over the purse, Ms. Joseph, who denied taking money from Ms. Smith, was shot. Ms. Smith drove away, abandoning her $69,000 Cadillac nearby and getting into a taxi, the prosecutor said. The gun was never found.

Thefts Occurred After Crane Collapsed

If I did not know any better, I would think that Stan "Pampy" Barre, III was somehow involved in these heist:

The recent crane collapse that claimed seven lives, demolished a town house and destabilized a neighborhood on the East Side of Manhattan also created an opportunity for looters.

Since the March 15 accident, about $90,000 in jewelry, electronic equipment, cash and other items has been reported stolen from three apartments in two buildings near the accident site, the police said. Both buildings, on East 51st Street near Second Avenue, were evacuated the day of the collapse.

Fortunately for New Yorkers, they did not have to deal with the drug addicted burglar.

New Informant In Gambino Case

This is about to get very interesting:

According to a federal official, Lewis Kasman has turned informer and is expected to testify this week that the son of Mr. Gotti’s former henchman helped shake down a restaurant on Long Island months ago.

The son, Joseph Corozzo Jr., is a New York City lawyer who has made his name as a defense lawyer in mob cases; one of his clients is his father, who was charged last month with racketeering and extortion in a sprawling mobster case. The father, Joseph Corozzo Sr., is said to be the Gambino family’s third in charge and was named with nearly 90 others in a federal indictment in the case.

John Gotti is probably turning over in his grave.

Officers' Families Denied Benefits

Officer Pekearo, 28, and Officer Marshalik, 19, were fatally shot on the evening of March 14, 2007, in a confrontation with David R. Garvin, who had fatally shot a bartender in a pizza restaurant. Mr. Garvin, 42, shot Officer Pekearo six times in the back, shoulder and side, the authorities said. Another bullet lodged in a bullet-resistant vest that Officer Pekearo had bought for his own protection; such vests were not at the time provided by the city to auxiliary officers.

Seconds later, Mr. Garvin shot Officer Marshalik in the back of the head. Armed officers shot and killed Mr. Garvin when he refused to drop his gun.

Soon after the deaths of the auxiliary officers, their families applied for federal benefits under the Public Service Officers Benefits Program, intended to compensate the families of the police, firefighters or other public safety officers who are killed in the line of duty. Both families were informed by the federal agency in September that their applications had been denied because, as members of the police auxiliary, Officers Pekearo and Marshalik were not authorized to make arrests, and not considered peace officers under federal guidelines.

What Else Was Spitzer Up To?

It seems that Spitzer had a little more than seeking prostitutes on his mind as governor. According to a New York Times report:

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was deeply involved in his administration’s efforts last year to discredit the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, holding detailed discussions with senior aides, ordering damaging information about Mr. Bruno released, and calling an aide at home repeatedly to check on the progress.

You reap what you sow Spitzer. I wonder how you feel about the damaging information about yourself.

Engineer’s Arrest Spurs Review of 29 Building Inspections

Would you trust any of his work?

A city report on the collapse found that the engineer, Jose D. Vargas, who approved renovation plans for the Bronx building in 2001, never completed a required final inspection to make sure the job met the city’s building code.

A Fire Department report concluded that had Mr. Vargas completely inspected the building, he could have detected rotten pillars in the basement that caused the collapse. Mr. Vargas was charged this month with lying to investigators looking into the collapse of the building, a discount store at 1575 Walton Avenue.

Where is the concern for other's safety?

No Sex - No Green Card

He wanted sex before he issued green cards:


The agent arrested last week, Isaac R. Baichu, 46, himself an immigrant from Guyana, handled some 8,000 green card applications during his three years as an adjudicator in the Garden City, N.Y., office of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the federal Department of Homeland Security. He pleaded not guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges of coercing the young woman to perform oral sex, and of promising to help her secure immigration papers in exchange for further sexual favors. If convicted, he will face up to seven years in prison.

Can you imagine how long he has been getting away with this? I guess we will see his wife standing by his side.

Suit Against 'Law and Order' Creator To Continue

In the criminal justice system of television’s “Law & Order,” the plots are derived from two separate yet equally important groups: the television writers who shape the intricate episodes, and the real-life characters who inspire those writers. This is one of their stories.

Ravi Batra, a Manhattan lawyer, filed a lawsuit in 2004 against Dick Wolf, the creator of the television series, arguing that the plot of a November 2003 episode defamed him by including an unsavory character, Ravi Patel, who was modeled on him. In a decision made public on Wednesday, Justice Marilyn Shafer of State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected a motion by Mr. Wolf’s lawyers to dismiss the lawsuit.
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I love Law ad Order. This lawyer is bring more attention to himself by filing this suit.

