Union Leader Accused of Extortion

Union Leader has no scruples.

The former president of a New York area Teamsters local was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he forced his union members to do work for him personally, including building a new roof on his country home, squiring his daughter to her yoga class and setting up a Christmas tree at his Manhattan apartment.

The onetime union leader, Anthony Rumore, extorted “personal services” from members of his union for nearly 15 years, officials of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan said. According to a federal indictment handed up on Tuesday, the members complied with Mr. Rumore’s demands because they feared being fired from their jobs.

It takes a very small man to resort to extortion to get what he want.

New York Slave Owners Found Guilty

The so-called Muttontown Slave Trial has involved a wild barrage of testimony by two Indonesian domestic workers employed — and according to prosecutors, enslaved and tortured for years — by an affluent Long Island couple. The verdict on Monday made for no less of a wild scene.

When it was announced that the jury in Federal District Court here had found the wealthy couple, Mahender Sabhnani, and his wife, Varsha, guilty, husband and wife stood dumbfounded and one of the couple’s three daughters fainted, according to authorities, and friends of the Sabhnanis.

Don't faint now; too bad your parents did not have any moral compass.

Who is Felix Sater?

Does Donald Treump know the real Felix Sater? Well, according to the New York Times, a federal complaint was brought against him in a 1998 money laundering and stock manipulation case that was filed in secret and remains under seal. A subsequent indictment in March 2000 stemming from the same investigation described Mr. Sater as an “unindicted co-conspirator” and a key figure in a $40 million scheme involving 19 stockbrokers and organized crime figures from four Mafia families.

The indictment asserted that Mr. Sater helped create fraudulent stock brokerages that were used to defraud investors and launder money. Mr. Sater and his lawyer, Judd Burstein, repeatedly refused to discuss in detail his role in the stock scam.

But a onetime friend, Gennady Klotsman, who is known as Gene and who was accused with Mr. Sater as a co-conspirator, contends that they both pleaded guilty in 1998, and that Mr. Sater began cooperating with the authorities. Prosecutors are unwilling to discuss either the 1998 complaint or the 2000 indictment.

Morrissey Charged in forging Brooke Astor's Signature

Not only did Brooke Astor's son do his mother a great injustice, it seems that her lawyer had his hands in the till too. Francis X. Morrissey Jr., 65, turned himself in at the Manhattan district attorney’s office after being charged in the 18-count indictment with helping Mr. Marshall exploit an ailing Mrs. Astor so the two men could gain financially. Mr. Morrissey is charged with, among other things, forging Mrs. Astor’s signature on a final amendment to her 2002 will.

In the afternoon, Mr. Morrissey, his wrists handcuffed in front of him, appeared at his arraignment but did not utter a word. One of his lawyers, Pery D. Krinsky, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. An assistant district attorney, Peirce Moser, then summed up the crimes that Mr. Morrissey was charged with committing.

“Under the guise of representing Mrs. Astor when she had diminished mental capacity, the defendant in reality worked himself into a position to collect millions of dollars when she died,” he told Judge A. Kirke Bartley Jr.

Mr. Moser asked that Mr. Morrissey provide a personal recognizance bond of $100,000 and surrender his passport, the same request prosecutors made of Mr. Marshall on Tuesday. Mr. Morrissey stroked his chin with his left hand, which was no longer cuffed, and signed the necessary papers before leaving the courthouse in silence.

It would seem to be the darkest moment in the career of a lawyer who over the years has gained a reputation for ingratiating himself to older people and finding his way into their wills or trusts, mostly as a beneficiary, but also as an executor or a trustee.

In the indictment in the Astor case, Mr. Morrissey was charged with forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument, scheme to defraud, and conspiracy. Mr. Marshall was charged with scheme to defraud, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, falsifying business records and other charges.

Mr. Morrissey has been accused in several previous cases of taking advantage of mentally incompetent people near death and then being named as a beneficiary of such bequests as a Park Avenue apartment, a Midtown Manhattan apartment, expensive art and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

Astor's Son Denies Charges In Court

John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

Anthony D. Marshall, center, being escorted into court in Manhattan Tuesday for his arraignment on charges that he defrauded his ailing mother, the late socialite Brooke Astor, over a period of six years. He pleaded not guilty and was released on $100,000 bail. He also had to surrender his passport.

The 18-count indictment that was unsealed yesterday accused Mr. Marshall and one of his mother’s former lawyers, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., of numerous crimes over a six-year period, including persuading the frail and ailing Mrs. Astor to change her will so they could enrich themselves. Mr. Morrissey even stands accused of forging Mrs. Astor’s signature on an amendment to the will.

