Police Commissioner Kelly told reporters today that the NYPD is investigating the suicide of 12-year-old Gabriella Molina in Queens.

Kelly said the girl left a suicide note indicating that she had been a victim of cyberbullying.

Two computers from the girl’s home have been seized and will be analyzed by detectives, Kelly said.

When asked who, if anyone, would be held responsible, Kelly hedged, saying the NYPD is “just gathering information now.”

Molina was found in her room by her 15-year-old sister  around 2:27 p.m. on Wednesday, cops said. She had reportedly hung herself from a ceiling fan using a cloth belt.

Molina’s aunt cut her down from the fan, cops said. When police arrived, EMS personnel were performing CPR on Molina, but she was unresponsive, and was pronounced dead at 3:33 p.m. at Long Island Jewish Hospital.

Cops said Molina left a suicide note saying that she was sorry and she loved everyone, and that she was being cyberbullied. Police said she also had marks on her left arm that indicated she may have tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists before resorting to hanging.

Molina lived with her sister, aunt, parents and grandparents, and the cops said that no one in the family had any history of criminal activity or domestic violence whatsoever.

According to police reports, Molina’s parents were at work when she killed herself. Her grandmother reportedly saw her last at 10 a.m. inside the house. Her grandmother reportedly told police that she called her granddaughter for lunch at 11 a.m., but Molina did not respond.

Molina had stayed home from school that day. It was her third absence of the month, and the sixth this year. Her family told police that she told them that since January, she was being bullied on a social media website called ASK.FM.

After a series of anti-gay hate crimes in Manhattan over the last couple of weeks, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced an initiative requiring anti-bullying programs in all schools before the end of the year.

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On Monday, after over a month of investigation, cops rescued the Ecuadorean national allegedly kidnapped in Jackson Heights on April 18, and apprehended three of his suspected kidnappers.

Now police say they have a photo of one of the suspected kidnappers who got away, and are asking the public for help in tracking the suspect down.

According to police reports, the 52-year-old kidnapping victim, Pedro Portugal, a tax accountant and insurance broker, was last seen around 7:30 p.m. on April 18 closing the front gate to his office at 88-06 Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, about 32 days before he was rescued in a joint mission between the NYPD’s Major Case Squad and FDNY Fire Marshals.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the Major Case Squad observed food deliveries going into a seemingly empty, darkened warehouse at 38-09 43 Avenue in Long Island City, Queens. They conducted a ruse fire inspection of the warehouse at 3 p.m. on Monday, targeting an area on the top floor where they had noticed, from the outside, a small light.

There they found Portugal being “babysat,” Kelly said. The “babysitter” fled, but two other suspects were apprehended. A third was captured on Tuesday.

Christian Acuna, 35, and Dennis Alves, both with listed addresses in Queens, and New Jersey resident Yeri Moncayo, 38, were all arrested and charged with kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon. If convicted, they will each face up to 25 years to life in prison.

According to reports from Queens District Attorney Richard Brown’s Office, Portugal was allegedly burned with acid, beaten, and threatened with having his fingers cut off during the 32 days he was allegedly held captive in the warehouse. He reportedly was found with teeth knocked out and swelling and bruising all over his face and body.

D.A. Brown called the kidnapping “a terrifying story.” 

According to the criminal charges, Portugal was approached by Moncayo in front of 88-06 Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. Moncayo called out Portugal’s name and displayed what reportedly appeared to be an NYPD badge. Cops said Moncayo confessed this to them in a statement, and said he was with Acuna at the time.

Moncayo and the suspect still at large allegedly grabbed Portugal and forced him into an SUV, where Moncayo, the suspect-at-large and another suspect police have not yet apprehended punched Portugal repeatedly and then put a mask over his face so he could not see where they were taking him. In a statement to police, Alves allegedly said that Moncayo and Acuna were the ones who jumped out of the car and snatched Portugal, but that he was present, and all three were present for the ransom call, along with another unidentified suspect.

In the car, the criminal report alleges, a kidnapper lifted Portugal’s shirt and held a knife to his stomach, warning him that if he moved, he would be stabbed. Cops said they caught, on surveillance video from a camera outside 88-08 Roosevelt Avenue, the SUV driving off with the backseat door open and Portugal’s leg hanging out of it.

Allegedly, when they arrived at the warehouse, Portugal was taken to the room at the top floor where he was eventually found, and forced into a chair where his arms and legs were tied up. The kidnappers allegedly punched and kicked him as they demanded money and told him they knew he owned property in the U.S.

Cops said the day after, around 4:30 p.m., Portugal’s cousin called 911 from Portugal’s home in Maspeth and told police Portugal may have been kidnapped, after a phone call from Portugal’s mother in Quito, Ecuador. Portugal’s mother reportedly told him that she received several phone calls between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. that day from her son asking for money for a business deal with someone named Tito. Later she received other calls from someone she described as having a Columbian accent, cops said, demanding money before putting her son on the phone. She told police her son told her that if she didn’t give them the money they would torture him.

The kidnappers demanded a $3 million ransom from Portugal’s mother in Ecuador in exchange for his safe return, the D.A.’s office said.

When Major Case Squad cops conducted their false fire inspection to get into the warehouse on Monday, a detective reportedly saw Portugal leaving a small room inside of a makeshift apartment on the third floor of the warehouse with his hands bound with cloth and duct tape. Another Major Case Squad detective saw Acuna, one of the accused kidnappers, running out of the warehouse. The detective caught him on the corner of Skillman Avenue and 39th Street.

Cops said Acuna told them he was hired by Alves to watch Portugal for $800 a week. He and Alves reportedly watched Portugal together during the day, and Moncayo watched him at night, and Moncayo reportedly told police he watched Portugal every day except Sunday, and that Portugal had his hands bound and a mask over his head for the duration of the month they had him. Alves told police he planned the kidnapping with another person, who told Alves he would be paid $5,000 to watch Portugal, cops said.

