By RYAN SIT

Additional charges, some dating back to the 1970’s, were brought against longtime employees of Bernard Madoff in Manhattan Federal Court on Tuesday, bringing the total to 33 criminal counts.

A superseding indictment filed Monday with the US Attorney charged Daniel Bonventre, Annette Bongiorno, Joann Crupi, Jerome O’Hara and George Perez with 16 more counts than the previous indictment in 2010. The new indictment dates the conspiracy to “at least the early 1970’s,” court documents said.

All five defendants were longtime employees of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC when Madoff was charged with operating history’s largest Ponzi scheme. “Each of the defendants in his or her way,” free run 4.0 v3 FBI official Mary Galligan said, “played a key role in designing, building, or maintaining the house of cards.”

Each of those roles, said US District Preet Bharara, becomes clearer with each additional charge. The defendants are being charged with various conspiracy and fraud counts that helped Madoff conceal the multi-billion dollar scam.

“We will not rest until all the alleged participants and enablers are made to answer for their conduct,” said Bharara in a press release.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain set a trial date for October 7, 2013 after the defendants unanimously pleaded not guilty to the expanded charges against them.

Investment advisors Bongiorno, 64, who worked under Madoff for 40 years and managed approximately $8.5 billion as of November 2008, and Crupi, 51, an employee of 25 years who managed about $900 million, conducted trades on paper only, alleged court documents. free run 4.0 v3 femmes They face additional charges for manipulating purchase dates and trades in order to control the amount of gains reflected in the investment advisory accounts, among other accusationss.

Bongiorno was also said to have processed profits in accounts months before those accounts had been established.

Bonventre, a Madoff employee of 40 years, was charged with 22 counts – the most of all five defendants. Among them were backdating records to show tax auditors, and doctoring documents to appear consistent with Madoff’s fraudulent tax returns. Bonventre, 65, faces a possible sentence of 221 years in prison and over $37 million in fines if convicted on all counts.

The new indictment alleges that Cupri, O’Hara and Perez joined Bonventre in creating fraudulent books and records to deceive the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and a European accounting firm. O’Hara, 49, and Perez, 46, began working for Madoff in 1990 and 1991, but were accused of assisting in conspiring to defraud investment clients since the 1970’s. Both have been charged with eight counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, and falsifying records.

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By NAKIA COPELAND

City Council speaker Christine Quinn and the Bloomberg Administration announced Tuesday several measures to boost local small businesses, including abolishing automatic fines for violations and reducing regulatory burdens.

“The City is improving its customer service to the benefit of the economy,” said Quinn in a City Hall news conference.

One of the proposals stipulated that restaurants, for example, be given a warning before being fined for violations.

“They (the rules) minimize the red tape and emphasize customer service for City inspectors, free run 4.0 v2 femmes both essential steps in strengthening New York City’s business-friendly environment,” said Small Business Service Commissioner Robert W. Walsh

Farid Lancheros, owner of the Colombian/Pan-Latin restaurant Bogota Latin Bistro, was proud about creating 70 jobs in seven years with his small business. He was looking forward to increasing it to 700 jobs in the future. “I can do that much more easily with the assistance of the government rather then be hindered by the regulations,” said Lacheros.

“It is time for the City Council, in conjunction with the Mayor’s office, to uphold its duty to protect consumers across the City without overburdening entrepreneurs and small business owners,” said Council Member Diana Reyna.

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By CONOR FEBOS

A recovering heroin addict told stories Tuesday of pain pill abuse that nearly took her life, as officials focused on the growing epidemic of prescription drug use scourging Long Island.

“I’ve been there, I’ve been an addict and I understand the dangers of prescription drugs and how far they have spread across Long Island,” said Danielle Pinto, 28, at a press conference in Melville. “We as a community need to fight this problem now, before another tragedy takes the lives of innocent people.”