Elizabeth Loewy, an assistant district attorney, told Judge A. Kirke Bartley Jr. that Mr. Marshall “abused his position of trust to steal from” his ailing mother. She asked that Mr. Marshall provide a personal recognizance bond in the amount of $100,000 and surrender his passport, which he did.

Death Ruled 'Not Homicide' for Officer at 'Ground Zero'

New York City’s chief medical examiner has decided not to reclassify the death of a police officer who worked at ground zero as a homicide linked to the attack on the twin towers because the officer did not arrive at the site until Sept. 13, 2001.

The examiner’s decision appears to cast doubt on the future of thousands of cases involving sickened rescue and recovery workers whose relatives may in the future seek to have them included on the 9/11 victims’ list.

When the officer, James J. Godbee Jr., died in December 2004 at age 44, the medical examiner’s office listed the cause of death as sarcoidosis, a disease that scars the lungs and other organs. Although the death certificate did not link Officer Godbee’s disease to the days he spent at ground zero, the police pension fund did make that link later, granting the officer’s widow a line-of-duty pension.

Albany Bars Rent Rise For Thousands

A loophole in New York State’s rent regulations that would have led to sharp rent increases for thousands of tenants was closed last week by housing officials.

The rule allowed landlords withdrawing from government subsidy programs to immediately bring the rent in their apartments up to market rate by claiming that exiting the programs created a “unique and peculiar” circumstance.

Normally, such landlords are limited in how much they can adjust rents each year. Citing the exception, the owners of 23 buildings in New York City and Westchester and Nassau Counties had sought permission from the state to raise the rents to market levels in 4,400 units.

L.I. Woman is Charged With Strangling Husband

A Long Island woman who was married in September to a man 21 years older, 8 inches taller and 100 pounds heavier was accused yesterday of strangling him with an electrical cord in their South Shore waterfront home while her 7-year-old daughter slept in an adjacent bedroom.

In a case that left investigators puzzling over mysteries of motive and method, though not of means, the Nassau County police charged the woman, Kelly Forbes, 29, with second-degree murder in the death of her husband, Michael Forbes, 50, in Merrick, N.Y., on Wednesday morning.

An electrical cord found at the scene was the apparent murder weapon, the police said. But the most obvious question — how could a 5-foot-5, 150-pound woman strangle her 6-foot-1, 250-pound husband? — was still under investigation, said Detective Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a police spokesman.

Union President Accused of Quashing School Aide's Bid

A dissident member of a school employees’ union local is accusing the local’s president, one of the most powerful union leaders in New York, of using that power to suppress her opposition.

The dissident, Anthony Ferina, a cafeteria monitor at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens, wanted to run for the office of chairman of the local’s chapter of 14,000 school aides.

But he says he ran into a roadblock set up by Veronica Montgomery-Costa, the president of Local 372, which represents 27,000 school cafeteria workers, hall monitors and cafeteria monitors.

Ms. Montgomery-Costa also heads the executive board of District Council 37, an umbrella group of 56 New York City union locals — including Local 372 — that represent 121,000 municipal workers.

Eleven days before the election, Mr. Ferina said yesterday, the union leadership told him that he had been disqualified because the woman who had nominated him was not a union member. In a letter to Mr. Ferina, the head of the local’s election committee wrote that she had “failed to submit a completed membership application.”

Man Arrested in Killing of a Dentist

It was a crude device, a silencer fashioned from a plastic bleach bottle wrapped in duct tape and left behind among the leaves in a Queens playground where a 34-year-old orthodontist was shot and killed as his estranged wife and 4-year-old daughter looked on.

But the homemade silencer provided a crucial clue in the murder of Dr. Daniel Malakov, the police said yesterday, and led to an arrest that linked the killing to an extended family feud.

Fingerprints on the duct tape were matched to a man with a family tie to Dr. Malakov’s wife, Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova, the police said. The original fingerprints had been taken when the man was arrested in 1994 for evading the fare at a Manhattan subway station.

On Sunday, New York City detectives traveled to Chamblee, Ga., a community of about 10,000 near Atlanta. With deputies of the DeKalb County sheriff’s office, they arrested the man, Mikhail Mallayev, 50, an immigrant from Uzbekistan who is related to a sister of Dr. Borukhova.

Warn the Public or Supervise the Doctor?

