Henry Hill used sternos and paper to start this fire at the Bamboo Lounge in Goodfellas. Fire officials are trying to determine what started the fire in Wiseguys, Hill's newly opened restaurant in Connecticut.

In what may be a case of life imitating art imitating life, Henry Hills' new mob-themed restaurant in West Haven burned last night. Connecticut fire official don't know the cause of the fire, which started in the attic. The place didn't burn to the ground so it doesn't seem like it was a professional torch job like the one Henry Hill and Tommy DeSimone did to the Bamboo Lounge in Goodfellas, but we'll see.

Henry Hill didn't appear to be to worried about reprisals of any kind in an interview in August.

From Connecticut's WTNH:

Fire crews battled an early morning fire at the new Wiseguys restaurant in West Haven.

The fire broke out around 3 a.m. in the attic of the restaurant at 848 Boston Post Road.

"Fire was contained to the attic, but there's considerable smoke damage and water damage to the first floor of the building," Allingtown Fire Chief Victor Sampietro said.

The restaurant opened last month. Henry Hill, the mobster turned informant, is one of those behind the restaurant.

Hill's life was played out in the movie "Goodfellas."

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Greg Scarpa Sr. and his moll Linda Schiro, who is now the Brooklyn DA's star witness against an FBI agent accused of going to the dark side.
Polaris

Lawyers for both the defense and prosecution subpoenaed Village Voice staff writer Tom Robbins Tuesday night after the Voice published a story by Robbins that calls in to question key testimony of a star witness against Lindley DeVecchio, a former FBI agent accused of helping the mob commit murder.

In 1997, Robbins and Jerry Capeci, the city's most knowledgeable organized crime reporter, interviewed Linda Schiro, the former companion of Greg "the Grim Reaper" Scarpa, for a book about her life with one of the mob's deadliest killers.

In those interviews, Schiro contradicted testimony she gave over two days on the stand when she said DeVecchio had a hand in four mob murders. When she talked with Robbins and Capeci, she said that DeVecchio indeed did have a role in the murder of Patrick Porco, an 18-year-old slain in Brooklyn in 1990. But she told the reporters in 1997 that DeVecchio did not have a role in the three other murders.

As the Daily News put it, "The Tapes May Tell a Different Story." Robbins told the News "The story that Linda Schiro told us in three of four of the murders is diametrically opposed to the testimony she is giving in court. She's lying to somebody."

Robbins reported to court this morning with his notes and his lawyer. Stay tuned.

In what is being described in some news reports as a terribly misguided Halloween prank, two city firefighters were arrested and charged with arson for setting a small blaze outside of a Midtown firehouse.

From the FDNY:

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta today announced the arrest of two New York City firefighters who used a flammable liquid and set fire to a Manhattan firehouse early Saturday morning. Fire marshals and investigators from the city's Department of Investigation arrested Michael Izzo, 30, and Richard Capece, 31, and charged them with Arson in the Second Degree, Reckless Endangerment in the First Degree and Criminal Mischief in the Second Degree - all felonies. The two men are accused of using a flammable liquid to ignite the firehouse apparatus door at Engine 34/Ladder 21 at 440 West 38th Street. The incident occurred at about 2:15 a.m. Saturday, October 27. A firefighter working at the time noticed smoke from the fire seeping into the firehouse and alerted members on duty, who quickly extinguished the fire. No injuries were reported. The two suspects have been taken to the 5th Precinct for processing. Commissioner Scoppetta called the incident "an outrageous, depraved act that should be prosecuted to the full extent under the law." If convicted of the charges, both men face termination from the FDNY. Izzo, of Staten Island, a six-year veteran, is assigned to Engine 242 in Brooklyn. Capece, a Brooklyn resident, has been with the Department for five years and works at Engine 1 in Manhattan.

If the allegations against him prove true, then Umesh Ramjattan is a teacher whose creepiness is only exceeded by his stupidity. Ramjattan, an English teacher at MS 137 in Ozone Park, gave his students his email address for homework help and questions, Queens DA Richard Brown said. But the 22-year-old rookie teacher had more than homework help on his mind and made inappropriate email contact with three 12-year-old students, the DA said.

Once he started emailing with one student from his gmail account, Ramjattan then used Yahoo and Aol accounts to send emails of a "personal and suggestive" nature, the DA said. On October 3, he sent that same student a video of him having sex with his girlfriend. He also harassed two other 12-year-olds, authorities said.

The full release from the Queens DA after the jump:

From the Queens DA:

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that an English teacher at a middle school in the South Ozone Park section of Queens has been charged with sending sexual videos and electronic messages to three of his 12-year-old female students.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant, who just began his teaching career last month, is accused of providing his students with an e-mail address to which they could contact him with questions about their schoolwork and then turning around and using their e-mail addresses to send indecent messages and pictures to them. This case should serve as a clear and unmistakable warning that law enforcement is prepared to apprehend and prosecute sexual predators who betray and defile youngsters.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Umesh Ramjattan, 22, of 91-71 115th Street in Richmond Hill, Queens. Ramjattan, a first-year teacher at MS 137 in Ozone Park, is presently being held pending arraignment in Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens on charges of Disseminating Indecent Material to Minors in the First Degree and Endangering the Welfare of a Child. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the charges, one of Ramjattan’s female seventh-grade students sent an e-mail on September 29, 2007 to the e-mail address the defendant had provided the class (mrramjattan@gmail.com) to ask him a question about school work. Soon thereafter, it is alleged that Ramjattan began instant messaging her from the screen name mrramjattan1@aol.com with questions that were both sexually suggestive and of a personal nature and that, on October 3, 2007, he sent her (via e-mail from umeshr85@yahoo.com) a video of him and his girlfriend having sexual intercourse. It is further charged that a second female student who e-mailed the defendant about her homework began receiving instant messages from him through his AOL account on September 29, 2007, that contained questions of a personal nature and that, sometime in early October, she received a picture of the defendant where he was not wearing a shirt. Finally, it is alleged that a third female student who e-mailed the defendant for help with her homework began receiving instant messages from the defendant through his AOL account that were both personal and sexual in nature.

District Attorney Brown said that and investigation began when the parents of one of the students notified school authorities that Ramjattan had e-mailed a sexual video to their daughter and the school, in turn, notified the police.

The defendant was arrested yesterday and, in statements allegedly made to police, admitted to having inappropriate instant message conversations with the three young victims and sending the video and images of himself but that he only did it after school.

The investigation was conducted by Detectives Donna Garrison and Owen Soba of the NYPD’s Computer Crimes Squad under the supervision of Lieutenant Dennis Lane and the overall supervision of Chief Jeremiah Quinlan.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Kateri A. Gasper is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Robert D. Alexander, Chief of the District Attorney’s Computer Crimes Unit, and Anthony M. Communiello, Bureau Chief of the District Attorney’s Special Proceedings Bureau, and Oscar W. Ruiz, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Linda M. Cantoni.

It should be noted that a criminal complaint is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The Talking Radio blog reported on Tuesday that liberal talk radio host Randi Rhodes was mugged and brutally attacked while walking her dog near 39th Street and Park Avenue, but the NYPD can't confirm the report.

