Results tagged “sting”

It wasn't bumbling prosecutors, arguing jurors, or untrustworthy mob informants that kept mob scion John Gotti Jr. from being found guilty in his racketeering and murder trial. The former Gambino boss told reporters after his fourth mistrial yesterday that his deceased father was watching out for him — and sending him messages on the radio through songs like "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" and Sting's "Fields of Gold," according to the Times.

The 24-hour crackdown on drivers using handheld electronic devices ended last Friday at midnight with 7,529 tickets issued. That total edges out the number of tickets issued in August (7,432) but still falls short of the record 9,016 tickets written during the March sting. Is the NYPD phoning it in, or are New Yorkers getting the message?

Subway managers on the No. 4 line have enlisted college interns to pose as subway riders and grade token booth clerks on their courtesy levels. It's unclear why the study, which was called "Operation Courtesy," was restricted to the 4 line, but NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton says, "It's like a mystery shopper program," in which storeowners' send fake shoppers to review staff. It's also unclear why the MTA needs to conduct an undercover sting to verify that workers can be gruff. But to be fair, we've found many of booth clerks to be exceptionally pleasant, considering they spend their days underground in a tiny box.

It's time for the city to come back to the well and conduct another cell phone ticket blitz. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the NYPD last cracked down on drivers using cell phones, but it was actually mid-August. New York State just wrapped a lucrative four-day cell phone crackdown on the Thruway, issuing 903 tickets to drivers in a mission called, no joke, "Operation Hang Up II.'' Not to be outdone, the city's sting will start at 12:01 a.m. Thursday and last 24 hours.

Revolting: Police say a Staten Island man traveled to Pennsylvania for what he believed would be a sexual rendezvous with a woman and her 14-month-old daughter. Instead, Anthony Taylor, 48, was arrested yesterday in a pedophilia sting operation because the "mother" he'd been chatting with was actually an undercover detective working with federal, state and local law enforcement. The officer encountered Taylor, who allegedly used the handle "Tony The Staten Island Man," three months ago in a chat room called, ugh, "Start Them Early."

Two right-wing filmmakers have teamed up with Fox News to conduct a juicy hidden-camera exposé on the community advocacy group ACORN, a group conservatives hate because it receives government funding to help the indigent. According to Fox, filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25, dressed as a cliche pimp and sought housing advice at ACORN offices in New York. Joined by his partner Hannah Giles, 20, who posed as a prostitute, O'Keefe claims to have told employees he needed a house to run a brothel and help Giles escape an abusive pimp.

Round Two of the NYPD's smackdown on drivers using cell phones for phone calls, texting and emails fell short of the over 9,000 tickets that went out during March's one-day sting. But the city almost certainly cracked the seven-figure mark once again during Thursday's 24-hour ticket blitz, issuing 7,432 tickets at $130 a piece ($200 for cab drivers). Could a 15% drop mean that New Yorker drivers have begun to curb their cellphone usage? Or are they just paying closer attention when the NYPD publicly alerts them to the fact that thirteen times as many tickets will be given out that day? A Daily News writer gives a account of getting nailed for using her Blackberry while driving by Ground Zero on Thursday, taking us through the play-by-play of what getting a ticket is like: "I handed over my license and registration, sat patiently for a few minutes, then took my lumps without saying a word."

In March the NYPD conducted a 24-hour sting targeting drivers behind the wheel with their cell phones, issuing 9,016 tickets during the crackdown. By the end, New York motorists got the message and never used their cellphones while driving again. Kidding—of course it didn't make a damn bit of difference, though it did make some serious loot for the city government. So now it's back to the well, starting at midnight tonight, when cops will start slapping motormouth motorists with $130 fines—$10 more than last time! After 24 hours the crackdown will conclude, and everyone can go back to distractedly steering big hunks of metal through the street with one hand.

Undercover cops have nabbed another would-be pedophile who thought he was meeting a minor for a sexual rendezvous. This time the alleged perv is an executive for the Gristedes supermarket chain, 59-year-old Michael Seltzer. Investigators say Seltzer, the chain's treasurer, had been exchanging salacious online messages with the "teen" for about a year and was finally supposed to meet her for the first time on Tuesday for a sexual encounter in Douglaston. But the 14-year-old girl didn't actually exist, and Seltzer, using the irresistible screen name LOVE775419, had been communicating with undercover cops the entire time. He was arrested when he approached an undercover female officer, and police have seized computers at his home and at Gristedes' Manhattan headquarters. Seltzer is being charged with attempted rape and could face up to four years in prison, the Daily News reports. And back in 1999, Seltzer was arrested for attempting to bribe a tax warrant investigator in return for eliminating nearly $200,000 in outstanding City and State taxes owed by the supermarket chain.

DEA agents seized $3 million in marijuana and $500,000 cash in a raid on a Staten Island home last week, arresting Odede Kariti, 27, and his wife, Yotvat Kariti, 24, along with a third man, Brian Guariglia. According to court papers obtained by the Staten Island Advance, the trio are part of a drug ring that's smuggled millions of dollars of high-grade marijuana from Canada. Authorities have been investigating the ring for two years, and finally took action on May 11th after getting a tip that Guariglia was delivering a 300-pound shipment that day. The weed was stashed in "large hockey bags" in Guariglia's truck, and federal agents arrested him as he made the drop at the Karitis' house. Once inside, they also found "numerous" hockey bags containing another 250-300 pounds of marijuana. Now the Karitis and Guariglia face up to 40 years in prison for trying to distribute a mostly harmless plant whose worst side-effect is patch pants. This is the second major marijuana bust on Staten Island in the past few months; in April three men were nailed for moving "large quantities" of herb in a mobile-home.