The tragedy she referred to was the 2011 Father’s Day massacre at Haven Drugs in Medford, which ended in the brutal slaying of four innocent people after a Medford man, David Laffer, held up the pharmacy for prescription drugs to feed his and his wife’s drug habit.

But a panel comprised of speakers representing the judicial system, law enforcement, community pharmacists, and recovered addicts, said that people are forgetting the horror’s of last June’s attack, and that everyone must pick up the pace in the battle against drug abuse.

“Everyone seems to have settled down and moved passed what happened,” said Laura Bustamante of Medford, whose father was killed in the pharmacy shootings. “But there’s obviously still a major issue, and one that will undoubtedly end in another tragedy if not properly addressed.”

Officials said that the number of prescriptions for narcotic painkillers has increased by six million since 2007 in the state.

Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice detailed a comprehensive free run 4.0 v2 bill called “Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing Act,” or I-STOP, a real-time, online database for doctors and pharmacists to report and track the prescribing of certain controlled substances.

“Long Island is the epicenter of this problem,” said Rice, the Nassau DA since 2006. “We must raise awareness that there are dirty doctors and pharmacists willingly prescribing teens oxy-cotton and other opiates that can eventually lead to heroin addiction.”

Pinto echoed the need for parents to clean out their medicine cabinets. Or at least hide any prescription drugs from teenagers.

“The problem is starting at home,” said Pinto. “That’s how it started for me, and that’s how many kids are getting introduced to the drugs.”

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By STEPHANIE BERZON

The New York Civil Liberties Union today accused the state Department of Corrections of overusing solitary confinement in New York prisons even for minor offenses, branding it a “violation of international human rights”.

Extreme isolation is the punishment given to prisoners by being confined to a tiny, barren cell (also known as “the box”) maybe with one other inmate, to experience a deprivation of mental stimulation and human contact. NYCLU charges that this form of punishment is used “almost cavalierly”, harms the prisoner’s mental health and negatively impacts community safety once the prisoners are discharged.

“Instead of using it as a punishment of last resort extreme isolation appears to have become the remedy of choice for the New York State Department of Corrections,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman at Manhattan news conference.

An NYCLU report said that half of the 4,500 prisoners in solitary confinement spent 23 hours a day locked alone in a cell the size of an elevator or parking spot. Only 16 percent of confinements from 2007 to 2011 were for serious infractions such as weapons possession or assault.

“The way the rules are drafted, almost anything can land you in the box,” says Lieberman

A prisoner identified as “Na’im” in a hand-written letter from Southport Correctional Facility said that his punishment to solitary confinement was for “fishing”, a method of exchanging books and magazines from cell-to-cell.

A woman at the news conference, Sade Jackson, said brother spent time in extreme isolation for a non-violent matter and she “prays that he stays sane.”

In another letter a prisoner said that after two weeks in isolation he began to free run 3.0 v5 femmes wrestle with psychological demons. After several pleas for psychological treatment the prisoner writes that the clinician offered no help “and it stayed that way until I got so bad I had a breakdown and made an attempt to end my life.”

“If you have someone who is with a mental health problem, putting them in the box only makes it worst and makes the problems more manifest and more persistent,” said ACLU attorney Taylor Pendergrass.

Lieberman demanded that Governor Cuomo and Corrections Commissioner Brian Fisher “take immediate steps that would put an end to the current practice and put New York in the vanguard of smart, progressive and effective reforms.”

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By GILBERTE SAINT-PRIEUX & AVRIL REGIS

The surviving victim of a gang shooting three years ago testified Tuesday in a Brooklyn courthouse that he did not want to identify his assailants but instead wanted to kill them himself.

The witness, Derrick Henry, who is in jail in an unrelated case, later changed his mind and decided to cooperate with authorities.

The defendants, Maurice Hall, 30, Andrew Smart, 28, and Raneiro Chavez, 24, were charged with firing 30 shots at rival gang members Antoine Stokes, 20, Steven Hill, 15, and Derrick Henry, also 15 at the time.