From the blog:

According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. At of late Monday night we have not able to locate any press accounts of the attack and nothing has been posted on the AAR website....Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying "it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home."

Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."

But according to Det. Cavitolo, an NYPD spokesman, "Nothing has been filed with us. We have no reports of an incident."

We are awaiting a callback from Air America. Stay tuned.

Lindley DeVecchio

Can a one-time campus radical who was surveilled by the FBI be a fair judge for an ex-FBI agent on trial for murder?

Former FBI supervisory agent Roy Lindley DeVecchio — facing four murder counts for allegedly helping his Mafia informant — is betting his life on it.

DeVecchio, 67, got the fall jurisprudence season off to a bang this morning by announcing that he wants Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach — rather than a jury of his peers — to decide if he's guilty as charged of helping his top mob informant murder four rivals.

"I want the case heard in front of an impartial individual who will assess the facts as presented," said DeVecchio.

Reichbach, who was first elected to the bench in 1991, warned DeVecchio he was taking a big chance, not least of which is that Reichbach might have no love for the FBI because it once targeted him for surveillance as a dangerous radical.

The FeeBees started watching Reichbach as a law student at Columbia University in the late 1960s when the campus was aboil with anti-war activities. In court, Reichbach told DeVecchio and his lawyers, Douglas Grover and Mark Bederow, that twenty years ago he had used the federal Freedom of Information Law to obtain a portion of his FBI file. What he got revealed that the feds had singled him out as a major troublemaker.

"One document stands out in memory," said Reichbach, as "flattering and personally satisfying." That April, 1969 memo declared Reichbach "one of the more dangerous persons in SDS." At the time, the Students for a Democratic Society was a leading anti-war group. The memo-writer described the judge-to-be as "a powerful speaker with strong charismatic appeal"

Reichbach told DeVecchio that, despite the surveillance, he has "no personal animus" and that he was "obliged to be fair and impartial." But he said he wanted to put his past encounter with the bureau on the record so that DeVecchio knew about it upfront. If Reichbach finds the agent guilty, he warned DeVecchio, the defendant won't be able to claim bias against the FBI as grounds for appeal.

DeVecchio whispered for 15 seconds with his attorneys and then told the judge that was fine with him. According to Juan Gonzalez, the Daily News columnist who helped lead a 1968 campus revolt at Columbia, Reichbach was one of many firebrands at the school. "Gussie was a good speaker," he said.

Brooklyn assistant district attorney Michael Vecchione did not object to the DeVecchio's decision to seek a bench trial in the case. Reichbach set October 15 for opening arguments in the case. Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes has charged DeVecchio with funneling information to deceased Columbo crime family captain Greg Scarpa Sr. that Scarpa then used to target those he deemed a threat.

In a crime straight out of Bad Lieutenant, a Brooklyn cop was convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree for sexually molesting a female motorist after a traffic stop in Bushwick.

Officer Fernando Clerge, 40, will face a maximum of seven years jail time when sentenced next month. The state Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn, however, acquitted Clerge of the most serious charge attempting to commit a criminal sexual act.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes provided the following account of the crime:

On November 20, 2005, Clerge and his partner, Charles McGeean, 39, were on duty when they pulled over a female motorist. McGeean sexually abused her in her car and then the officers followed her to her home in Bushwick. Once they arrived at the victim’s home, McGeean touched the victim’s buttocks and then left the apartment, leaving Clerge alone with the victim. Clerge then kissed the victim, groped her breasts attempted to force her to perform oral sex on him, and masturbated in front of her.

Clerge's DNA was found in the victim's apartment and on her clothing. McGeean pled guilty to misconduct and sexual abuse in the third degree in March and was sentenced to three years probation.

Nassau County detectives have arrested a 20-year-old Oregon man in connection with a gay-bias attack on a former Top Chef contestant and her friends outside a Sea Cliff bar over the Labor Day weekend.

Matthew W. Walli was charged with second-degree robbery as a hate crime for stealing a video camera from Josie Smith-Malave, a former contestant on Bravo's TV reality show and a player on the New York Sharks woman's football team. Police say Walli was part of a group of about a dozen people who attacked Smith-Malave and three friends after both parties were ejected from Partners bar on September 1 after a dispute.

"The altercation escalated when the group began spitting on them and physically hitting them after making derogatory statements about the four women's sexual orientation," Nassau County police said in a press release. "During the altercation, Walli forcibly stole a video camera from one of the four women causing her to fall and injure her knee."

Walli was arrested on Wednesday and was awaiting arraignment in First District Court in Hempstead Thursday. The investigation is continuing, police said.

According to the NYCLU, of the 1,076 police officers who were referred to an administrative trial to face charges between 1998 and 2004, approximately 63 percent received no discipline.
Photo by Surburban Cowboy via Flickr

The title of the New York Civil Liberties Union report on the Civilian Complaint Review Board says it all: "Mission Failure: Civilian Review of Policing in New York City, 1994-2006." The NYCLU says the CCRB is failing in its City Charter-mandated mission to undertake "complete, thorough and impartial" investigations of police misconduct complaints brought by civilians.

According to the NYCLU:

The report finds that the reasons for the CCRB’s failure are fundamental: lack of commitment to the principle of civilian review, obstructionism by the police department, little support from public officials and inadequate human and financial resources.

The report says the CCRB closes more cases without an investigation today than it did in years past. "The CCRB has historically closed about 50 percent of police-misconduct complaints without initiating an investigation; between 2002 and 2005 the “truncation” rate increased to 55 percent. In 2006 the CCRB closed 60 percent of all complaints without undertaking an investigation," the report said.

A spokesman for the CCRB said some of the reports findings— a lack of cooperation from the NYPD, for example— are legitimate. But CCRB spokesman Andrew Case the NYCLU used some statistics improperly to "unfairly malign the CCRB."

Today the NYCLU stated that the CCRB substantiates 5% of its total cases, calling the figure "well below the naional average" of 10-12%. They arrived at this figure by comparing apples to oranges -- the total cases the CCRB substantiates divided by the total cases received in a year, even those it is unable to investigate.

The following data show similar figures for the two next largest Civilian Oversight investigative agencies, in DC and San Francisco (LA and Chicago have no civilian investigative oversight agencies):

DC Office of Police Complaints:
2006 total complaints: 435
Total substantiated: 13
percent substantiated: 2.9%

San Francisco Office of Civilian Complaints
Jan-June 2007 total investigations completed: 1,290
Jan-June 2007 total complaints substantiated: 15
percent: 1.1%

When agencies are compared nationwide on an equal footing, the CCRB's substantiation rate is in fact higher than average.

Police are investigating a small bomb blast outside a theater founded by Michael Imperioli, seen here in cartoon form.

The NYPD bomb squad is investigating an explosion that occurred shortly after 1 am outside of a four-story Chelsea building that is home to Studio Dante, a non-profit theater founded by Michael Imperioli, who played Spider in Goodfellas and Christopher in "The Sopranos."

