The New York Observer » Crime Waves

Crime Waves: “Splashed With Acid,” Bobby Flay, and More

Celebrity chefs who cheat employees! Brooklyn rabbis who molest young boys! "College-age" people who get angry and arrested at MTA meetings!

A Harlem high school janitor steals from his employer to pay his sons' boarding school tuition; plus, murder and identity theft among the Russians of Read More

Crime Waves: ‘Throwing the Book at the Hulking Murderer’

After a rough February, March is off to a similar start: there are machetes in The New York Times. Police shot and wounded a machete-wielding man in Brooklyn after receiving reports of "an emotionally disturbed person," reports The Times.

The Daily News describes this person's weapon merely as "a knife."

Elsewhere: a Queens Read More

Crime Waves: ‘The Worst Possible System, Except for All the Others’

Jerry Seinfeld is scamming the system: his driver uses a police placard, even though Jerry Seinfeld is not police!

Meanwhile, a Greenwich Village restaurant owner has been menacing his landlord with all manner of frightening things, including "pliers, a hammer, a fake gun, and even sexual assault by a large Eastern European Read More

Crime Waves: Night at the Museum

Bronx Criminal courts are in chaos! Madoff-affiliated Ponzi schemers are still getting busted! Bar-brawling firefighters have turned themselves in!

Even guards at the American Museum of Natural History are getting criminal: When they're not protecting dinosaur dioramas, they're stabbing one another in taverns.

Counterfeiters are copying designer Read More

Crime Waves: ‘All This is Very Surprising’

The police officers accused of attacking Michael Mineo were acquitted yesterday. Jurors were apparently unconvinced by the ambiguous physical evidence they saw, and the prosecution succeeded in undermining Mineo's credibility.

"It would seem that the prosecution allowed the victim to go on trial," Al Sharpton said, according to the Post.

The Times concludes Read More

Crimes Waves: ‘The Smell Was Atrocious’

Astor drama continues. Judith DeMarco, a juror, has told defense lawyers that her vote to convict was based on fear for her own safety rather than belief in Anthony Marshall's guilt--DeMarco says that she "held out as long as [she] could," but ultimately felt threatened by other members of the jury. According to Read More

Crime Waves: ‘He’s a Rebel’

Face-slashing former state senator Hiram Monerrate feels he should not have lost his post. He feels the Senate had no business expelling him. Reports The Times:

“The Senate claims it has inherent powers to do what it wants with regard to its members,” [Monserrate lawyer Steven] Hyman said. “We claim that’s wrong.”
The counsel for Read More

Crime Waves: ‘Who Would Want to Steal a Greyhound?’

The Times reports today on the NYPD databases that catalogue the distinguishing characteristics of potentially criminal New Yorkers:

The tattoo database is one of dozens kept by the Police Department in its technological information hub, the Real Time Crime Center, to jump-start criminal investigations by giving detectives more to go on than a person’s Read More

Crime Waves: ‘An Animal That Changes its Appearance, Changes its Color and Likes to Get High’

The Michael Mineo police brutality trial is wrapping up, but testimony remains as contentious as ever. Yesterday defense lawyers flat-out called Mineo a liar. The Daily News writes:

"He has no regard for society at all," lawyer Stuart London said, detailing Mineo's seven arrests and his inconsistent statements and comparing him to his tattoo Read More

Crime Waves: ‘There Are Numerous Ways to be Killed in New York’

Violent crime has declined, but that does not mean you should feel safe.

"In a city where homicides have fallen to a record low, it may be overlooked that there are numerous ways to be killed in New York," writes The Times, "and those who die by accident have done so in numbers remarkably Read More

Crime Waves: ‘A Champagne Cork and a Carton of Tropicana Orange Juice’

Kashmir Snowdon-Jones--a 21-year-old "sometime model and increasingly well-known Manhattan party girl"--has been charged with identity theft and grand larceny, reports the Post. She apparently stole credit card information from a former friend:

The blond beauty, whose family claims to be descended from British bluebloods, allegedly used the stolen plastic to charge takeout burritos and Read More

Crime Waves: ‘I Touched His Hand and Talked to Him in Bulgarian’

"Manhattan federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal tax-fraud case against Bernard Madoff's brother and sons," the Post reports today. Details are apparently unclear, but the family members are accused of using the fruits of Madoff's Ponzi scheming as "a personal piggy bank."

In other news of criminal relatives, Michael Douglas' drug-trafficking son apparently served as Read More

Crime Waves: ‘It Happens’

Larry Seabook's alleged corruption has left his fellow city council members "jittery," reports the Post:

There's a feeling of "disappointment that these issues continue to pop up," said Councilman Leroy Comrie of Queens, who, like Seabrook, is a Democrat.
"Hopefully, this is the last one," he said.

The Times, meanwhile, considers Seabrook's Read More

Crime Waves: ‘Bagels Can Be Expensive’

The state senate has voted to expel face-slashing Queens senator Hiram Monserrate, who was convicted last fall of misdemeanor assault. The Times chronicles the political vacillations that led to this point. According to the Daily News, Monserrate has promised to challenge the decision, saying "he expects to be a senator for Read More

Crime Waves: ‘Cruel and Mean’

Federal prosecuters have recommended that former police commissioner Bernard Kerik serve 27 to 33 months in prison. The defense is requesting leniency. According to The Times:

Mr. Kerik’s lawyer, Michael F. Bachner, filed dozens of letters attesting to Mr. Kerik’s character, many of them from retired police officials who worked alongside him.
Former Mayor Rudolph Read More