In his testimony, Henry recalled being at 217 Bainbridge Street with Stokes, 20, and Hill, 15, free run 3.0 v4 femmes and deciding to go down the block to get Chinese food together, then returning to eat on the apartment building stoop.

Henry said they were approached by air jordan 5 femmes the defendants who asked, “Are you Chaun City?” the name of a rival gang. Henry said no but Stokes said yes.

The hail of bullets the gang members released on Henry and his friends landed him in the hospital for three months when his kidney was removed.

Police officials at the time said the shooting was in retaliation for an earlier shooting.

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By YVONNE JURIS

No politicians orated nor famous cellists played at the eleventh anniversary Tuesday of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but that did not dissuade New Yorkers from marking this still solemn day.

Apparently ceremony fatigue has not set in. Not yet, anyway

“I say thank you,” said Dave Harland. A former McSorley’s Ale House bartender who has free run 3.0 v3 femmes many firefighter friends. He rolled up his right sleeve to show a “Never Forget 911” tattoo etched on his arm. “Its simple; never forget.”

Ten years since the first annual service was held, New Yorkers still see the annual memorial as relevant now as the first one.

“I went on the roof with six of my officers and we saw a plane go into a tower,” said Manhattan court officer Sergeant O’ Donnell. “There should always be a 9/11 memorial service. We had to hold onto cars when the building fell down because it felt like an earthquake. And then we had to get on a jury’s bus because five officers were missing. We ending up finding two out of the five of them”

The brilliant skyline on this anniversary recalled a similar Tuesday morning roshe run hyp before American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46 am eleven years ago. But with the foundation of the Freedom Tower’s standing prominently behind, the ceremony had some visitors thinking about moving forward.

“Its taken a new form,” said first responder Walter Hillegass, a plumber. “For those who were 10, they are now turning 21” . He held a September 11 flag on the steps of Zuccotti Park.

“Now I understand the sad faces of my father and uncle” said Newson Paul,21, of his family members who were first responders.

The controversies and debates that have often intruded upon the annual memorial were absent. Recent questions about the funding and maintenance of the memorial museum had cast shadows over the hallowed ground. But on the day before the memorial the disagreements were resolved between Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

“By ensuring that no additional public funds are spent to complete the memorial and museum,” Cuomo said Monday, “today’s agreement puts in place a critical and long overdue safeguard to finally protect tollpayers and taxpayers from bearing further costs, and, at the same time, put the project on a path for
completion,”

Mayor Bloomberg banned politicians and celebrities from speaking and performing this year.

“Those who lost family and loved ones deserve a day to remember. free run 3.0 v4 I’m glad there are no suits and ties in there. Its about time the family have a day to themselves”

“Those who lost family and loved ones deserve a day to remember,” said Hillegass. “I’m glad there are no suits and ties in there. Its about time the family have a day to themselves.”

After the service, a father who lost his daughter Suzanne in the attacks, said the service still gives closure. As his wife held a picture of their daughter, he said of the services, “Its always going to be powerful.”

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Victim’s brother Jimmy Cuevas.

By RYAN SIT

Friends and family of Reynaldo Cuevas, the bodega clerk who was fatally shot by a police officer in the Bronx, said on Tuesday that they don’t believe the shooting was an accident.

“No, that’s a lie,” said Cuevas’ cousin, Newton Peña of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s assertion that the shooting early Friday morning was accidental.
Peña was standing outside the R.G. Funeral Home in Washington Heights where victim’s wake was held. air yeezy 2 femmes “If it was an accident [the officer] should have tried to help him after he shot him. He didn’t.”

Cuevas was killed after three armed men attempted to rob Aneury’s Deli Grocery, the bodega where he worked in Morissania. In an attempt to flee to safety Cuevas sprinted out of the bodega, running into an officer who had his gun drawn. Officer Ramysh Bangali’s Sig Sauer pistol apparently fired a single round when the two collided, tearing into Cuevas’ left shoulder and eventually killing him. A surveillance video which shows the robbery taking place and Cuevas running into the arms of the police officer has made its way onto YouTube and various news Websites.