Alves reportedly told detectives, “I didn’t treat him bad, I told him it was just business.”

Five NYPD detectives were sent down to Ecuador to assist in the investigation there, according to Commissioner Kelly, and “significant work” was done by detectives overseas. The Major Case Squad’s investigation was reportedly conducted with the cooperation of the U.S. State Department and the Ecuador National Kidnapping Squad.

Kelly did not definitively say whether the kidnapping was drug-related, but when asked, replied that the NYPD is “not ruling anything out.”

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Police are making headway in the investigation into the shooting death of a 14-year-old Daja “Asia” Robinson on a city bus in the Queens: with a suspect in custody as of this morning, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly confirmed that the shooting was gang-related.

According to law enforcement, the shooter is a member of the Snow Gang.

On Tuesday, officers with Operation Impact, the program that places rookie cops in tough neighborhoods, were approached by a person who claimed to know who the shooter was. The witness reportedly attended the Sweet Sixteen party that was held at the Onyx Lounge in honor of Tasheana Eubanks, and said that when the party ended the witness went with a friend to the bus stop at Sutphin Boulevard and Rockaway Blvd, cops said.

The witness reportedly told police that they saw shooter at the bus stop.

The witness’ friend got on the bus, and the witness stayed to wait for a ride with a family member.

Then, cops said, the witness saw several people the witness recognized as members of the Snow Gang walking towards the bus. The witness told police the Snow Gang members began arguing with a group of males on the bus that the witness believes are members of the Wood City Crew. Cops said the witness saw the shooter pull a dark colored firearm from his waistband and shoot at the bus, then flee through the Baisley Pond Park toward 125th Avenue.

The suspect the witness named was arrested this morning at his home without a struggle, police said. He is currently being interviewed by cops, but has not been formally arrested or charged.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly today emphasized that Robinson had nothing to do with the gangs involved.

“It was a terrible tragedy but it’s just indicative of the fact that we have too many guns, and too many individuals with access to guns,” Kelly said.

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As news from Albany seems to involve little other than corruption and scandal, campaign finance reform advocates are putting pressure on Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Times reported.

These advocates, 140 major political donors, including 50 fundraisers for Obama, want Cuomo to change state election laws to include public financing.

This proposal has some support from Democrats, but virtually none from Republicans.

In a letter to the governor, the donors expressed hope that a change in campaign finance laws in New York, with its “national prominence,” could have a larger impact nationally by sending “a strong message to Washington, D.C., that real change is possible.”

They referenced the recent Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, in which the nation’s highest court ruled that political donations by corporations are protected by the First Amendment, and should be unregulated to the same degree as those by individual citizens.

“We write to strongly encourage your continued active leadership in transforming New York State’s broken campaign finance system into a national model in the post-Citizens United era,” the donors said, emphasizing their “firsthand understanding of the country’s current money and politics law.”

“We believe dramatic change is needed so that our proud democracy lives up to the values of being ‘of, by, and for the people,’” the letter continued.

Cuomo has repeatedly called public financing “essential” and promised to push for change to the state’s campaign financing laws, but he has also noted the opposition that such measures will face from the state’s Republicans, who share control of the state Senate.

Donors are concerned that with only a month left in the legislative session, the governor will give up on the issue.

But David Magleby, a political scientist at Brigham Young University who is writing a book about donors, told the Times it’s in the governor’s interest, given his grander political aspirations, to pay attention to these letter-writers.

“These are the kinds of people that a Cuomo candidacy for president will need,” Magleby said. “They’re influencing Cuomo to go full-speed ahead on reforms at the state level, while knowing full well that he likely has national ambitions, and therefore he will be back to them should a set of circumstances arise where he is going to seek the nomination.”

The donors who wrote the letter include billionaire George Soros, “When Harry Met Sally” director Rob Reiner, and Robert McKay, the heir to the Taco Bell fortune.

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In a Daily News opinion piece, Anthony Weiner laid out three of his 64 ideas in his “ideas book” to “get the conversation started.”

He focused primarily on health care costs, education and taxes, and he urged New Yorkers to make sure the mayoral campaign “is a full-throated debate about real solutions,” as opposed to “a contest of who can say ‘I ain’t the other guy’ the loudest.”

Weiner’s plan to control rising health care costs and cover the uninsured relies largely on having city employees and retirees pay some part of their own health care costs in order to avoid continuing to slash other things from the budget.

Weiner noted that benefits are “due to go up 40 percent in the next four years.”

He wants to “take a ‘whatever works’ approach to education,” and noted again, as he did in his launch video, that his mother was a math teacher.

He did not suggest any specific approaches, but worried “about the safety of children in yeshivas,” among other concerns.

His tax conversation revolved largely around rent-payers and homeowners, and he proposed paying for a middle-class tax cut of 10 percent by “increasing the tax on the foreign oligarchs and potentates who are parking their money by investing in super high-end New York apartments.”

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The post Anthony Weiner pens first op-ed of mayoral candidacy appeared first on Metro.us.

After he callously ate pretzels as she tried to tell him that a colleague had raped her, Elizabeth Crothers did not hold back slamming Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in interviews two years later, when it was revealed that the same colleague who raped her had raped another young woman.

The speaker’s office apparently sent Crothers a threatening letter in an attempt to shut her up when she started granting interviews vilifying him and her accused rapist, Assembly lawyer Michael Boxley, she told the Daily News.

The threatening letter was sent to her attorney from top assembly lawyer William Collins and appeared to suggest she would be trashed in the press if she did not back off.

The lawyer’s letter accused Crothers of lying, and said the interviews she had been doing waived her right to confidentiality under the assembly’s sexual harassment policy.

“I am compelled to conclude that Ms. Crothers has chosen to waive whatever protections would otherwise be afforded her by the confidentiality provisions … of the assembly’s sexual harassment policy,” Collins wrote in the June 30, 2003, letter, according to a copy obtained by the Daily News.

Assembly spokesman Michael Whyland reportedly dismissed the letter as “old communications.”