Stepfather Convicted In 7 Year Olds Death

The stepfather of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown was convicted of first-degree manslaughter for his role in her fatal 2006 beating. That beating was inflicted as punishment for stealing a snack from the refrigerator and jamming his computer printer with toys. The jury, however, acquitted the stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, of second-degree murder.

The verdict, reached on the fourth day of deliberations at State Supreme Court after eight weeks of testimony, brought an end to the first trial in one of the most horrific child deaths in recent New York history, one that caused an overhaul of the city’s child welfare system and a spurt in child-abuse reports and foster care placement. Nixzmary’s mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, is to be tried later on a murder charge.

Nylon Strap Breaking May Have Caused Crane Collapse

A prime suspect in Saturday’s East Side crane collapse — a spectacular disaster across two Manhattan blocks that has now claimed seven lives and is expected to cost untold millions — is a $50 piece of nylon webbing that investigators suspect may have broken while hoisting a six-ton piece of steel.

A photograph taken at the site shows the yellow nylon sling ragged at the end like a child’s broken shoelace, indicating, according to experts, the immense force that may have torn it apart.

The investigation into the accident continued on Monday as workers recovered three more bodies from the rubble of a four-story town house on East 50th Street that was demolished when a section of the toppling crane slammed into it. That brought the death toll from the collapse to seven, making it one of the deadliest construction accidents in New York City in recent memory.

Six Ton Support Caused Crane To Drop

The spectacular collapse of a towering crane on the East Side began when a massive piece of steel designed to secure it to a new high-rise building came loose and pancaked on top of a second support nine stories below, shearing it free and creating a fatal imbalance that sent the 22-story crane toppling across a two-block swath of Turtle Bay, officials said on Sunday.

Four construction workers — a crane operator and three riggers who were helping to “jump” the crane, or increase its height — were killed. Three people were missing. On Sunday, as hope dwindled, firefighters, including a unit that specializes in building collapses, continued to search for signs of life. “We’re still calling it a search operation, though with each passing hour, things are getting more grim,” said Nicholas Scoppetta, the fire commissioner.

Investigators Want Spitzer's Campaign Finance Records

Federal authorities are seeking records involving payments to a political fund-raising consultant to Gov. Eliot Spitzer as part of their criminal investigation, according to two people with direct knowledge of the inquiry.

One person said the authorities had requested detailed documentation for thousands of dollars in reimbursements to the consultant, Kristian B. Stiles, who has worked on Mr. Spitzer’s campaigns since 2003 and directs national fund-raising. Another person with knowledge of the investigation said the authorities were particularly interested in hotel room charges during trips Mr. Spitzer took to West Palm Beach, Fla., Dallas and Washington, where he might have arranged to meet prostitutes.

Campaign finance records show that Ms. Stiles, 31, was paid about $6,460 monthly for her consulting work on the Spitzer 2010 committee, and she was listed as having been reimbursed for nearly $22,000 in expenditures over the last year.

Spitzer Case Prosecutor Described As Fair

The prosecutor, Boyd M. Johnson III, leads the public corruption unit of the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, which is handling the investigation of the Emperor’s Club V.I.P., a high-priced prostitution ring that Mr. Spitzer patronized.

Mr. Johnson and his boss, Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney, will be the ultimate arbiters of whether to bring charges against Mr. Spitzer, and experts expect that they will make the decision in a deliberate manner and only after hearing from his defense team.

Mr. Spitzer has not been charged with any crime, but legal experts say he could face charges of structuring, which involves concealing payments, and of illegally transporting prostitutes across state lines, an approach rarely used against prostitutes’ clients.

Prosecutors are also said to be looking at whether he used campaign money to pay for prostitutes, involved state employees in illegal activities or made unnecessary trips at public expense to facilitate his liaisons.

Did Spitzer Use Campaign Funds For His Sexual Escapades?

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Gov. Eliot Spitzer used campaign funds in connection with his meetings with prostitutes, including payments for hotels or ground transportation.

Prosecutors have asked the governor’s lawyers about the travel arrangements for three trips, including his Feb. 13 rendezvous with a prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has also asked about the governor’s use of car services during trips to Washington.

The governor’s lawyers have begun consulting with a campaign finance expert who has long worked for Mr. Spitzer’s political organization to see whether campaign money was spent on the trips, including some as recently as last month. If campaign money was involved, it would expand the scope of a criminal inquiry, because it is illegal to use campaign money for personal expenses.