A Westchester County middle school social studies teacher and former lacrosse coach has a $500 a week crack addiction and a penchant for underage girls, prosecutors say. Gregg Cavaluzzi, who has taught at six schools (some in NYC) over the last decade but was recently dismissed from Pelham Middle School, was caught in a sting by cops posing as 15-year-old girls in online chat rooms. Thinking an undercover cop was a teen, he allegedly texted, "At a motel in Bronx partying you smoke? Can you get down here" and asked what's "one thing you like to do very dirty." Cavaluzzi was busted when he showed up in Elmsford, NY, for the rendezvous and was charged with enticing a minor for sex, which could get him up to life in prison if convicted. A previous student of Cavaluzzi tells CBS2, "[The girls] used to talk about how he was such a pervert and they all found it very disgusting. He might look at different body parts thinking the girls wouldn't notice but everybody noticed." Cavaluzzi denies the charges; his lawyer says his client suffers from depression and cocaine addiction.

A Bronx man accused of rape thought he could beat the charges if he could get rid of his alleged victim and a witness—the problem was that he hired an undercover cop to take care of it for him. Anthony Perez told the cop—who posed as a hitman—that he would pay him $100,000 to kill the woman who accused him of rape and a witness who was in the apartment where the incident allegedly took place in April 2006. The "hitman" met with Perez at Rikers Island where he's being detained and was provided a gun he could use, the name and address of one of the women and as well as a plan by Perez to lure the second intended victim to the first woman’s apartment. Perez also connected his hired gun to Tawana Leggett, who the undercover cop would call and signal his success in offing the two women with the code "get your suit and shoelaces ready.” Perez was arrested at Rikers for the new charges after the seven-month sting.

26-year-old Brighton Beach high school teacher Alexander Kravitz was arrested this week in a Queens hotel room, where prosecutors say he hoped to make a porn video with a 14-year-old girl to whom he'd been sending salacious instant messages and graphic live webcam video of himself. But the girl did not exist—Kravitz had been communicating with an undercover detective for the last six weeks. According to 1010 Wins, he could get four years in jail if convicted of several charges. After being released on $75,000 bail, Kravitz angrily cursed reporters outside his mother's Queens home, where he resides. It's also where detectives found his porno stash, which police say included images of sex with children ranging from in age from 13 to infants. Kravitz's mother Katherine told the Daily News, "I don't believe any of it. It has to be a mistake. I've never seen any young man work so hard. I don't see how he'd even have the time."

Last week, Doreen Giuliano revealed that, after transforming herself from 46-year-old Brooklyn mother to a sexy and single 30-something transplant from California, she recorded conversations with a juror who helped convict her son John Giuca of murder--and that the juror implied he should never have been on the case! Now those conversations are the basis for a motion to overturn the verdict filed by Giuca's lawyer yesterday. The NY Times reports that the motion says juror Jason "Allo failed to reveal to the court that he knew members of the so-called Ghetto Mafia, a gang that figured prominently in the trial...The court papers also accuse Mr. Allo of reading newspaper accounts during the trial, and of being 'the first one on the jury' to vote guilty, because of information he had gathered outside the courtroom." Allo has denied the claims and the Brooklyn DA's office, whose prosecution Giuliano and even the murder victim's family have criticized, says it "will carefully review the papers and will have nothing to say until that process is completed.”

So Doreen Giuliano transformed herself from a 46-year-old Brooklyn mother into a sexy, blond, and tanned 30-something in order to befriend a juror from her son John Giuca's murder trial--and is now using recorded conversations with the juror to get Giuca's conviction overturned. But will it work? The NY Times speaks to some experts about the results from Giuliano's elaborate scheme which allegedly resulted in juror Jason Allo telling her he should never have been on the jury since he knew people on the prosecution witness list. A Legal Aid lawyer tells the Times, “Even if this had come to light somehow during the trial, even then it might not have occasioned a mistrial. Even if the whole thing were true, I think it might not result in a new trial." A law professor from NYU adds that there's a "very high bar" for proof of juror prejudice. Giuliano says she didn't consult a lawyer before hatching the sting, but did hire one midway through. And a lawyer for Giuca had previously filed for an appeal, claiming prosecutorial misconduct.

Chris Ortloff, state parole board commissioner, was arrested for allegedly arranging to have sex with 11- and 12-year-old girls. The U.S. Attorney's office said Ortloff had been chatting with the girls' "mother" (an undercover state police investigator) online since June and arranged to meet the girls at an Albany hotel on Monday. According to the Times-Union, when the police went to to the hotel room, the 61-year-old father of two was "buck naked" and had "condoms, lubricants, sex toys and a camera." His lawyer suggested his defense may include entrapment and that his client didn't know the girls were underage. And when he was Plattsburgh's assemblyman, Ortloff supported Megan's Law, "Our government must do more to keep dangerous, sexually violent predators away from children and women."

Mayor Bloomberg met with non-NYPD affiliated police today, when joining a press conference with Sting & Co. The band announced that their final performance EVER will be right here in New York, later this year. From the press release:

We kicked off our very first American tour at CBGB's in 1978 and this summer, thirty years later, our journey will come full circle as we play our final show here in New York City," said The Police. "We are honored to partner with public television and have a deep respect for their commitment to arts and culture."

Mayor Bloomberg has made ridding the city of illegal guns one of his administration's major issues (it's also a big part of his potential national platform). Last year, he, on behalf of NYC, filed two federal lawsuits against out-of-state gun dealers, after sting operations revealed that the dealers were apparently selling guns illegally. While some dealers have settled, others are fighting back, countersuing the city. The Bloomberg administration's sting operations involved two undercovers going to...