Boxley, the accused rapist, is still in Silver’s inner circle and reportedly played an integral role in the confidential settlement arranged by Silver’s office with two women who reported being sexually harassed by former Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

A recently released 68-page ethics committee report detailed sexual harassment claims against Lopez by several other female staffers. The accusations range from him forcing a staffer to massage his hand after she told him she was raped in college, to staffers contracting pink eye after being made to apply eye drops to Lopez’s infected eyes.

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The post Legislative staffer: I was threatened by Sheldon Silver appeared first on Metro.us.

The NYPD is beefing up security at the British Consulate in New York City in light of the gory attack on a soldier in London, cops said.

A British soldier was beheaded in broad daylight on a busy street in London on Wednesday afternoon, apparently by British nationals of Nigerian descent angry about Western interference in Muslim countries.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne emphasized that the increased security was not the result of any information that these places were being targeted.

“But in an abundance of caution, the NYPD has increased coverage on the British consulate … and other locations in the city as a result of the fatal attack on an active serving British soldier near the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich Common in southeast London,” Browne said in a statement.

The NYPD is also increased security at military recruiting stations in the city.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly discussed the importance of security cameras today, and dismissed questions about privacy concerns citizens may have, noting that a recent poll found that 8 in 10 New Yorkers want more surveillance cameras around the city.

“Critics say… people are concerned about privacy,” Kelly said. “Apparently people aren’t concerned about it, because they realize the genie’s out of the bottle.”

“Y ou go into a department store, your picture’s taken 30 times,” Kelly pointed out. “That’s the world in which we live. We need cameras, in my judgement, to protect the city.”

Kelly noted that London and New York both have 5,000 cameras citywide.

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A 25-year-old man whose phone was stolen on the Q train used the phone remotely to take a photo of a person of interest, cops said.

On May 11 at about 4 a.m. the man fell asleep on a southbound Q train and woke to discover his cell phone had been stolen from his pants pocket.

The Lookout Mobile Security app was used to take a photo of this person remotely. Police would like to question him in regard to this theft.

Police are asking that anyone with information about this person call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

The post Man captured on photo taken with stolen phone wanted for questioning appeared first on Metro.us.

While plenty of city politicians have recommended Vito Lopez stop his campaign for City Council, most recent among them being Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one City Councilmember has decided it’s time to take action.

Queens Councilman Peter Vallone is calling for city and state lawmakers to cut funding to the Lopez-controlled Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, “unless Vito’s cronies step away from that organization and we get a pledge from Vito not to run.”

Lopez recently resigned from the Assembly in disgrace, after the ethics committee produced a 68-page report detailing sexual harassment allegations made against him by his female staffers. They ranged from staffers contracting pink-eye after being instructed to apply eye drops to Lopez’s infected eyes, to a female staffer being scratched “by one of Lopez’s jagged fingernails” when he tried to push his hand up her inner thigh.

“A lot of people are saying that Lopez should not run, but no one is discussing the power base that he has in that district that allows him to run and be a viable candidate,” Vallone explained.

In the most recent campaign finance filing period, $1,700 of Lopez’s contributions came from employees of the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council.

Vallone also noted that the housing division of the organization is run by Lopez’s girlfriend, and it has consistently been peppered with his hand-picked friends and political allies.

A New York Times report last year noted that the Council’s offices close every Election Day so that employees can vote for Lopez and his chosen candidates.

“This Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council has for a long time been controlled by Vito and his cronies, and they need to go,” Vallone said. “Once they’re gone, once there’s a pledge for Vito not to run, then I think people can discuss whether to fund that group or not.” 

“But until then, nobody in government should do anything to help him run and abuse other women.”

Councilmember Erik Dilan, who had several member items for RBSCC in last year’s budget, declined to comment for this story.

Another steady supporter of RBSCC with member items for the organization in last year’s budget, Councilmember Domenic Recchia, did not respond to a request for comment.

Councilmember Stephen Levin, who once worked for Lopez and also had several member items for the organization in last year’s budget, put out a statement this weekend saying he believes Lopez should “voluntarily step down.”

But Levin said today that he would not support a plan to cut or withhold funding from RBSCC to put pressure on Lopez to drop out of the race.

“The truth is they provide good services,” Levin said, noting the work the organization does with youth programs, homelessness prevention, and seniors. “And so I don’t think that it’s appropriate to allow politics to dictate what programs get funded in that way.”

Vallone conceded that “the organization apparently does some good work.” 

“But so did some other organizations that were controlled by slimy elected officials,” Vallone said. “As with most villains, you have to go after the power source.”

Vallone wants to show voters that Lopez would be impotent on the Council, only harming his districts as legislators refuse to work with him.

“[RBSCC] unfortunately makes him a viable candidate,” Vallone said. “I’ve been wondering for a while why this organization, why Vito’s power base, has been unmentioned and untouched.”

Lopez’s competitor in the City Council race, Antonio Reynoso, noted to Politicker that while Lopez’s political allies outside of Ridgewood Bushwick may be falling away, he still maintains influence in that neighborhood.

Even after the ethics report outlining the abuse allegations female staffers made against Lopez, community members are apparently still standing behind him.

“Who knows if it was just someone making up lies?” one resident told Politicker.

“I don’t believe that’s true,” said another Ridgewood Bushwick resident of the sexual abuse allegations. “I don’t care what anyone says.”

The ethics report details, among others, an incident with a female staffer who Lopez coerced into massaging his hand. When the staffer began to cry, Lopez responded by saying, “I like that you’re holding my hand.” The young woman cried harder. The whole exchange occurred immediately after the staffer told Lopez she was raped in college and he responded by asking her if she “felt guilty.” He got her to massage his hand after telling her he “really believe[d] in her work” but wanted her to show more “intensity” and be more “adventurous.”

Ultimately, Vallone said he does not want a colleague who could potentially do with female staffers in the Council what the report said Lopez did with women who worked for him in the Assembly.