Days after a cluster of hepatitis cases in 2002 led health investigators to a clinic in Norman, Okla., the state’s chief epidemiologist held a news conference to urge anyone who had been a patient there to get tested immediately for blood-borne diseases. A nurse’s improper use of syringes was said to be the cause.

In contrast, when the New York State Health Department mailed out letters to 628 patients last week, telling them that they were at risk from a similar faulty use of syringes by Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, an anesthesiologist on Long Island, 34 months had passed since investigators identified Dr. Finkelstein’s office as the source of two hepatitis cases.

The delay, health officials said, was in part caused by prolonged negotiations between the doctor and the Health Department over access to his patient records — involving objections by him and his lawyers over which patients needed to be notified, and which were unlikely to have been exposed.

Experts said yesterday that the New York department’s handling of the case opened a window on a longstanding debate: Should doctors who create public health risks by using unsafe practices be treated any differently by the health department than, say, restaurant owners or hot dog vendors who do the same thing?

Dr. Finkelstein’s case was reviewed by the Office of Professional Medical Conduct. But the review took place about nine months after state health inspectors first learned that he was reusing syringes when he drew medication from multiple-use vials. Although a syringe is used on just one patient, the vials are used for many patients. Used for more than one vial, one patient’s contaminated syringe can contaminate the vials even though a new syringe is used for each patient.

By the time the review took place, Dr. Finkelstein had changed his methods to comply with standard practice, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The review board ruled that because he was currently in compliance there was no basis to discipline him.

Patients Were Not Told of Misuse of Syringe

State health officials notified 628 patients this week that they should be tested for hepatitis and H.I.V. infection because they were treated years ago by an anesthesiologist in Nassau County who used improper procedures for preventing the spread of blood-borne diseases.

The anesthesiologist, Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, of Plainview, first became the focus of a state health investigation in 2005 after two of his patients contracted hepatitis C. His name was reported by Newsday.

Yesterday, county and state officials traded blame over the 34-month delay in notifying the patients. At the same time, the incident led state health officials to seek a meeting with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to address an issue of drug packaging that was apparently at the heart of the problem.

In 2005, investigators found that, in violation of widely accepted practices recommended by the C.D.C., Dr. Finkelstein, 52, who specializes in pain management, was reusing syringes when drawing doses of medicine from vials that hold more than one dose.

He would use a new syringe for each patient. But when giving one patient more than one type of drug by injection, his practice of using the same syringe to draw medicine from more than one vial led to the potential contamination of the vials. The blood of a patient who was infected with hepatitis C could, by backing up through the syringe and entering the vials, infect another patient when the same vial of medicine was used again. This is what happened in at least one case, health officials said.

State health officials said yesterday they hoped to get the C.D.C.’s support in seeking the elimination of such multidose vials.

Any fix would come too late for Raymond Bookstaver, 49, a Hicksville mechanic who was one of two patients initially identified as having been infected by Dr. Finkelstein’s improper use of syringes.

Bloomberg's Pay Raises for Union May Trouble the City After He Leaves

Amid the gloomy talk of subprime mortgage failures, tumbling profits on Wall Street and a cooling real estate market, one powerful force squeezing New York City’s budget has gone largely undiscussed: the sharply rising cost of municipal labor.

As Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has moved to settle contracts extending past the end of his term in 2009, he has agreed to more generous pay raises for union after union, leading to expenses that stand to outpace revenue, especially toward the end of the city’s four-year spending plan.

In July, the city settled a retroactive contract with the police sergeants’ union that increased their pay by 27.5 percent over six years, bringing the maximum base salary to $94,962 at the end of the contract in 2011, up from $76,403. A week later, Mr. Bloomberg struck a deal to raise wages of sanitation workers 17 percent over four and a half years, bringing the maximum salary to $67,141 from $57,392. Last month, Mr. Bloomberg announced a similar increase over four years for the police detectives that would bring the maximum base pay for a first-grade detective to $109,002 from $93,176.

Those agreements, along with those made with the police captains’ and fire officers’ unions, will cost the city roughly $300 million in the last two years of the contracts and have helped establish a pattern for wage increases of 4 percent each year for city employees, with an additional 1.59 percent over two years for the uniformed services.

City officials have recently factored the higher salary projections into their spending plan for all employees, regardless of whether they have settled contracts.

That revised plan, submitted last week to the Financial Control Board, which oversees the city’s finances, anticipates that labor costs, rather than declining revenue, will become the driving force in widening deficits over the next four years.