The police department released this short statement:

ON 9-04-07 AT APPROX 0110 HOURS IN FRONT OF 257 WEST 29 STREET POLICE RESPONDED TO THE REPORT OF AN EXPLOSION AT THE LOCATION. UPON THERE ARRIVAL THEY DISCOVERED A SMALL EXPLOSIVE DEVICE WHICH CAUSED MINOR DAMAGE TO A PARKED CAR IN FRONT OF THE LOCATION. NO INJURIES. BOMB SQUAD INVESTIGATING.

As Runnin' Scared reported last month, Michael Rispoli is preparing a one-man show about the life of Jimmy Breslin at the same theater.

Goodfellas' Henry Hill says he's an artist, a bullshit artist.

Take a quick trip through the windmills of the mind of Henry Hill, the infamous Brooklyn-born gangster who collaborated with Nicholas Pileggi on Wiseguy, the memoir that became of the basis for Goodfellas. These days he's peddling his art on ebay.

Stops include spaghetti sauce, painting, the Voice, the Witness Protection Program, disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, and "learning to fuck again" after being circumcised as an adult.

Village Voice: ...So how are you these days?

Henry Hill: Ugh, I’m tired right now. I had a rough weekend.

VV: What did you do?

HH: I went down to the beach with the bitches. No, I didn’t. It was eye candy, you know what I mean? I went and hung out at a couple of friends’ houses. All the same shit.

VV: Tell me a little bit about your art work. When did you start painting? I didn’t realize…

HH: My bullshit art, or my art? I’m a bullshit artist. No no no no. I’ve been painting for years. Actually I started painting when I was in the penitentiary, in Lewisburg, and I’ve been painting since. Kind of a little successful at it, you know? It pays the bills. I gotta put a kid through college, just started school. So I’m gonna keep fucking working. Ain't no rest for the weary.

VV: Now you’re opening up a restaurant, too, is that right?

HH: Yeah, yeah, it’s on Boston Post Road. The address is… Fuck, I don’t even know the address, hold on. 848 Boston Post Road. It’s right by Yale. And there’s another school right there on the street, too.

VV: Who’s going to school there? Your son?

HH: No, my son’s not going to Yale. He’s going to another school down south. ... Fucking kids. I don’t know if you’ve got any… But you’re going to be misfortunate some day.

VV: Where do you get your ideas from when it comes to the painting?

HH: I don’t know. It depends which side of bed I wake up on in the morning. I could do real good art, you know what I mean, but I like to do real fucked up art. You know what I mean?

VV: Explain.

HH: Well, you know, it’s just what comes into my head at that certain time. If I don't have any beers in me then my hands are shaking and I’ve got to do abstract. That can get serious. It’s just a process. Whatever goes through my sick, fuckin' mind.

VV: I mean, are you just capitalizing on the movie, or is it just stuff that goes through your mind?

HH: The windmills of my mind, you know what I mean? I don’t know, whatever... That’s what I paint. And it’s a healing process, you know? It is, actually for me, it’s like going to confession. I don’t know if you’re Catholic or whatever. But it’s like going to confession. Bless me father for I have sinned. Please forgive me God... you know.

VV: I thought you converted though.

HH: I don’t know. I flip flop back and forth. You know what I am? I’m spiritual. I go to all denominations, you know what I mean? I don’t prefer any one. Just do ‘em all.

VV: I thought an interesting subject for a painting would be the two dogs, one looking in one direction, one…

HH: Haha, yeah. That’s a lot of work and I’m working on it, you know what I mean? That’s Scorsese.

VV: That’s his mother’s actual painting, right?

HH: Yeah, yeah, his mother painted that.

VV: I mean, your work on perspective isn’t probably there yet.

HH: That’s a lot of work, that painting.

VV: So you’re not in the witness protection program these days, right?

HH: No, no, no. They threw me the fuck out of there.

VV: What happened?

HH: Naw, nothing nothing. I got popped up in Seattle for… for being a Goodfella, you know what I mean? Or whatever. Seven years with those guys every Goddamn two weeks on a fucking plane and going somewhere for neutral site meetings and debriefings. Seven years was enough for me. It wore on me, you know what I mean? It messed my family up. 'Cause I was never home. I was always traveling, fucking being debriefed and all this other nonsense.

VV: You’re living more out in the open now, right?

HH: Oh sure, yeah, of course. I got nothing to worry about. All those people are dead. I’m the sole survivor. Remember the Sole Survivors?

VV: You’re not worried about any disgruntled… What about Jimmy Burke’s [the real-life “Jimmy Conway” who Robert DeNiro portrayed in Goodfellas] kids or something like that?

HH: I think he’s think he’s only got two daughters left, and they’ve got their own problems. I don’t even know if Micky’s still alive and I don’t really care. No no no. Friends still look out for me, you know what I mean? They watch my back. But I don’t do nothing wrong. I sell my art on eBay. I’m managing my stepson; he does beats. He lives in Malibu. Good kid.

VV: Beats for hiphop music?

HH: Yeah, yeah, hiphop music. Makes you crazy sometimes. But it’s good.

VV: Does he sell them or anything?

HH: Yeah, no, he sells them. He sells them all day long.

VV: He’s got a website?

HH: Yeah, a good website, too. He’s a good kid, you know what I mean? I want him to make some fucking money so he’ll get the fuck out of the house over here.

VV: What did you think about the NBA ref getting caught up in that point shaving?

HH: That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Gotta eat. Stupid Irish fuck.

VV: But why’s that just the tip of the iceberg? What else is out there?

HH: This guy is facing twenty-four years, dude, and he’s going to sing like a fucking bird. You watch. You got him cold. He just took a plea.

VV: What do you suppose will come out though?

HH: He’ll do a little time. But he’ll do it in a rest camp, maybe. Maybe he’s real lucky and gets enough people… Well, he’s got the Gambino’s involved, plus a few players I’m sure, and a few more refs. So he’s just being debriefed. It’ll take a while. But the indictments will start when you’re out like confetti on New York’s Eve in New York. They’ll be flying, don’t worry about that. He’ll get out of the country, he’ll go somewhere, try to straighten his life out. He’s got to worry about his family. Cause there’s a whole bunch of people involved. Not that I know for sure, but you know. He’s singing like a Jay Bird, you know.

VV: A friend is having a boy, and talking about circumcision. I know you got circumcised later in life. Do you have an opinion on the subject? Would you do it for your own kid?

HH: Of course. It’s the healthiest thing to do.

VV: You don’t regret it at all? Having lived one way versus…

HH: Not at all. It took me a while to learn how to fuck again. It did. It was weird. With a foreskin and without a foreskin, it’s pretty difficult.

VV: What did you have to figure out exactly?

HH: Which way to enjoy the better. You have these memory lapses. Why did I get my dick cut? I had it to get married, get married by the rabbi, so I had to do it. You know? Well, whatever. No, I think it’s a good thing. Honestly I do. But Jewish or not Jewish, it don’t matter. As long as he’s a good kid, stays out of trouble, stays away from all that craziness out there. Well, you’re in New York. You know what’s going on over there. It’s fucking insane.