“He clearly does not understand that what he did was wrong, and he’ll do it again if you give him power,” Vallone warned.

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The post Peter Vallone goes after Vito Lopez’s ‘power base’ appeared first on Metro.us.

According to New York Post exclusive, Mayor Michael Bloomberg had some choice words for Taxi Management CEO Gene Friedman at last week’s Knicks playoff at Madison Square Garden.

Friedman reportedly approached the mayor and inquired after “what is going on with the Taxi of Tomorrow,” the mayor’s proposed taxi-replacement that was shot down by a judge the day before.

The mayor reportedly responded, “Come January 1st, when I am out of office, I am going to destroy your f———ing industry.”

Friedman told the Post he tried to calm the mayor and asked, “Why can I sit down with you and figure out something that works?”

The mayor, reportedly with his face red and his jaw clenched, replied, “After January, I am going to destroy all you f———ing guys.”

As he and a friend walked away, Friedman told the Post he asked his friend, “Did the mayor just threaten me?”

To which his friend reportedly replied, “No, he threatened you twice.”

The mayor told the Post that all he remembered from the night was that “it was a great game.”

Taxi of Tomorrow was Bloomberg’s plan to replace the entire yellow cab system with a more spacious Nissan. Nissan won the right to design the car in an open competition.

The taxi industry challenged the plan in court, and state Supreme Court Judge Peter Moulton recently ruled that Taxi of Tomorrow could not stand because it violated a hybrid-cab option for garage owners.

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The post Bloomberg threatens taxi czar appeared first on Metro.us.

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The post VIDEO: Anthony Weiner launches campaign for mayor appeared first on Metro.us.

Anthony Weiner has finally stopped beating around the bush and launched his bid for mayor.

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  VIDEO: Anthony Weiner launches campaign for mayor

A video posted late Tuesday night on a revamped anthonyweiner.com—emblazoned with a large blue and orange logo reading “WEINER FOR MAYOR”—features the once-disgraced politician in various picturesque Brooklyn settings, talking about his mother being a teacher and his father hanging “a shingle outside our house” after going to law school on the G.I. bill.

“That’s how this city was built,” he says in the video.

He goes on to rue the high rents—up 20 percent in the last two years alone, he says—and impossible real estate prices that will “cost you a million bucks.”

As Weiner is seen shmoozing with shopowners, a voiceover describes the struggle small business owners face, “drowning in regulations that nickel and dime you to death.”

He boasts of gaining billions of dollars while in Congress to put more cops on the streets of New York, his work with the 9/11 responders bill, and having “lead the campaign for real health reform.”

“Look, I made some big mistakes and I know I let a lot of people down,” Weiner says in the video. “But I also learned some tough lessons.”

“I hope I get a second chance to work for you,” he adds. 

Weiner also plugs his recently released “64 ideas” to improve the city he aims to make “the middle class capital of the world.”

Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, appears at the end of the video to vouch for their love of the city and attest that “no one will work harder to make it better than Anthony.”

The video may have been posted prematurely. As Twitter exploded with the discovery of the video shortly after midnight, the website reverted back to its previous ambiguous design, sans video, and the tweet by Weiner that originally released the video disappeared.

Some wondered whether the release-and-retract was intentional, or if it was a sign that Weiner’s campaign team is subpar.

Sources told The New York Post that the video was supposed to released later on Wednesday.[galleryembed id ="155339"]

Weiner first announced that he was considering a run for mayor in a lengthy New York Times Magazine interview in April. Since then, he has done a round of media interviews and returned to Twitter as he prepared to formally launch his campaign.

A NBC/Marist poll released last month showed that Weiner would come in second place among the Democratic candidates for mayor. Quinn led with support from 26 percent of voters, and Weiner came in second with 15 percent, according to the poll.

The former congressman resigned in 2011 after he tweeted a lewd photo of himself and lied about it, saying that his account had been hacked. He later admitted to having inappropriate online relationships with several women.

He spent more than a year and a half away from the public light. He moved from his Queens home to an apartment on Park Avenue South. He said in his Times Magazine interview that he has spent the time as a stay-at-home father to his toddler son, who also appears in the video.

Weiner also opened a lucrative consulting firm during his time away from office, the Times reports.

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Concerns are growing about the planned Spectra pipeline on the west side of lower Manhattan, but those concerns may be coming too late: The pipeline is already in place. The only thing that remains is to connect it to Con Edison power structures — a project that Con Ed says is on track to be completed by November.

The Spectra pipeline runs along the Jersey Shore and from the Port Authority hub in Hoboken under the Hudson River to Gansevoort Street in Lower Manhattan, according to Sane Energy Project co-founder Denise Katzman.

From Gansevoort Street, a Con Ed extension runs up along the West Side Highway to a Con Ed power station at 14th Street and 9th Avenue.

Clare Donohue, also with the Sane Energy Project, said that while the Spectra pipeline has been reviewed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Con Ed extension of the pipeline has undergone no environmental review.

A spokesperson for Con Edison said its extension is the same as all of the company’s other infrastructure in the city.

“We are in compliance with all environmental rules and regulations,” the spokesman said. “This is routine gas work for us.”

According to Katzman, seismic pressure becomes more intense the wider the radius of the pipeline. The Spectra pipeline has a radius of 30 inches. That is the same size as the pipeline that exploded in San Bruno, Calif., in 2010.

Donohue noted that the well-known San Bruno pipeline accident occurred in a suburban area in California and wrecked massive damage on the area, killing eight people. She noted that the pipeline in Manhattan is in a densely populated, economically vibrant neighborhood. In particular, she pointed out that it runs parallel to the High Line. Since the restoration of the High Line, commercial activity has grown exponentially as hotels, condos and businesses flock to the area.

Katzman said a gas vault will be located underneath the Whitney Museum’s new location. A spokesperson for the Whitney confirmed there will be a gas vault connected to or next to it, but did not know the exact location or what impact that proximity would have on the museum’s artwork or insurance.