According to the revised plan, a decline in tax collections will account for 60 percent of the expected $396 million contributing to a shortage this fiscal year, and new labor agreements will account for 23 percent. By 2011, however, the final year of the plan, tax revenue is expected to be responsible for 34 percent of the $2.5 billion swelling the deficit and labor responsible for 65 percent.

Earlier this week, Mr. Bloomberg instituted a citywide hiring freeze and directed agencies to devise spending cuts, the first time he has resorted to such actions since 2002, when the city was struggling with the economic effects of a recession and the 9/11 attack.

Several budget analysts praised Mr. Bloomberg’s move to trim costs as prudent, but warned that unions could come to expect at least a 4 percent raise each year, even as the budget squeeze tightens.

The mayor, said Doug Turetsky, a spokesman for the city’s Independent Budget Office, “deserves credit for anticipating that we’re going to need money further down the road.” But, he said, “That would appear to set the floor for negotiations in terms of how much is available at a higher place than it has been in the recent past.”

Since guiding the city out of the fiscal problems he faced upon taking office in 2002, Mr. Bloomberg has enjoyed flush times, and has been able to increase spending on popular items like additional library hours and tax cuts, while banking surpluses for the future.

But now, even as he seeks to burnish his image and may even test his popularity nationally, he may confront starker choices than any he has grappled with since those early days. It may be increasingly difficult to maintain the city’s work force, which provides the services and amenities Mr. Bloomberg says are so crucial.

If the economy gets much worse, said E. J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization, “and they’re really in the hole, the only way to really save money is to reduce head count, unless the unions begin to make the kinds of concessions that they’ve never actually made.”

Since Mr. Bloomberg took office in 2002, city spending on wages and salaries, including pension and health care benefits, has grown to $32 billion from $27 billion, adjusted for inflation, with an average annual growth rate of 4 percent. Under his predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, those costs increased to $26 billion from $23 billion, about a 2 percent annual increase.

Those costs are now expected to rise to almost $40 billion by 2011, nearly equivalent to the entire city budget in 2001.

City officials argue that they have flexibility in how they settle contracts; they can extract concessions like longer workdays or fewer holidays in exchange for higher wages, they say, or perhaps even put off longer-term agreements if they do not have the money to pay for them.

Some fiscal analysts say the city has locked itself into costly work agreements, in part by following a decades-old practice called pattern bargaining. Under that approach, if one union extracts an agreement for a salary increase, the city often extends the same increase to other unions when their contracts come up for negotiation.

The Bloomberg administration has vigorously defended the practice in arbitration, as it resists a push to give pay increases that are higher than those for other city workers to the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the largest police union, representing 23,000 officers.

“It’s pretty expensive given the economic outlook,” said Charles Brecher, research director at the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-backed policy group. Administration officials “have hoisted themselves on their own petard in that they’ve fought the P.B.A. by saying that there should be a strict pattern,” he said.

But city officials say they can manage the city’s finances better by settling contracts before they expire and for longer terms, as well as by factoring into the spending plan the established pattern across all unions, including those that have not agreed to terms, like District Council 37, with 99,000 members.

“In tough times we’ve been able to work with the unions to find collaborative methods for cost savings, but the reality is once you set the parameters, different unions are going to get similar amounts regardless,” said Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor who oversees both the budget and labor negotiations. “You have to deal with these expenses whether you put them in the financial plan now or later. Not including them at this point would be burying your head in the sand.”

Today's Top Stories

The following are today's top stories:


* Shai Agassi, a top Silicon Valley technologist, has devised a plan to reinvent the auto industry around electric-powered cars by building battery-charging stations around the world.

* After a series of crash landings caused by landing gear malfunctions, Scandinavian Airlines said it would pull all Bombardier Q400 turboprops from its fleet.

* The European Union has proposed that car advertisements shown in member countries carry tobacco-style labels warning of the environmental impact they cause.

* The number of customers buying travel online has begun to shrink, the first time a category has lost shoppers since Forrester Research began tracking e-commerce 10 years ago.

* In New York City neighborhoods hit hard by the subprime lending crisis, most loans that ended up in foreclosure came from three companies- Fremont Investment and Loan, WMC Mortgage, and the New Century Financial Corp (NEWCQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research), according to a new report.

* Having emerged as a leading candidate to succeed Stanley O'Neal at Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research), BlackRock Inc (BLK.N: Quote, Profile, Research) founder Laurence Fink may be the king of Wall Street's chief executive officer short list.