VV: What is?

HH: What? The world. The whole fucking world is insane... The guys walking around with fucking magnums, fucking 44s and 38s and whatever.

VV: Do you miss New York?

HH: Yeah, I’m going to be back there soon. I sneak in and out occasionally.

VV: Do you feel like it’s unsafe here more than other places?

HH: It’s the same all over. Look at L.A. They don’t even give you body counts out here, you know what I mean?

VV: No, what do you mean?

HH: How many kids got killed down in South Central? They don’t even give you body counts out there. They don’t even put it in the paper. The best kept secret, you know? And what are you going to do, you know what I mean? I mean you could mind your own business and walk down the street. Or your daughter could be playing in the front yard, some of these neighborhoods out here. I mean, I live in the mountains. I could worry about the coyotes eating my dogs or the skunks eating my fish. That’s my major problems, you know what I mean? Really terrible.

VV: What else do you do for fun these days?

HH: I have fun. I try to have fun.

VV: How old are you?

HH: I’m 64. I’m working on a couple movies. I’m doing The Final Four, which is about the Boston College stuff. It’s called The Final Four. Movie with Peter Doyle.

VV: Peter Doyle?

HH: Peter Doyle, yeah, he’s a good writer. Out of Yale. Matter of fact he’s up in my restaurant right now this afternoon, right now.

VV : I thought your restaurant didn’t open yet.

HH: It hasn’t opened yet. But he just went up there to check it out.

VV: It’s in New Haven?

HH: No, it’s in West Haven.

VV: What’s the name of the restaurant?

HH: It’s called Wiseguy’s Italian restaurant. It’s a metaphor, hahaha.

VV: It’s a metaphor for what?

HH: I don’t know. With a name like Hill, I’m Italian? Half Italian. God, and I couldn’t be made. I don’t do drugs no more. I work with kids. I do a lot of speaking stuff at different schools, colleges, law enforcement colleges, this and that. I try to give back a little bit. Hey, I’m so happy I’m alive, you know what I mean? Some day I don’t feel like I’m alive. I wake up in the morning and, you know, I feel terrible. But it takes you about two minutes to get over that. I do some push ups, go for a swim in the pool. But life is good. I got a sauce company, good marinara sauce. I’ll send you a case if you want me to. You’ll find it in all the health food stores. It’s all natural. It’s really good stuff.

VV: Do you slice up the garlic with a razor for the sauce?

HH: Absolutely. My partner Maria is up here. She’s working on a restaurant. My friend… the guy that bankrolled the joint. It’s 6,000 square feet! You gotta come up here, when it opens.

VV: Invite me to the opening.

HH: I think it was scheduled for October 4th, I don’t even know. October 6th is the grand opening. Party. Everybody’ll be there. You might even run into Bobby or Joey or Ray, you know what I mean? Might, never know. They owe me one I think.

VV: Anything else?

HH: No, just ... my art work, that’s all. I just been… I’m interviewed out, actually, everybody with this asshole and the NBA… I tell you what, I love that Voice. It’s the Voice of the people man, the real people, not the fucking a-holes.

<
Henry Hill uses colors well.

One of the most astounding things about buying a piece of Henry Hill's artwork on ebay is that comes with his return address on it. But Hill says he stopped running because most of the people that want him dead are already taking dirt naps. And even though he's left the Witness Protection Program, he says the "feds still look out for him."

"I live in the mountains," says the 64-year-old Hill, the Brooklyn-born gangster, who collaborated with Nicholas Pileggi on Wiseguy, the memoir that became of the basis for Goodfellas. "I gotta worry about coyotes eating my dogs or the skunks eating my fish."

Stayed tuned for the full interview tomorrow when Hill discusses art, the latest NBA gambling scandal, and what it was like to get circumcised as an adult.

As part of a plea deal with the office of Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, Method Man will warn Brooklyn students about the dangers of driving under the influence.

We're trying to wrap our brains around the fact that the Method Man is going to travel to 15 schools in Brooklyn to deliver an anti-drug message to students.

You know, that Method Man, whose name itself is slang term for marijuana. The guy who, for all intents and purposes, is named "Weed Man" or "Marijuana Man" is going to sanctioned by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to lecture students as part of Hynes' Choices and Consequences program, which aims to teach students about the consequences of drunk driving. Or, we presume, in his case, the dangers of driving under the influence of mad ism.

As part of the deal, Meth copped—no not what you're thinking— a guilty plea to a disorderly conduct violation in a Brooklyn courtroom on Thursday, settling his marijuana possession bust from May.

In May, police at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel stopped Meth—whose government name is Clifford Smith—for having an expired inspection sticker. When he rolled down his window, a giant plume of herbal smoke greeted officers— just like in his movies.

Who knows maybe this is crazy enough to work, but we tend to think it's a perfect example of why anti-drug efforts have a tendency to fail.

Method Man's art, persona, and lifestyle are just so inextricably linked to his weed-smoking that we're having a tough time just enumerating the ways. So we decided to make a list.

We figure—with your help—the list will be really long by the time Method starts making his rounds of Brooklyn schools. Send in your suggestions and we'll keep updating the list.

1) His name.
2) He has an album "4:21...The Day After"—a reference to 420
3) The song "How To Roll A Blunt"
4) How High, the movie
5) "How High," the song
6) The lyrics: "I got, fat bags of skunk
I got, White Owl blunts
And I'm about to go get lifted
Yes I'm about to go get lifted"
7) The "Up in Smoke" tour
8) This picture

The man. The myth. The legend. And his artwork.

Henry Hill, the Brooklyn-born gangster, who collaborated with Nicholas Pileggi on Wiseguy, the memoir that became of the basis for Goodfellas is peddling his original artwork on ebay.

Many of the pictures are tropical scenes but some—is that Billy Batts in that trunk?—hearken back to Hill's gangster days. He has over 100 paintings for sale (a guy's got to do something while living on the lam.) The starting bids on most of them are $24.95.

Painting, evidently, helps Hill work out some demons.

This is Henry's description of his work:

THIS IS ORIGINAL ARTWORK By Henry Hill 14 x 17 GOODFELLA HENRY HILL IS THE ORIGINAL HENRY IS IN SEMI RETIREMENT AND ENJOYS PAINTING AND WRITING HE WILL SIGN EVERYTHING HE SELLS WITH C O A PLUS A AUTOGRAPH PICTURE SO OWN A PIECE OF ITALIAN HISTORY.

Is it just me or do I detect a hint of fauvism in his work?

We told you last week how Kenneth "Why I Hate Blacks" Eng was sentenced to counseling for attempting to assault his neighbors with a hammer, only to be picked up moments later on federal charges.

The feds say Eng, a 23-year-old from Queens, made threatening phone calls to an NYU classmate. Eng "did transmit in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat," according to sworn affidavit from an FBI agent who investigates hate crimes.

The criminal complaint contains references to the Voice's reporting on Eng, spit attacks, and bigotry of all varieties.

"Eng is a self-proclaimed racist who hates whites and blacks, and believes that Asians should rise up against them with violence," the complaint states for starters.