Prostitute At The Center Of Spitzer's Downfall

Kristen, the prostitute described in a federal affidavit as having had a rendezvous with Mr. Spitzer on Feb. 13 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, has spent the last few days in her ninth-floor apartment in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. On Monday, she made a brief appearance in federal court, where a lawyer was appointed to represent her. She is expected to be a witness in the case against four people charged with operating a prostitution ring called the Emperor’s Club V.I.P.

Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added with significant understatement: “This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated.”

She has not been charged. The lawyer appointed to represent her, Don D. Buchwald, told a magistrate judge in court on Monday that she had been subpoenaed to testify in a grand jury investigation. Asked to swear that she had accurately filled out and signed a financial affidavit, she responded affirmatively.

Wal-Mart Kept Out Of Small Town

Keeping Wal-Mart from building is a story I thought I would never see, but one small Jewish community accomplished that goal:

They had waged a modest yet unyielding campaign against the proposed store, which they feared would force too many outside influences into their insular world of Orthodox Judaism.

It also represented a political vindication of sorts for Christopher P. St. Lawrence, town supervisor of Ramapo, which encompasses Monsey, in the heart of Rockland County. He hung much of his re-election on a promise to keep the Wal-Mart out of Monsey. During his campaign, he mailed a flier to every home in Monsey, saying, “Supervisor St. Lawrence opposes the Monsey Wal-Mart.” Mr. St. Lawrence was elected to a fourth term in November. Wal-mart doesn’t vote for the supervisor,” said Rabbi Jacob Horowitz, one of Monsey’s most respected religious leaders. “The people vote for the supervisor.

“We work very hard to raise our families the right way,” Rabbi Horowitz said. “And the supervisor understood that preserving our lifestyle is something that’s very important to us.”

There were other issues that Mr. St. Lawrence said had prompted him to stand up against putting a Wal-Mart on Route 59, like the flood of traffic such a big store could bring to a two-lane highway that is already clogged much of the time, and its impact on the revitalized downtown section of Spring Valley, a village northeast of Monsey.

This show what a group of determined people can accomplish. Good for them!!!

Defense To Link Marijuana In Sean Bell Killing

Lawyers for three detectives on trial in Queens in the killing of Sean Bell in 2006 will try to link small bags of marijuana found near the shooting site to one of Mr. Bell’s friends who was wounded and who fled a short distance, perhaps tossing the drugs as he ran.

The wounded friend, Trent Benefield, ran from the back seat of Mr. Bell’s Nissan Altima as the police fired 50 rounds at the car in the belief that someone inside was armed and shooting back, the police have said. Mr. Benefield was stopped on a sidewalk of Liverpool Street, a short distance from the shooting near the Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens.

The defense is expected to argue that if Mr. Benefield threw the marijuana away, it suggests that he knew the people shooting at them were police officers. Mr. Benefield has told investigators and a grand jury that the police never identified themselves before firing, and that he did not know who the gunmen were. He is expected to testify in the trial.

Federal Juries Reluctant To Impose Death Penalty

In the 20 years since the federal death penalty statute was revived, no federal juries have been more reluctant to sentence federal defendants to death than those in New York. According to records compiled by the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which coordinates the defense of capital punishment cases, federal prosecutors in New York State have asked juries to impose death sentences 19 times since 1988. In only one case did a jury rule for execution.

Lawyers and other experts in the field say that a variety of reasons underpin New York’s status as a tough sell in death penalty cases. They say that there is a fundamental liberal slant to juries in the state, and that New York has some of the best death penalty defense lawyers in the country.

They also say many victims in New York capital cases are unsavory characters: drug dealers, mobsters or members of street gangs — not the sort of people whose killers are likely to be punished with death.

New Jersey's Gov. Plans Will Cripple State Services

Governor Jon Corzine’s intention is to reduce the work force to the 75,000 positions that were on the payroll in 2002. But his aides argue that reaching that level will require significant improvements in efficiency because in 2004, the deprivatization of the motor vehicles department added 3,000 positions, and 900 additional child-welfare caseworkers were hired under a court order.

Mr. Corzine relied mostly on attrition to cut 1,800 jobs during his first two years in office, with effects varying by department. In the attorney general’s office, which lost more than 140 lawyers and 105 investigators, the remaining staff has to work longer hours to handle heavier caseloads.

Woman Keeps Tabs On Sex Offenders

For the past decade, Ms. Laura Ahearn has been painstakingly compiling information about sex offenders and distributing it — first by hand, then by e-mail — to their neighbors, including updates like a new car or new scar.

Last week, her nonprofit advocacy group, Parents for Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims’ Center, received a $593,000 federal grant to take the project national, using the sharp new mapping program that enables such a computerized tour.