The pipeline also lies 300 feet from a playground in Hudson River Park.

A spokesperson from Spectra called the concerns unfounded, and said the pipeline was “built to meet or exceed all federal safety regulations.”

“The only thing that our pipeline and the San Bruno pipeline have in common is that they are natural gas pipelines,” the spokesperson said. “Spectra Energy has been delivering safe, reliable, clean natural gas and energy to the New York-New Jersey region for more than 60 years.”

Web videos highlight “a number of safety enhancements” that the Spectra spokesperson said will “ensure that it will be one of the safest pipelines in North America.”  

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who represents the district where the pipeline lies, did not respond to requests for comment.

Susceptible to terrorist attacks?

Katzman pointed to a statement by FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit in New York this spring, citing the U.S. power grid’s susceptibility to terrorist attacks. Wellinghoff said solar energy could protect against lengthy blackouts caused by a potential terrorist attack on the power grid.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security issued several alerts over six months as an apparent cyberattack seemed to be mounting on the control systems of U.S. gas pipelines.

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The post Community fights Greenwich Village gas pipeline appeared first on Metro.us.

Associate Professor of Radiology Yudong Zhu and two researchers, Xin Lang and Ye Li, allegedly shared research funded by a $4 million grant from the National Institute of Health with a Chinese company called United Imaging Healthcare and a Chinese government-sponsored research insititute, the Shenzen Institute of Advanced Technology. NIH research is sponsored by the U.S. government.

When he was confronted by university officials earlier this month, Zhu apparently told them he joined a United Imaging research team in 2011 and a co-lead investigator for a grant from a Chinese government agency to develop MRI technology innovations. Prosecutors allege he traveled to China at least six times to assist with research.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Feingold reportedly said that after he was arrested, Zhu told federal agents that he had been paid $400,000 by United Imaging.

The trio are charged with commercial bribery conspiracy and could serve up to five years in prison. Zhu is facing additional charges for falsifying records because he allegedly neglected to disclose a related patent he had when applying for the NIH grant.

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UPDATE: Cops are looking into a beating in the East Village last night that might be another hate-motivated attack.

The information at this time is limited, but a law enforcement source reported that both the victim and the suspect are residents in a homeless shelter in the East Village. The two reportedly were out for drinks and pizza together, and on the walk back to the shelter talked about the victim being gay. 

The victim reportedly told police that outside the shelter, the suspect mumbled anti-gay slurs and beat him up. The victim told police he was knocked unconscious and treated at a hospital.

The Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

Yesterday, before a vigil and march in the West Village against hate crimes, it was announced that police presence will be increased in the areas in Manhattan that have seen a spate of hate crimes over the last few weeks.

While the total number of bias incidents in down by about 29 percent from last year, anti-gay attacks have nearly doubled, according to police data. There have so far been at least 25 anti-gay incidents, including this SoHo attack, compared to 14 anti-gay incidents by this time last year.

Metro’s original story is below.

Early Tuesday morning, another hate crime occurred in downtown Manhattan, just days after a man was shot in the head by another man shouting homophobic slurs in the West Village.

Two men were walking up Broadway in SoHo at 5:20 a.m. when two other men started shouting anti-gay slurs at them, police said.

They were reportedly shouting “pato” and “maricon,” Spanish slurs used against black and gay people. They also reportedly called them, in English, “f—ing faggots.”

The shouting developed into a physical confrontation, and the two aggressors punched one of the victims repeatedly in the face, causing swelling and cuts around his right eye.

Police arrested two suspects in the area shortly after. The suspects, Fabian Ortiz, 32, and Pedro Jimenez, 23, are being charged with assault as a hate crime, which is a felony.

While the total number of bias incidents in down by about 29 percent from last year, anti-gay attacks have nearly doubled. There have so far been at least 25 anti-gay incidents, including this SoHo attack, compared to 14 anti-gay incidents by this time last year.

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The post Another hate crime in Manhattan: two arrested in SoHo assault appeared first on Metro.us.

An analysis by New York City’s public advocate may indicate that racial profiling does not contribute to effective stops.

The report looked at public NYPD data on stop-and-frisk from 2012, and found that weapons and guns were more often found on white New Yorkers than African-Americans or Latinos.

The NYPD discovered a weapon in one of every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. They only found weapons on one of every 71 Latinos stopped and one in every 93 African-Americans stopped, the public advocate’s office said.

Contraband, including marijuana, was also found more frequently on white New Yorkers than minorities. One out of every 43 white people stopped had illegal substances on them, while illegal items were found on one out of every 57 Latinos and every 61 African-Americans.

The director of policy at Bronx Defenders, a holistic public defense organization, said the data align with “what we see representing clients every day in the Bronx.”

“Despite promised reforms a year ago, black and Latino New Yorkers — especially young people — are still stopped every day based on nothing more than the color of their skin or the neighborhood they hang out in,” said director Kate Rubin.

The report acknowledges an overall reduction in stops but found that the skewed proportion of stops of minorities is still the same. Minorities constitute 84 percent of all stops, but make up only 54 percent of all New Yorkers.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said there is “an ugly truth in these numbers” and said the inefficacy of the system puts communities and police officers in danger.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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If you drew a map of Manhattan, what would your landmarks be?

For one man, a smattering of dots marked six wives and three lovers. Notably, the third, fifth and sixth wives were plotted about a block apart.

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  Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps

Another map-maker left his map nearly blank, but for a small “x” in the southeast corner of Central Park with the note: “met my wife.”

A third cartographer noted at the tip-top end of Manhattan: “ruined a kickball game by kicking ball into Hudson.” Slightly further south is the note: “FIRST CRUSH I was 27.”

These maps, and 72 others, are part of a collection by Becky Cooper, titled “Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers,” out of a public art project Cooper started in 2009.

She handmade hundreds of blank maps using a letterpress at school, and initially hid 300 of them around the city, in the Waldorf and the backseats of taxis, hoping people would stumble across them. She printed her P.O. box number on the back, expecting people would fill them out and send them back to her.