It then lays out the incidents at NYU that got Eng into this latest round of trouble:

"In the fall of 2003, Eng's second year at NYU, he was enrolled in an Advanced Production class. On or about September 12, 2003, during this class, Eng stated, in response to a presentation by a female African-American student, that the students should tell the "Negro" that the work was bad. The professor and several students in the class, including John Doe, told Eng that his comments were inappropriate. Shortly thereafter, Eng was expelled from the course. In response to the expulsion, ENG sent an email to the professor, stating in part and substance: 'I was recently pondering whether I should continue to think of jews [sic] as equals, but I think your actions have made up my mind.'"

In the summer of 2004, Eng encountered the John Doe in an editing room and spit in his hair. "Eng then moved closer and spit directly into John Doe's face two times. Eng called John Doe a 'white pussy' and told John Doe, in substance that he recently published an essay advocating militant violence against whites to protect Asian rights," the complaint states.

NYU security escorted the John Doe out of the building. A fews days later, the John Doe was again escorted out by security.

Eight months then passed, and the John Doe received a call from Eng who repeatedly said words to the effect of "Remember me? I'm the guy who spit on you." Eng kept calling the John Doe, intimidating him to the point that he did not show up at the university when the school screened his own movie at an event called "First Run."

Eng's parents posted $500,000 bail. No word yet on when he is due back in court.

Police say these two men are responsible for 11 burglaries.

Police released images on Friday of two suspects wanted in connection with 11 burglaries on the Upper East Side since April. The duo mainly targeted restaurants, hitting everything from high-end places such as Casa Le Femme North and Arturo's to a Ray Bari pizza joint. They also burgled a salon and jewelry store.

Their m.o. was generally the same: enter the establishment after hours and remove cash from the register, sometimes removing the entire cash register itself, police said.

The NYPD rundown only lists addresses so we looked up each place. The burglars have very catholic tastes:

4/12/07, 10:30 pm, Al-Baraka, a Turkish place on 154 E 55th Street

5/12/07, 10:00 pm, Yamaguchi 212, sushi on 212 E 52nd St

6/11/07, 11:30 pm, Sip Sak, another Turkish place on 928 2nd Avenue

6/24/07, 12:30 am, Da Antonio Ristorante on 157 E 55 Street

06/24/07, 3:30 am, Casa La Femme North on 1076 First Avenue

7/13/07, 10 pm, Gisu of Diba Beauty Salon -

07/17/07, 11 am, Ray Bari Pizza

7/17/07, 12:30 pm, Arturo's on 1617 York Avenue

7/19/07, 10 am, Corrado Bakery on 960 Lexington Avenue

7/28/07, 7:30 pm, Orange 64 Inc a salon on 862 Lexington Avenue

07/30/07, 3:45, Siman Tu Jewelry Gallery on 860 Lexington Avenue

Cops says both suspects are about 5-foot-9 and in their 30s. Cops ask anyone with information to call 800-577-TIPS.

Moments after Kenneth "Why I Hate Blacks" Eng was sentenced Thursday to 12 months daily psychotherapy for attempting to assault his neighbors with a hammer, he was picked up by the feds on new charges, according to the NY Post.

Eng first garnered notoriety for penning an essay titled "Why I Hate Blacks" for the Bay Area–based newspaper AsianWeek. But that was just a start for Eng:

From the Voice on May 1st, 2007:

Eight hours after the executions of 32 students at Virginia Tech, Eng posted a grainy video of himself on YouTube. "Good morning, America," says an exuberant Eng from his New York apartment, "I'd just like to say that I just read about the Virginia Tech incident and it was the funniest thing I ever read in my life."

It only got only worse when Voice reporter Chloé A. Hilliard reached Eng on the phone.

"It's speculative but I think that there is a good chance that Cho may have read my work," says Eng. "I might have had something to do with [the VT shootings] because it's kind of conspicuous that [Cho] would shoot all these people so shortly after AsianWeek published all my articles." Cho, in his manifesto, railed against "you," making no reference to race. But Eng believes he understands why Cho felt compelled to commit the murders and applauds him for doing so. "A part of me wishes I was Cho," says Eng, who is the same age as the murderer, 23. "He is my hero."

Even if Eng winds up serving time on the federal charges, he should count himself lucky that he didn't do any time in state prisons. With his opinions, he wouldn't fare too well in, say, the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. He might be a wee bit safer in the federal pen.

We're awaiting a call back from the feds to see what new charges Eng faces. Stayed tuned.

Police released a photo of a suspect wanted for questioning in the slaying of a Brooklyn father who was fatally stabbed on his way to buy milk on Saturday night.

Cops are looking to question Mejia Cinto, 19, about the stabbing death of Anthony Senisi, a 44-year-old plummer and father of two, who was killed just blocks away from his Brighton Beach home shortly before 11 pm.

Police ask anyone with information to call (800) 577-TIPS.

Doesn't this seem more like something a Yankee fan would do? Or a Red Sox fan? Mets fans always appeared more suicidal than homicidal. In any event, it's awfully tragic.

Michael Anthony—no relation to the former bassist of Van Halen—stabbed his mother in the head and beat her to death with a twenty-pound barbell on Saturday night after she tried to break up a fight between him and his father during a Mets game, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Monday.

Anthony, 25, of Fresh Meadows, started pounding on the walls while watching the Mets play the Nationals, Brown said. When his father, Fred Fischman, told him to stop, Anthony punched him in the face and threw him on the ground, Brown said. When his 61-year-old mother, Maria, intervened, Anthony attacked him, authorities said.

From the DA's press release:

The District Attorney said that, according to the criminal charges, the defendant was watching a New York Mets game in his family’s apartment on the night of July 28, 2007, when he began banging on the walls. At that point, his father, Fred Fischman, came into the room and yelled at him to stop. It is alleged that a physical fight then took place between the two men, during which Fischman was punched about the face and thrown to the ground. As the defendant’s mother, 61year-old Maria Fischman, attempted to intercede, the defendant allegedly pushed her and stabbed her once in the head with a knife. Mrs. Fischman then ran into the bedroom, where the defendant allegedly struck her several times in the head with a twenty-pound barbell.

Anthony faces up to 25 years to life on second-degree murder, third-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon charges. The Mets lost to the Nationals 6-5.

Police say they nabbed a suspect who fits this description

Cops nabbed a man suspected of at least four sexual assaults in the East Village and surrounding areas in the last six weeks, authorities said today.

Asunscion DeJesus-Garcia, 20, of Lexington Avenue, was taken in to custody and charged with sex abuse, burglary, assault, and criminal possession of stolen property, police said.

As of noon, he had not been arraigned on the charges, and had not entered a plea.

The latest attack occurred at about 2 a.m. on July 18th when the suspect followed 20-year-old woman into her 9th Street building—just steps down from the 24-hour Veselka restaurant—groped her, and fled, police said.

