Police raid puppy mill, rescues 10 pups
NEW YORK >> The NYPD says 10 puppies were rescued during a raid on a puppy mill in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.
Two people were arrested in connection with the operation.
The weeks-old Yorkshire terriers were removed from a filthy walkup apartment on Spring Street.
Police said Thursday that officers and members of the ASPCA responded after receiving numerous complaints about incessant barking and odor.
Police identified that suspects as 46-year-old Luis Sanchez and 33-year-old Xenia Torres. They face animal cruelty charges.
It wasn’t immediately known if they had lawyers.
The puppies are receiving medical care at the ASPCA.
Trooper recovering from injuries suffered in collision
SARANAC LAKE >> State police say a trooper is recovering from injuries suffered when his patrol vehicle was involved in an on-duty crash on an Adirondack road.
The agency tells local media that 36-year-old Trooper Keith Brown was en route to an emergency call around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when he attempted to pass a vehicle traveling in the same direction on state Route 86 in the village of Saranac Lake.
Troopers say the driver of the other vehicle made a left turn to enter a private driveway and hit Brown’s marked patrol car, which had its sirens and lights on. Brown’s car was pushed off the road and into a parked, unoccupied truck.
Brown was taken to Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake, where he was treated for back injuries and released.
Two people in the other vehicle weren’t injured.
Man abandons backhoe in rural road
PRATTSBURG >> State police say they’ve charged a Rochester man with using excavating equipment to dig a 40-foot-long, 12-foot-deep hole in a rural road in the middle of the night and not telling anyone about it.
Investigators say 32-year-old Kyle Calabria is charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment for last November’s damage to a lightly traveled road in the town of Prattsburg, 45 miles south of Rochester.
Eaton says Calabria had been hired to do excavation work on property along the road. For some reason investigators still haven’t figured out, Calabria used a backhoe to dig up a 15-foot-wide section of the road at night.
Police say Calabria abandoned the backhoe after it got stuck in the hole. No motorists were injured.
Calabria is free after posting bail. It couldn’t be determined if he has a lawyer.
Man caught with stolen credit cards swallowed ring
VICTOR >> Authorities say a New York man suspected of using stolen credit cards to buy expensive jewelry tried to hide some of the evidence by swallowing a diamond ring.
The Ontario County Sheriff’s Office says 33-year-old Rahkeim Scarlett of Troy used a stolen credit card on Feb. 11 to buy a Rolex watch and diamond earrings worth nearly $30,000 at a suburban Rochester jewelry store.
Deputies say that before he left the store, it was discovered the credit card had been reported stolen. Scarlett fled but was founding hiding in snowbanks on the mall property.
Police say that while he was in custody, Scarlett swallowed a diamond ring that was among jewelry he bought elsewhere with stolen credit cards. He passed the ring several days later.
Scarlett’s public defender isn’t commenting.
Hudson Valley drug sweep results in charges against 43
GOSHEN >> A month-long drug sweep in the Hudson Valley has resulted in charges against 43 defendants.
Orange County law-enforcement officials say Operation Frost Bite used undercover buys, vehicle stops and search warrants in an effort to clamp down on drug dealers.
Authorities say police from 11 agencies made the arrests and seized cash, guns and drugs with a street value of more than $330,000. The drugs included more than a kilo of heroin as well as cocaine, marijuana and prescription drugs, including hydrocodone.
The sweep included arrests in Port Jervis, Middletown and Newburgh, as well as the towns of Newburgh, Woodbury, New Windsor, Wallkill and Warwick. Twelve of the defendants have prior felony convictions.
District Attorney David Hoovler says Orange County had 76 drug overdoses in 2014, 28 of them fatal.
Aunt arrested in death of 3-year-old boy
NEW YORK >> An aunt of a 3-year-old Brooklyn boy who found at his home beaten has been arrested in his death.
Police said Thursday that 21-year-old Christen Dale was arrested on charges of manslaughter, assault, endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a weapon.
Information on her attorney wasn’t immediately available.
Officers found little Nathan Ali unresponsive at his home in Brownsville following a 911 call at around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Police said his body had bruises.
The medical examiner on Thursday ruled the death a homicide, saying the boy died of multiple blunt impact injuries.
Exhibitions celebrate centennial birth of Frank Sinatra
NEW YORK >> Events marking Frank Sinatra’s birth 100 years ago are popping up all over.
Two New York City exhibitions are displaying rare photographs and mementos, many from the Frank Sinatra family archive.