But she said that none came back, until she had a conversation with a boutique owner downtown who caught her trying to stash a map in the store. Cooper explained the project and a week later received a map in the mail that she knew was from that woman.

“The conversation had invested her enough in the project to return the map,” Cooper said. After that, she and her roommate walked the length of Manhattan, from Marble Hill to Battery Park, with a shoebox of maps, and handed them out to strangers.

A contribution from New Yorker staff writer Patricia Marx, a twenty-year Manhattan resident who is apparently “still annoyed with Broadway for running on a diagonal.” Credit: Becky Cooper.

Her book chronicles that walk, recounting little stories about the people she encountered. The text of the book is, in fact, her own map of Manhattan.

When she first considered producing a collection of the maps, she spread them all out on the floor and tried to group them into categories. A lot of people used to maps to chronicle numerous lovers, and it was then that it occurred to her that the maps were little love stories.

She noted the lost or haunted feeling that can come after a breakup, the disorienting feeling of traveling through a city pockmarked with memories.

“You feel like you’re in a ghost town,” Cooper said.

Cooper recounted the words of a friend after the end of a five-year relationship: “She’s never lived in New York without being with him. She was like, ‘My whole map of the city is skewed. I don’t know the city without him.’”

Cooper hesitated when asked if she has a favorite map.

“I feel like it’s like picking your favorite child,” she said. “I definitely have maps whose circumstances I remember more than others.”

She said the second-to-last map in the book, which portrays a four-decade-long relationship with a late wife, broke her heart when she received it.

“There isn’t an overwhelming amount of emotion that would allow you to distance yourself from it, but you can feel his loss.”

One of the most memorable maps for Cooper, which she calls “Eve.” Credit: Becky Cooper.

That sender had put his own return address label on the map, so she searched his name online and discovered the eulogy he wrote for her in a local paper.

“He said, ‘She was the most wonderful person I’ve ever known,’” Cooper recalled. “I just lost it.”

Cooper had the chance to meet that mapmaker at a reading recently when he approached her to express his gratitude at seeing his map in her collection.

“I knew his name because I love his map so much,” she said.

He told her that making it had helped him to remember things about his wife as he was trying to cope with losing her.

“He thanked me for allowing him to capture that particular Manhattan,” Cooper said.

Cooper is still collecting maps. Blank ones can be accessed here, or found on the cover of Tuesday’s Metro New York. She will be giving a talk and signing books at BookCourt in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 6 at 7 p.m.

“Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and Sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers”

Book Talk and Signing with Becky Cooper

Thursday June 6

7 p.m.

BookCourt 164 Court Street, Brooklyn

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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A 34-year-old man who was robbed of his phone early Sunday morning was able to access his phone’s camera using his computer and provided the police with a photo of a “person of interest.”

At 4:45 a.m. Sunday morning, the victim passed three other men in the pedestrian tunnel at West 190th Street. One of the men grabbed the victim from behind and covered his eyes, while the others went through his pockets and stole cash and his cell phone. The three suspects fled through the Broadway exit of the tunnel.

The victim went home to call 911 and then accessed his cell phone from his computer using an app installed on his phone. He was able to access the camera and take a photo, which he then provided to the police.

Cops are looking to question the man in the photo, and have asked anyone with information about the robbery or the man pictured to call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). All calls are confidential.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Following a Daily News report of a Brooklyn narcotics officer receiving a promotion after costing the city more than $1.5 million in settlements, NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly blasted the city for opting for settlements too frequently.

“The city is too willing to settle the case,” Kelly said to the Daily News. “We need a lot more trials and efforts to determine the true facts in many of these allegations.”

Some of the nearly 60 cases involving the narcotics officer involved racial profiling and slurs.

One of the lawsuits involved the beating of a man whose son was watching.

The City Council has been discussing legislation that would great more stringent anti-profiling laws, which opponents say could open up the NYPD to frivolous lawsuits.

In a public safety address to NYPD captains recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said these lawsuits would result in officers spending time in courtrooms when they could be out on the streets keeping the city safe.

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Vito Lopez may no longer be Sheldon Silver’s colleague as of this morning, but it seems he may still be the Speaker’s problem.

Calls for investigation into Silver have developed into calls for a coup, as women’s groups, government watchdog organizations, and newspaper editorial boards across the state rail against the Speak.

Thursday’s New York Post covered featured the Speaker with Lopez under the headline “Dirty Old Men.” Silver is being criticized for arranging a confidential settlement with staffers who filed sexual harassment complaints against Lopez.

Assemblyman Micah Kellner, running for City Council, told the New York Times the investigation into the confidentiality agreement needs to include “who proposed it, who wrote it, and who required it.”

Lopez was cleared of criminal charges, but a 68-page report by the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics detailed shocking behavior.

Lopez reportedly pushed his hand “all the way up” the inner thigh of an employee, and two others contracted pink eye after consenting to apply eye drops to Lopez’s infected eyes. At a bar in Brooklyn he apparently grabbed the hand of an employee, and squeezed harder when she tried to pull away. She began to cry and he forced her to count to sixty before releasing her.

He also made a staffer massage his hand after asking her if she “felt guilty” about being a victim of sexual assault in college. While she cried, he said, “I like that you’re holding my hand.”

A recent New York Post report stated that state government corruptions costs taxpayers at least $49,710,630.64. According to The Post, that amount of money could fund two new schools, 100 new fire trucks, or the New York Islanders.

The Post noted that the Lopez settlement cost taxpayers $103,000.

Past attacks against Silver have not been successful. Over a decade ago, Syracuse Assemblyman Michael Bragman attempted to overthrow Silver as Assembly Speaker, and Silver immediately took away Bragman’s title as majority leader. Silver’s allies crushed Bragman without Silver ever emerging from his office to come to the floor to defend himself.