The suspect, pictured in the above police sketch, in that assault is thought to be responsible for three other East Village attacks, police said. Each time the suspect followed a woman in to her building at about 4 a.m., and forcibly touched them. On some occasions, the groper has also made off with some of his victims' personal belongings, cops said.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes will announce the indictments of three men in the murder of Police Officer Russell Timoshenko and the attempted murder of Officer Herman Yan at a press conference this afternoon. The three suspects in the police shooting, Dexter Bostick, Robert Ellis and Lee Woods, have already been indicted and arraigned before. The superceding indictment announced today will include upgraded charges of murder since Timoshenko succumbed to grave bullet wounds suffered during a traffic stop in Brooklyn. The police union and others asked for federal prosecutors to take over the case so that the three suspects could face the death penalty, but the case will tried by the Brooklyn DA. Hynes and Kelly will lay out the groundwork of the case at the press conference showing video surveillance of the shooting, a map of the area, and the weapons used against the two officers. At 2 p.m., all three suspects will appear before a judge once again to be arraigned on the new indictment.

Cops are looking for a would-be bank robber who slipped a note to unresponsive bank teller on Friday before he fled the Chase bank on Broadway near Bleecker Street without any money. Police say the suspect, described as white male with dark slicked-back hair, made the attempt shortly before 5 p.m. The suspect is said to be about 30-year-old, 5'8" tall, and weighing about 150 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to call (800) 577-TIPS.

Police ask anyone with information to call 800-577-TIPS

Police believe a man who sexually assaulted a woman in her East 9th Street building last night may be responsible for at least three other assaults in the East Village and surrounding areas in the last six weeks.

The latest attack occurred at about 2 a.m. this morning when the suspect—described by cops as a 5-foot-9 Hispanic man in his 20s— followed 20-year-old woman into her building, groped her, and fled.

The suspect, pictured in the above police sketch, in that case may also be responsible for three other East Village attacks. Each time the suspect follows a woman in to her building at about 4 a.m., and forcibly touches them. On some occasions, the groper has also made off with some of his victims' personal belongings, cops said.

A federal criminal complaint that charges an NYPD officer used his badge, gun, and access to critical secret information to help a band of thieving drug dealers operate with impunity reads at times like a Richard Price novel or an episode of "The Wire."

But the FBI and the US. Attorney's office said yesterday that it's no fiction and that Officer Darren Moonan, a cop assigned to the 102nd Precinct in Queens, assisted a crew of drug traffickers in both dealing and ripping off other dealers.

Still the cell phone conversations intercepted by the FBI, as recently as June, sound straight out of "Clockers." These co-conspirators, not named as defendants in this criminal complaint, seem about as busted as busted can be, based on these wiretaps.

Sounds like they got bagged and rolled on Moonan, whose lawyer told the Daily News that his client was a cop who received commendations after 9/11. But the feds say that they have Moonan on tape saying to a drug dealer you "got my support, with whatever you need...with whatever you need and I'll have it."

In another wiretap, the feds say, Co-Conspirator 1 told Moonan "You, listen, yo...leave work...listen, leave work, you got my gold, my thing, my badge....hello?"
Moonan: "Your what?"
CC-1: "You got my badge, my jacket, all that stuff?"
Moonan: "Yeah"
CC-1: "Allright, you got to go get the rest, get all that stuff, bring two pieces, get everything, let's go."

Later in the conversation Moonan asked "Somebody did something to you?"
CC-1: "No, n****r."
Moonan: "Allright, give me, um."
CC-1: "Money, n****r!"
Moonan: "You gonna hurry up?"
CC-1: "Yeah, I'm gonna hurry up."

The criminal complaint says this convo is about a kilo of coke:

Co-conspirator 1: "That n***a said 28...that n***a wild out on me.... I told him forget it"
Co-conspirator 2: "Um, he's not that crazy,that's what it's going for right now."
CC-1: "I know....but I said forget it though."
CC-2: "Let me see if this other guy for 24 comes through, if not then there is still 2 Gs to be made."
CC-1: "You got it sold for 30?"

Later in the conversation:

CC-2: "Can you get some fake shit...can you get some fake compressed...fake?
CC-1: "Yeah, you me to a fake one?"
CC-2: "Yeah, man."

Then the feds say CC-1 answered his call waiting and talked to CC-5.

CC-1: "Listen, can you compress me one with all cut?"
CC-5: "Can I give you one with all what?"
CC-1: "Give me one compressed all cut."
CC-5: "Yeah, why?"
CC-1: "I got it sold for 30...I got it sold for 30."
CC-5 "Yeah, but I'm saying, you want it redone up or you want it all powder."
CC-1: "Nah, I want it all cut (laughs) Waa yoo!"
CC-5: "I know, but even if it is all chopped up, it still has to be rocked up."
CC-1: "N***a, listen to what I'm saying."
CC-5: "Let me call you right back....I'll call you right back...I'll call you right back from a different phone."

A bit late for that, it would seem. One more from the wiretaps:

Co-conspirator 2: "Yo, can you put your hands on a brick?"
Co-conspirator 1 "A brick?"
CC-2 "Yeah... an exchange... Yeah, I got Freddy coming up from Virginia to pick one up"
CC-1 "It is expensive now."
CC-2 "I know but I was getting it for 24"
CC-1 "You were getting it for 24?"
CC-2 "Yeah, but the guy can't come through until 10 o'clock tonight....this guys is on his way from Virginia already he gonna be here in about 4 hours....what can you get it for?"
CC-1 "Let me make a call....I'll call you back in two seconds."

Eagle-eyed U.S. Marshall Danny Potucek helped spot and apprehend Robert Ellis, the cop-shooting suspect who was hiding out in the Poconos woods yesterday. One eagle-eyed newspaper reader couldn't help but notice Potucek's resemblence to Ricky Gervais from "The Office."

Ricky Gervais from "The Office" bears a slight resemblance to U.S. Marshall Danny Potucek in the bottom photograph taken by the Daily New's Todd Maisel

Police are looking for Dexter Bostic, left, and Robert Ellis

With one man in custody this afternoon, police are conducting a city-wide manhunt for two suspects in the shooting of two young police officers in Brooklyn yesterday.

A $64,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of Dexter Bostic and Robert Ellis, both 34-year-old Queens residents whom cops say opened fire when their stolen vehicle was stopped in Crown Heights at 2:30 am Monday.

Meanwhile, the family of Officer Russel Timshenko was keeping a bedside vigil for 23-year-old Staten Island resident who suffered critical head injuries in the shooting. The other officer, Herman Yan, was in stable condition with wounds to the chest and arms. Authorities say a bulletproof vest saved his life. Police ask anyone with information to call 800-577-TIPS.

The former Staten Island commune member, who lived on the lam for more than a year, pleaded not guilty yesterday to attempted murder charges in the shooting of the commune's founder. Rebekah Johnson, 44, who was returned to Staten Island this morning after being busted last month in Philadelphia, was ordered held without bail.

Johnson, who was kicked out of Ganas -- the city's only commune -- in 1996, waged a one-woman war against the commune's founder Jeff Gross, 52, that culminated in gunshots near midnight on May 29, 2006, police said. Gross, who was returning to the compound after watching "An Inconvenient Truth," was struck three times in the chest and arms.

