Results tagged “nassau”

With a criminal trial still pending, the LIRR has fired the engineer accused of allowing a man to drive his train for up to twenty miles during a rush hour trip in July. After an internal investigation, Long Island Rail Road officials decided to terminate Ronald Cabrera for what the Nassau County DA called an "unimaginably reckless act.” Cabrera, who had worked for the LIRR for twenty years, will get to keep his pension. He still insists that hewas always in control of the Port Jefferson train heading into the city that court stenographer William Kutsch is accused of driving through seven car crossings, one pedestrian crossing, and 24 home signals. Cabrera's lawyer says the incident is "a perceived event, rather than something that really happened." He also called the termination an attempt by the MTA to divert attention from its own "fumbling, inefficient and wasteful mismanagement." Both Cabrera and Kutsch could face a year in jail if they are convicted on reckless endangerment charges.

A Long Island math teacher, who was arrested in July for having sex with a 15-year-old girl in an elementary school parking lot, is being charged with yet another sex crime. Daniel Rothbard, 28, was out on bail for the first alleged statutory rape when he was arrested again yesterday. Police say that two weeks before the parking lot incident, Rothbard allegedly lured a 13-year-old girl and her 14-year-old friend to his house, where he resided with his pregnant wife. Prosecutors tell Newsday the 14-year-old walked in on him having sex with the younger girl. None of the victims were his students; Rothbard met them on MySpace posing as a 17-year-old with the screen name "DJ" or "D to the J." According to CBS2, the house is now empty and for sale, and Rothbard's lawyer says his client is on suicide watch and pleading not guilty. But Nassau County Police Lt. John Allen expects to find more victims, and the Valley Stream school district has barred Rothbard from school property and prohibited him from having any contact with children or their parents. He's currently behind bars in lieu of $600,000 bail, an amount his lawyer called excessive.

A man on Long Island last night had the misfortune of having not one, but two fancy cars stolen from him, all in a matter of hours. A man out to dinner at a Manhasset restaurant in Nassau County had dropped the keys off to his Mercedes when someone got a hold of them and took off with the vehicle. But things only got worse for him from there when the thieves discovered a second set of keys to the man's Porsche, parked in his driveway at home. Police believe that the criminals used a GPS system inside the Mercedes to locate where the man lived and then used the keys to drive away with the second car as well. When the victim learned that the Mercedes was missing, he called home and discovered that the Porsche had also been stolen.

Police are saying that a jammed-up floor mat by the driver side pedals set the stage for a freak accident that left 14 injured when Theodore Saretsky drove through the window of a Hanukkah party in Woodmere. After originally claiming that he thought there was a problem with his SUV's accelerator that led to the crash, now it appears that the mat got wedged between the gas and brake pedals. Nassau County Police spokesman Kevin Smith said, "The mat had slid up and started to roll up, almost like a roll of wrapping paper. Part of that roll was on top of the accelerator, and the other part was behind the brake, and it almost acted like a fulcrum. The harder he stepped down on the brake, the faster the car went. So he's confused by this, and as he looks down, his car veered left into a parked car, and then vaulted into the building." Meanwhile, today's Post credits one man, Dovi Faivish, as being the "modern-day Hanukkah miracle" hero that spotted the SUV about to crash through the party hall window and immediately moved children out of the way, potentially saving several lives. All 14 hospitalized are expected to survive.

In violation of a ruling by New York State's Human Rights Division, the principal of W. Tresper Clarke High School stood in the schoolhouse doorway and refused entrance to 15-year-old John Cave yesterday, as long as he had his service dog with him. Cave is a deaf teenager with cochlear implants, and this week, the state's Human Rights Division Commissioner Kumiki Gibson declared the school violated two provisions of the Human Rights law (PDF) and ordered that Cave and his service dog Simba be allowed in school.

There are worries that a proposed $50,000 surcharge on all MD's in the state could do irreparable harm to New York's health care community. The state's medical malpractice liability fund is underfunded, and state insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo is looking for ideas.