A source apparently told the Daily News that Governor Andrew Cuomo is leaving Lopez’s seat vacant until a primary can be held in September, in order to prevent Lopez from being able to exert any control over his replacement in a special election.

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Three men were indicted today on drug trafficking charges after investigators New York State Police Special Investigations Unit traced a drug trail from a handoff in the Bronx on April 9, to a stash house in Corona, Queens.

The investigation yielded approximately 10 pounds of heroin and nine pounds of crystal meth.

The meth is valued at about $960,000, and that amount of heroin could be sold for more than $1 million on the street.

New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said the drug trafficking ring “poured literally pounds of deadly, illicit drugs into the streets of Queens and beyond.”

A search of the Queens stash house uncovered a ledger pertaining to “ice” transaction, $2,000 hidden inside a vent, and supplies for making meth, including masks, grinders, a kilo-press and a scale.

Investigators believe the meth originated from “megalabs” in Mexico. One of the types of heroin they found os known as “black tar” and apparently comes from Mexico as well.

According to State Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan, the bust and seizure are “typical of a pattern” in narcotics investigations throughout the city.

Brennan believes that the presence of meth in the city is an indication that Mexican cartels are trying to “promote the use and addiction to crystal meth” here.

According to the Department of Health, emergency room visited related to meth more than doubled between 2004 and 2011, jumping from 214 to 576.

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Homeless LGBTQ youth from three shelters will be performing in an interactive theater festival this weekend. At one performance, city and state legislators will join, and turn audience ideas into policy proposals. A similar Legislative Theatre event in Brazil produced policy changes affecting human rights and prison conditions.

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After a series of anti-gay attacks in Manhattan, city and state legislators are joining homeless gay youth in an interactive theater performance based on the real-life experiences of the teens involved.

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  Homeless LGBTQ youth rehearse for Theatre of the Oppressed festival

The “legislative performance” is part of a theater festival presented by Theatre of the Oppressed NYC that will take place this Saturday and Sunday, May 18 and 19, at the Church of St. Luke in the Field in Greenwich Village. The legislators’ performance will be on Saturday at 2 p.m.

City Councilmembers Daniel Dromm, Jimmy Van Bramer and Rosie Mendez, City Council Candidate Corey Johnson and New York State Senator Brad Hoylman will join three homeless LGBTQ teen acting ensembles from three local shelters geared at LGBTQ youth: The Ali Forney Center, The Door, and the Hetrick-Martin Institute.

The teens will also be joined on stage by a U.S. Housing and Urban Development policy analyst, Homeless Coordinator Samuel Miller and Department of Justice Regional Director Reinaldo Rivera. 

The plays will deal with the issues that the homeless LGBTQ teens face. Katy Rubin, the 27-year-old founder of both the festival and Theatre of the Opressed NYC, said that one of the main topics is the shortage of shelter beds that are safe for LGBTQ youth and being victims of hate crimes in non-LGBTQ shelters for youth.

There are only 80 bed available in LGBTQ-friendly shelters in New York City, for an estimated 1,800 homeless gay teens.

Some of the teens rehearsing. Clockwise from top: Sophie Nimmannit, TONYC Joker, Member of Door Troupe, Kendall (floor). Credit: Theatre of the Oppressed.

The performances in the festival are interactive: the teens act out a scene and then invite the audience onstage to improv, act out, and brainstorm solutions to the issues portrayed in the scene. At the performance involving legislators, the audience’s ideas will be shaped into policy proposals by the legislators, and the audience will vote on the proposals.

In a similar festival in Brazil, this kind of Legislative Theatre has led to policy changes in education, prison rights, and civil rights, Rubin said.

The performance, as well as all other performances and panel discussions in the festival, are free of charge and open to the public.

“We really want everybody’s voice to be part of the dialogue,” Rubin said.

Legislative Theatre Performance

Saturday, May 18 at 2 p.m.

The Church of St. Luke in the Fields

487 Hudson Street

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Many of these men were being monitored by the NYPD due to suspected connections to terrorists, including a top-level Hamas official, according to NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

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The NYPD, the office of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other law enforcement agencies took down several suspects in a “massive scheme” involving a cigarette smuggling ring. The arrested men were reportedly already on the NYPD’s radar for suspected connections to terrorists.

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  16 indicted in ‘Operation Tobacco Road’

The principal suspects were selling cigarettes untaxed, NYPD Police Commissioner Kelly said, “in a massive raid on the New York Treasuring in the form of cigarette tax avoidance.”

The NYPD had apparently been monitoring the suspects out of concern about the connection some of these men had to a top Hamas official as well as Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheik” convicted in a 1995 trial involving a plot to bomb New York City landmarks.

One suspect, Yousef Odeh, reportedly told police he sold 15,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes, with a total value of $780,000. These 15,000 cartons were sold to just three customers.

Odeh also ran a baby formula business. Over a decade ago, Rahman was one of his investors. He also had personal and financial ties to Ahmed Abdel Sattar, who apparently was a spokesman for the Rahman during his trial and transmitted messages to Rahman’s supporters in Egypt and Afghanistan. 

Another suspect arrested yesterday was Muaffaq Askar, reportedly a “confidante” of Rashid Baz. Baz was convicted in the 1994 killing of 16-year-old Ari Halberstam, when he fired on a van full of of Hasidic students on the Brooklyn Bridge. He was sentenced to 141 years. Baz, who was Lebanese, reportedly referred to Askar as his “Palestinian uncle.”

According to the Attorney General’s investigation, the ringleader of the organization was Basel Ramadan of Ocean City, Maryland, who, with his brother Samir, bought cigarettes in Virginia and stored them in Delaware. Several times a week, Adel Abuzarieh would drive from Brooklyn to Delaware with tens of thousands of dollars in cash to purchase cigarettes from the Ramadan brothers. Abuzarieh sometimes carried over $100,000 in one trip.

The Ramadans’ profits from cigarettes alone reportedly totaled some $55 million, in addition to $10 million from other illegal activities, the Attorney General’s office said.