The shooting drew some unwanted attention on the commune of about 80 members who espouse open communication and non-violence, and share space and sometimes open relationships in eight-house compound near the Staten Island ferry.

The commune is open to visitors and accepts new members regularly. More information about Ganas can be found here.

Police are asking the public to help identify a woman whose remains were discovered by a work crew renovating a Bedford-Stuyvesant home on Tuesday. The only identifying mark found on the victim was of a tattoo inked on her right shoulder of an angel on a cloud blowing a horn. A clean-up crew sent in to fix up a house at 546 Lexington Avenue made the gruesome discovery inside a garbage bag in the basement, police said.

If you recognize the tat, please call CrimeStoppers at 800-577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.

Metal detectors at the schoolhouse door. Handcuffs in the classroom. Overly zealous enforcement on typical teenage behavior. Years before the New York Civil Liberties Union released its landmark report "Criminalizing the Classroom," the Voice's own Adamma Ince reported that New York was turning its schools into a penal colony.

In Preppin' for Prison, dated June 13, 2001, she wrote :

[The] prison-like system sometimes causes more problems than it prevents.

Last October, Raymone, a 14-year-old who's being raised by his mother, ran into trouble when he tried to enter Prospect Heights High School without his ID. An unarmed safety agent told him that without a card, he'd have to leave.

What happened next isn't clear. An assistant principal says the safety agent reported that Raymone started pushing him. Raymone claims an officer shoved him toward the door. "He just kept pushing me and saying, 'You gotta leave,' even though he knew I belonged there. I walked through those doors every day, but he didn't care. So I got mad and I pulled away from him.

"Next thing I know we're stumbling, and nine other guards are all over me, and glass from a window nearby is crashing everywhere. I was scared and mad, but I couldn't do anything. The guard said I punched him, so they cuffed me and took me to the precinct."

When his mother arrived at her job in the U.S. Treasury Department, a coworker handed her a message saying that her son was being held at the 71st Precinct. "My heart dropped when I got to the precinct," she says. "My child's neck, wrists, and back were bruised. Buttons were torn off his shirt. I wasn't able to protect him, and it was the worst pain I've ever felt. And for what? Just because he didn't have an ID?"

Scary then, scary now.

Further reading:
Nat Hentoff's "The Mayor and His Shock Troops"
Bob Herbert's "Harassed in the Classroom" (NYT Select)

A Staten Island man is awaiting arraignment today for launching a fatal attack on a peacock in the parking lot of a Staten Island Burger King yesterday, authorities said. John Potts, 32, of the Tottenville section of the island, beat the bird so severely that it had to be euthanized, police said. When cops nabbed Potts, he asked them why the peacock attack was a "such a big deal," a source said.
"It had negative energy," Potts reportedly told cops. "It came out of the darkness so I had to kick it."

Potts, who was taken to a Staten Island hospital for a mental evaluation, faces a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to animals.

A Queens man who police say is the "Lovers Lane" rapist wanted for a string of attacks in city parks dating back to 2003 will be arraigned on rape charges in Brooklyn Criminal Court this afternoon, a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said. Alvin Henry, 30, of Laurelton, Queens was busted yesterday near Prospect Park, the site of a June 15 attack. Henry, an Olympic sprinter who competed for Trinidad and Tobago in the 2000 Olympics, is believed to have committed the June 15 rape and four others, police said. Numerous new outlets dubbed the suspect in the attacks the "Lovers' Lane" rapist because the he targeted women who just had romantics trysts with male companions in the city parks.

A rapist who attacked a woman in Prospect Park on June 15 may be linked to three other rapes dating as far back to 2003, police say. In the earlier cases, also in parks, the rapist targeted women who had just left a male companion. In the most recent attack on June 15, the suspect was able to separate his victim from her friend, an off-duty police officer, and then sexually assault her. Police described the suspect as black male, 38 to 40 years old with a husky build. In many of the cases, the rapist threatened his victims by saying he photographed or videotaped earlier trysts they had with their companions, according to several news accounts. Because of this unusual m.o. some papers and TV stations are referring to him as a “lover’s lane” rapist.

"He says to the victims that he may show photographs of them being involved with a male in the park, that he would make them public," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the Daily News in Friday's editions.

Police ask anyone with information to call 800-577-TIPS.

Photo: lowermanhattan.info

Dwayne Baugh gives new mearning to the phrase "gun nut."

But you almost gotta feel sorry for the guy. Not only did the 30-year-old Staten Island man shoot himself in the gonads while waiting for the Staten Island ferry last Friday, he then got arrested for his troubles.

Baugh was indicted yesterday on charges of criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment for firing a gun in the crowded ferry terminal in lower Manhattan. When Baugh took a seat shortly after noon, according to the Manhattan DA, the 9 mm tucked in to his waistband suddenly discharged, lodging a bullet in his family jewels.

He was rushed to Bellevue where the testicle was removed. Baugh, who was released on $20,000 bail, faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison on the weapons charges.

Ouch.

(Friends and family of Sean Bell have kept a vigil outside the police precint. Slideshow by Edgar Mata)

The Queens grand jury in the police shooting of the unarmed Sean Bell is set to indict three of the five cops involved, reports NY1. The station cites attorneys for the three officers.

Sean Bell was killed on November 25, 2006, in the early morning hours of what would have been his wedding day. He was leaving a strip club in Jamaica, Queens, where he'd been celebrating his bachelor party. Plainclothes officers fired 50 bullets into the car he was driving, killing Bell and wounding two of his friends.

The indictments will remain sealed until Monday. For now, says NY1,

Detectives Marc Cooper, Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora will be indicted on charges that could range from assault to second-degree murder.

Further reading:
Guns Gone Wild
Suspects as Usual

(Photo: Veronica Kelly, far left, with hubby and NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly.)

After all the hoopla over Alan Hevesi's use of state employees to chauffeur his disabled wife around, you'd think allegations that NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly was affording his own wife the same perk might set off a few alarm bells.

According to NYPDconfidential.com , a blog penned by former Newsday columnist Leonard Levitt, police detectives assigned to Kelly's security detail were "frequently" assigned to ferry Kelly's wife, Veronica, around town in unmarked police cars up until a few months ago.

In his column "Driving Mrs. Kelly," Levitt quotes unnamed detectives with "first hand knowledge of the practice" who say that since 2002, members of Kelly's security detail were required to take Mrs. Kelly on "hundreds of personal trips," including: "picking Mrs. Kelly up on the Upper East Side when her car broke down; driving her to fundraising events or to the shelter where she volunteered; and taking her to and from airports for domestic and foreign flights."

According to Levitt, Mrs. Kelly not only got free rides on the public dime, but was rather imperious about it. He quotes one cop who says she even directed members of the detail to turn on the flashing lights and siren when she was late for an appointment—a practice Kelly has banned for himself unless it involves a police emergency:

"I know my husband doesn't like to do this but I need to get there right away," the detective quoted her as saying when she was running late to a fundraiser.

"The commissioner's wife tells you to put the lights on, you put the lights on," the detective said.