Senator Charles E. Schumer and Representatives Timothy H. Bishop, Pete King and Carolyn McCarthy all joined Ms. Ahearn in her inconspicuous office in a strip mall here to announce the federal grant.

The group plans to use the money to compile sex offender data from all 50 states into maps on a revamped version of parentsformeganslaw.com, its Web site, scheduled to make its debut on May 1; to create a national e-mail notification program to alert people about offenders in their ZIP code; and to establish a toll-free number that Ms. Ahearn says will be the first national Megan’s Law help line.

Would Six Figure Salaries Attract Better Teachers?

A New York City charter school set to open in 2009 in Washington Heights will test one of the most fundamental questions in education: Whether significantly higher pay for teachers is the key to improving schools.

The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on school wide performance. That is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, roughly two and a half times the national average teacher salary and higher than the base salary of all but the most senior teachers in the most generous districts nationwide.

The school’s creator and first principal, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, contends that high salaries will lure the best teachers. He says he wants to put into practice the conclusion reached by a growing body of research: that teacher quality — not star principals, laptop computers or abundant electives — is the crucial ingredient for success.

"Donald Trump Vows to Fight Opposition

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would go to court for the right to expand a planned catering hall at Jones Beach to include a 26,000-square-foot basement to accommodate its kitchens, a proposal that was rejected the night before by a state code enforcement review board.

After a public hearing filled with complaints about Mr. Trump’s project, the board voted 4-to-1 Tuesday against granting a variance of state building codes that would let the basement work proceed.

Mr. Trump conceived the expanded basement after signing a 40-year lease in 2006 to build and operate a 46,000-square-foot catering hall anchored by a smaller basement with no kitchen. Mr. Trump said the board ruling would indefinitely delay the opening of the catering hall, planned for 2009.

Being Paid To Learn

If students show marked improvement on state tests during the school year, each teacher at Public School 188 could receive a bonus of as much as $3,000. School districts nationwide have seized on the idea that a key to improving schools is to pay for performance, whether through bonuses for teachers and principals, or rewards like cash prizes for students.

New York City, with the largest public school system in the country, is in the forefront of this movement, with more than 200 schools experimenting with one incentive or another. In more than a dozen schools, students, teachers and principals are all eligible for extra money, based on students’ performance on standardized tests.

Former Newark Mayor On Trial For Fraud

In a wide-ranging federal indictment, former Newark Mayor, Sharpe James, is accused of improperly helping a Newark public relations executive in a series of favorable land deals.

Federal prosecutors have argued that Mr. James’s relationship with Ms. Tamika Riley was the prime motivation for what they said was his help in steering nine city-owned properties to her. She bought the properties through an urban revitalization program for a total of $46,000, in three purchases over four years, and resold them for $665,000.

In return, Mr. Kwon said, Ms. Riley carried on a relationship with Mr. James, in which she gave him $5,000 worth of boxing tickets and accompanied him on trips to the Caribbean.

Bill To Delay Foreclosure Proceedings

Assemblyman James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn Democrat, and State Senator Frank Padavan, a Queens Republican, have introduced a bill in both houses that would delay foreclosure proceedings for New York residents for one year.

The measure would allow residents to remain in their homes while granting them time to work with lenders to modify their mortgages.

Former New York Governor Pataki's Political deceit

It seems that Pataki had other motives besides running for the presidency. Perhaps he just wanted the cash:

Former Gov. George E. Pataki spent more than $1 million from his political action committees for Broadway theater tickets, gatherings at the Yale Club and payments to political loyalists and advisers.

The money came from PACs used to raise Mr. Pataki’s profile nationally and to lay the foundations for a possible presidential run. They were organized in Virginia, where candidates are given broad discretion in spending.

In all, the committees spent about $2.1 million in 2007; about $1.4 million of that was paid out after Mr. Pataki quietly suspended his efforts to seek national office last March, according to a review of campaign finance disclosure reports and other records. Some of the spending appears to have had little connection to a political cause or candidacy.

Commanding Officer At Sean Bell Shooting Testifies

The commanding officer of the detectives charged in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell testified on Friday that believing he was under fire, he drew his gun and pointed it toward the passenger windows of his car that night. He was ready not only for ambush, he said, but ready to add to the fusillade of 50 shots that claimed Mr. Bell’s life.

“If anyone came up on our car, I would have fired,” said the officer, Lt. Gary Napoli, in part of the second-by-second account he gave in the trial of three detectives charged in Mr. Bell’s killing after his bachelor party on Nov. 25, 2006.

The lieutenant also testified that an oft-quoted radio transmission from one of the detectives before the shooting that the situation was “getting hot” was, to his mind, a frantic call for help.