The crime ring also included New York-based distributors and resellers in bodegas throughout the five boroughs. One of the resellers, Mohanned Seif, also sold cigarettes to grocery stores upstate near Albany and Schenectady.

It’s estimated that New York State lost far more than $80 million in tax revenue due to this cigarette smuggling network.

Kelly noted that “it hasn’t been established yet where the illicit proceeds in this case ended up,” but the NYPD is “concerned because similar schemes have been used in the past to help fund terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

The federal agencies involved in the bust will continue investigating the money trail.

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Yale University has been fined $165,000 by the Department of Education for failing to report sexual assaults that occur on campus, according to a Business Insider report.

Yale allegedly did not report four “forcible sex offenses” in 2001 and 2002. Additionally, the school did not explain its policies for alerting students about crimes that occur on campus.

The Clery Act mandates that any school where students get federal financial aid must report crimes on campus yearly.

The DOE investigation into Yale was prompted by a 2004 piece by a law school graduate in the alumni magazine.

The writer, Emily Bazelon, recounted an incident in 2001 when a female Yale sophomore was pinned down by a male junior in a dorm room. The sophomore said “stop” and “don’t do this” while he masturbated on her. Yale’s “sexual harassment grievance board” confronted the junior after she reported the assault, and the junior confessed, but the school never included it in its Clery report.

Bazelon pointed out that this lack of reporting could be responsible for Yale’s low number of sex offenses relative to other Ivy League schools. Yale reported five sex offenses between 2000 and 2002. In the same period, Harvard reported 80 and Princeton reported 29.

In 2001, Yale reported 20 sex offenses.

In response to the $165,000 DOE fine, Yale told the New Haven Register that the school “fully supports the Department of Education’s mandate under the Clery Act and believes that student safety is of paramount importance.”

But they added that because the violations happened several years ago, the “imposition of maximum fines is not warranted.”

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Public Advocate Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan Thursday intended to promote the safety and economic involvement of immigrants in New York City.

The plan would eliminate bureaucratic obstacles faced by domestic violence victims, who are eligible for a special visa, lessen cooperation with the federal detention and deportation process, and eliminate the city’s Human Resources Administration’s mandate that sponsors of legal immigrants repay the city for assistance sought by the individuals they sponsor.

“Our city can’t be whole while hundreds of thousands of people are living in the shadows,” de Blasio said.

Karen Kaminsky at the New York Immigration Coalition called de Blasio’s proposals “common sense,” and said they “will contribute to rebuilding a sense of trust between the NYPD and the communities they serve.”

“NYC should not be in the business of helping deport people,” Kaminsky said.

De Blasio’s proposal includes legislation similar to that in Colorado, which would enable immigrants to get driver’s licenses and auto insurance, as well as legislation that currently exists or is being put in place in New Haven, San Francisco and Los Angeles, which would provide undocumented immigrants with municipal IDs, giving them access to city services.

“We’re seeing states and cities around the country take the lead in opening their doors,” de Blasio said. “New York City has to retake the mantel of the nation’s premier open city, that welcomes all immigrants and knits them into our civic life.”

Council members, including Daniel Dromm and Gale Brewer, recently proposed legislation to allow noncitizens to vote in municipal elections. While Mayor Michael Bloomberg has generally been a vocal proponent of immigrant rights, his office said they would not support such legislation because it conflicts with state law.

The Mayor’s Office of Immigration Affairs, established in 1984, is the only chartered immigrant affairs office in the country.

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The Center for Constitutional Rights slammed the NYPD today over the leak of an internal report from the mayor’s office apparently finding Judge Shira Scheindlin biased against law enforcement.

Scheindlin has a long history of covering stop-and-frisk related cases, and is presiding over a major one currently. The Center of Constitutional Rights is on one side of that case; the NYPD and the City are on the other.

The report was apparently leaked to the New York Daily News. According to the News, the report found that Scheindlin decided against law enforcement in 60 percent of her written opinions on “search-and-seizure” over the course of her nearly two decades on the bench. The study allegedly also says that rate is the highest among 16 current and former Manhattan federal judges that the report included since 1990.

The mayor’s office reportedly declined to comment to the News, but Scheindlin told the News that the study is “completely misleading” as it doesn’t include any rulings from the bench.

While the majority of her written opinions may involve dismissing evidence, she told the News that in “nearly all” of her bench rulings on seized evidence, she has denied motions to suppress.

Early this year, the judge ruled on a case involving stops in some Clean Halls buildings. She ordered that the stops cease, but a short time later rescinded that ruling.

CCR released a statement calling the report “nothing short of outrageous.”

“Having already attacked the Center for Constitutional Rights, communities mobilizing to end violent and discriminatory policing, and the press, the attack on a respected judge scrapes the bottom of the litigation barrel,” the statement read.

CCR recommended that the city instead focus on “studies to remedy the persistent constitutional violations in its police department.”

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to whether the NYPD was responsible for the leak, as CCR’s statement implied.

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An exclusive NY Post report exposed a 34-year-old medieval-art expert as an alleged Peeping Tom.

NYU professor Ross Finocchio was reportedly video-recording women in the dressing rooms at Beacon’s Closet but placing his iPhone in a shoe and sliding it under the divider towards the neighboring changing room.

A 26-year-old alleged victim reportedly told the store manager she noticed him slip something under the door as she was getting dressed, and then she and the manager reportedly watched him do it to a second female.

The manager, Stephanie Williams, reportedly knocked on the door and told him he had to come out.

She told the Post that when he exited the the changing room, “he was sweating profusely.”

A co-worker reportedly called the police as Finocchio tried to justify his behavior.

Williams recounted him saying, “I’m so embarassed. I was recording myself for a project—if I could just explain myself.”

Finocchio is charged with unlawful surveillance which is a felony. He reportedly admitted to making the recordings.

An NYU spokesman reportedly said, “Until this matter is cleared up, he will not be assigned to any duties that involves contact with students.”

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