“Sinatra: An American Icon” at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts opens Wednesday. It also features recordings, clothing and several new paintings of the crooner by Peter Max. The show will travel to the GRAMMY Museum in LA after it closes Sept. 4.
“The Sinatra Experience” at Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo includes a selfie a 23-year-old Sinatra took in Hoboken, New Jersey. The show runs from Thursday through March 26.
Sinatra centennial panel discussions will be held throughout the year, including at Yale University and the University of Southern California.
Sinatra died in 1998.
Rick Springfield to perform at State Fair on opening day
SYRACUSE >> Rick Springfield will return to the Syracuse area this summer, but the 1980s pop star won’t have to face legal questions over whether his buttocks injured a concert-goer.
Springfield will perform at Chevy Court at the New York State Fair on opening day of the fair, Aug. 27.
Last month, Springfield won a seven-year legal battle with a New York woman who claimed he injured her when he fell on her during a concert at the suburban Syracuse fairgrounds in 2004.
The plaintiff, 45-year-old Vicki Calcagno, said she suffered serious injuries when Springfield’s buttocks hit her head. A state Supreme Court jury said Springfield didn’t injure her.
Springfield is best known for his hit song “Jessie’s Girl” and for his role on “General Hospital.”
Off-duty detective killed in wrong-way collision
GREENBURGH >> Authorities say an off-duty New York Police Department detective has been killed when his vehicle was struck by a wrong-way driver on the suburban Sprain Brook Parkway.
State police have identified the victim as 46-year-old Paul Duncan of Hartsdale. He was assigned to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
The crash occurred around 4 a.m. Friday in Greenburgh.
State police say a Honda Civic traveling north in the parkway’s southbound lanes struck Duncan’s Honda Pilot head-on.
The other driver, identified by police as 20-year-old Efren Moreano of Yonkers, was hospitalized in stable condition.
Police are investigating how the vehicle ended up going the wrong way.
The crash backed up rush-hour traffic along the busy thoroughfare.
Anyone with information about the collision is asked to contact state police at (914) 769-2600.
Daughters killed by retired officer remembered for smiles
HARRISON >> Two teenage girls killed by their father, a retired police officer, are being remembered for their smiles.
Emil Giliotti said Friday that his great nieces, Alissa and Deanna Hochman, “were touched by God.”
He spoke outside their funeral in Harrison, New York.
Firefighters and other first responders crowded the street outside St. Gregory the Great church.
Bells chimed as the teens’ mother and older sister arrived in a motorcade led by an ambulance.
Eighteen-year-old Alissa volunteered with the Harrison ambulance corps. She was a senior at Harrison High School.
Thirteen-year-old Deanna attended the Windward School in White Plains.
Police say their father, former White Plains officer Glen Hochman, shot them as they slept last weekend and then killed himself.
Woman convicted of health care fraud
SYRACUSE >> A 45-year-old woman has been convicted for her role in a scheme to defraud Medicare while she worked for a central New York pain management practice.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Syracuse says Bonnie Meislin of Utica was found guilty Wednesday of health care fraud and conspiring with her former employer to bilk Medicare.
Prosecutors say Meislin worked for Dr. Mahesh Kuthuru’s Upstate Pain Medicine offices in Fulton and Utica. In 2009, he moved to Las Vegas and opened another practice. Authorities say in 2010, Meislin and Kuthuru started submitting false bills that indicted Kuthuru had treated patients at his upstate offices when in fact he was in Nevada or outside the country.
Kuthuru pleaded guilty last month to scamming $80,000 from Medicare.
Meislin faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Jury: Billionaire looted mining firm
NEW YORK >> Jurors have found that billionaire Ira Rennert plundered a now-bankrupt mining company to pay for personal luxuries, including a Hamptons mansion that’s one of the world’s biggest private homes.
A Manhattan federal court on Friday ordered Rennert and his Renco Group Inc. to pay $118 million in damages.
Rennert was sued by a bankruptcy trustee for the former Magnesium Corp. of America, or MagCorp. It filed for bankruptcy in 2001, a few years after Renco acquired it.
The creditors’ trustee said MagCorp. went under because Rennert took about $120 million in dividends. The trustee said Rennert used some of that to build his 100,000-square-foot, 29-bedroom beachfront complex in Sagaponack.
Rennert’s defense said MagCorp. failed because of the early 2000s recession. It said the dividends didn’t connect to the Hamptons spread.