According to Levitt, Mrs. Kelly's chauffeured trips came to an abrupt halt last fall when the Hevesi scandal broke in the news.

Granted, Levitt's a dogged critic of the NYPD—so much so that Kelly once drove out to the Newsday's offices in Long Island to complain about Levitt's coverage when he was still writing his "One Police Plaza" column for the paper. Last January, Kelly even tried to have Levitt banned from police headquarters downtown.

Still, considering the steep price Hevesi paid for his wife's door-to-door service, you'd think these potentially explosive new charges might warrant a blip in the news—especially with all the talk of Kelly running for mayor.

But so far only Gothamist and Streetsblog have picked up on the story.

So we phoned NYPD spokesperson Paul J. Browne, who did his best to quash it.

"It's simply not true," Browne told the Voice.

"Occasionally the police commissioner, when he is invited to appear at events as the police commissioner, has asked that his spouse be picked up to join him," Browne said. "But the description of some sort of regular assignment or frequent trips is untrue," Browne added.

Browne also scoffed at claims that Mrs. Kelly had ever requested flashing lights or that she'd ever been driven to the airport on personal trips, saying, "I'm not in the business of disproving falsehoods. This is someone who publishes untruths every week."

To which Levitt fired back: "I stand by my sources. My story stands for itself.

"I call Browne every week and I leave a message with someone, and every week he has an opportunity to respond," Levitt continued. "On this story, I got no response from him and I was unable to reach Mrs. Kelly."

Then Levitt threw down this challenge: "If you want to find out the truth of this, all you have to do is subpoena all the detectives in [Kelly's] detail since 2002 and see what they say. If they deny under oath what they said to me, then I will apologize to Commissioner Kelly and Mrs. Kelly and I'll stop writing this column."

So will the NYPD, which this year has refused to reissue Levitt a press card, take up his challenge? Don't bet on it.

Bonus reading: You can find plenty of reaction, both skeptical and outraged, from this bulletin board frequented by many on the force, where posters refer to Kelly by his in-house nickname, "Popeye."

Allegations of police misconduct are up—again—in the latest report from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, covering the first six months of 2006. That's nothing new: The CCRB has been reporting heavier volume for years. When asked to explain the rise in cases, the agency has usually pointed not to worsening police behavior but to the advent of the 311 System as a possible cause, arguing that the ease of complaining over the phone was facilitating more complaints.

But the 12 percent increase in cases filed from January to June 2006 compared to the same period in 2005, leading to more cases than in any other six-month period in CCRB history, might be showing something else. While 311 is still probably a "significant cause" of the increase in complaints, the CCRB points out that complaints started rising before 311 started and has kept increasing even after 311 became a household word. "That the rate at which members of the public are filing complaints has continued to increase even as the system has matured makes it all the more unlikely that 311 is the sole cause of the increase," the agency reports.

Police behavior is a hot topic these days in the wake of the Sean Bell shooting. But the vast majority of CCRB complaints concern claims of illegal stop-and-frisks or cops being rude, not allegations of excessive force.

The furor over the Bell shooting has turned largely on race, and has been fueled by the perception that while fatal shootings of unarmed men are not typical, unpleasant contacts between black men and the NYPD are. And that's why the protesters feel race was a factor in the shooting, even if some of the shooters were themselves black and/or Hispanic.

The complaints received by the CCRB reflect both the resentment among young blacks and the diversity of the cops who allegedly mistreat them. The leading precincts for complaints were in East New York, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Mott Haven, and Harlem. "As in past years, from January through June 2006, males, blacks, and individuals between the ages of 15 and 34 were over-represented in comparison to their share of the city's population," the report finds. "By contrast, the race and gender of officers against whom complaints were filed resemble the demographics of the police department as a whole. For example, while the percentage of subject officers who are white decreased from 62% to 57% from 2003 through June 2006, the proportion of white officers within the department changed as well, falling from 64% to 56%."

Cops in general dislike the CCRB, seeing it as a way for civilians to retaliate against cops who are just doing their jobs, or for bureaucrats to micromanage the difficult decisions cops have to make on the street. Getting probed by the CCRB, even if it leads to exoneration, is perceived to be damaging to one's career. But the fact is the CCRB rarely finds against the NYPD. It substantiated a mere 5 percent of the allegations it investigated from January to June 2006—the lowest share in years. (Of course, many allegations never get fully investigated. Sometimes the complainant drops the case or disappears. And in 11 percent of cases, the NYPD was unable to identify the officer involved. The rise in these "officer unidentified" cases is "an ongoing concern," says the CCRB).

And even when the CCRB substantiates a complaint and recommends discipline, Commissioner Ray Kelly has the final say. In the first six months of '06, Kelly punished more cops (77 percent of substantiated cases) but also continued a trend of ordering "instructions," the most lenient form of discipline, in the vast majority of cases.

October 19, 2005, was a busy day at the Civilian Complaint Review Board. On that date one of the three-member panels that decides how to dispose of reports of police misconduct met to vote on several cases. Well, more than several: They voted on 819 cases in a single day—all the cases that had built up over the nearly six months when the panel didn't meet, and 12 percent of all the cases the Board handled in 2005.

It was quite a day.

Now, the half-year delay and the one big workday have the New York Civil Liberties Union calling for the CCRB to investigate itself.

The delays worry the NYCLU because complaints of police misconduct face a statute of limitations, which requires that (in most instances) the police department file disciplinary charges within 18 months of the alleged wrongdoing.

And doing 800 cases in a day? If the panel worked an eight-hour shift without so much as a potty break, that's 100 cases an hour, or a case every 40 seconds. "If that's the amount of time they're spending on a case, I think that leaves reason to wonder if it's a meaningful review," says Christopher Dunn, NYCLU Associate Legal Director. He says CCRB staffers came to the NYCLU with complaints about the backlog.

The CCRB is charged with investigating complaints that cops used excessive force, abused their authority, or were discourteous. It handled more than 6,500 cases in 2005—an increase of 40 percent over 2001. (The increase could be because of the new ease of reporting complaints via 311, rather than because of any jump in bad behavior by cops.) Half of the complaints it receives never even go to a full investigation, and of those that do, only about 10 percent are substantiated. The board's decisions are advisory: It's the police commissioner who eventually decides whether and how to discipline any cops for whom the CCRB recommends punishment.

The 13-member CCRB includes people appointed by the mayor, the city council, and the police commissioner. Most cases are decided not by the full board, but by three-member panels. The panels usually meet whenever 175 cases are ready to decide, or about nine to 10 times a year, says CCRB spokesman Andrew Case. Given that the panels must decide 175 cases per meeting, they are given information about the cases—including the recommendation of CCRB staff—ahead of time. At most meetings, only a few cases are discussed at length. The rest are simply voted on, because the panel members did their homework.

But why the six-month delay? "It's an anomaly," says Case. "There's no question there was a longer delay than there should have been." Case gave no particular reason for the delay other than that the board members, who are volunteers with outside jobs, couldn't get together. Case also wouldn't name the board members on the panel in question. But he does say none of the 800 some-odd cases decided on October 19, 2005 ended up hitting the statute of limitations.