“Was this a reckless act?” asked Stanford Rubenstein, the lawyer representing Cuevas’ family and apparently setting the stage for a wrongful death lawsuit against the city. Whether the shooting was a criminal act or not, “is for the people of a grand jury serving from the Bronx to make,” he said. “Not the police commissioner.”

Rubenstein said Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson has committed to conduct an independent investigation into the shooting of Cuevas, 20. He predicted that the investigation would lead to a grand jury to decide whether the officer behaved recklessly, but some of those closest to Cuevas have already weighed the evidence and judged.

Reynaldo’s older brother Jimmy, 28, said that the video shows Bangali dropping him to the ground. “That’s when he shot him,” he said. Cuevas also said that after his brother had been shot, the officer dragged him by the arm about three car lengths away.

Jimmy Cuevas acknowledged that the three men arrested for the robbery, Christopher Dorsey,17, Orlando Ramos, 31, and Ernesto Delgado, 28, are more to blame for the death than Bangali, but added that he believed the officer’s action was intentional. “He’s trained for that, so how can it be accidental?” Jimmy Cuevas asked.

Outside the funeral home many people close to the victim arrived wearing t-shirts with his face printed on them, some saying, “In Loving Memory of Rey Cuevas,” others, “sleep in peace Rey.” Some also wore buttons that said, “Stop & Frisk” with a red slash through the words.
“You can hear the wails of grief from the hallways,” said Rubenstein.

“It’s tragic it had to end this way,” said Luis Mejia, 30, a childhood friend of Cuevas. free run 3.0 v2 femmes Mejia remembered Cuevas as a “great kid” who worked all the time, sometimes seven days a week, to support his 3-year-old daughter who still lives in the Dominican Republic.

Friends and family said Cuevas was working to bring his daughter to the United States and eventually follow his little sister into the Marine Corp. Peña said Ana Cuevas, Reynaldo’s mother, was trying to raise money to send her son’s body back to Santo Domingo.

“This family at this point is not focussed at all on anything civil,” said Rubenstein. They’re focused on getting justice,” Rubenstein said.

The surveillance footage available on YouTube and other news websites is at best indeterminate since it is difficult to see the extent of the contact between the two or when the gun was fired.

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The pear tree.

By MELANIE GOLDBERG

As death rained down on the World Trade Center plaza 11 years ago, a small green thing survived. It was a potted pear tree.

“She represents so much more than just the resilience of the city,” said Ron Vega, director of design and construction for the 9/11 memorial. “She represents the resilience of that event.She represents the ability to come back after so much trauma.”

Vega has worked on the memorials ince 2007, playing an integral role in getting the what is now called the “Survivor Tree” back where she belongs. With Bartlett Tree Experts,he helped nurse the tree back to health in a Bronx nursery.

Since 2010 the tree has stood near where it was planted in the 1970’s. air yeezy 2 After 9/11, the tree was buried for weeks under the rubble. Finally, in October 2001, she was dug out, becoming the last living thing pulled from ground zero, as well as the only surviving tree.

“The Survivor Tree represents strength,” said Dot Hill, a survivor of the Oklahoma City bombing. “It represents still being able to adjust to the conditions you’ve been thrust into.The tree fortifies the bond between that the survivors of any terrorist attack have.”

Although Hill was willing to talk about her ordeal, others, including Survivor Network President Richard Zimbler, shy away from the subject to avoid reliving the trauma.

“Trees signify life,” said Bartlett manager Kevin Kenney. “There had been nothing but dust and concrete for yeara. But the trees brought the site to life.”

“It’s one thing to build a big glass building, He added. “It’s something different when something that’s alive is given a chance to spring up. It’s a testimony to survival.”

Some 225 trees surround the memorial 224 swamp oaks and the surviving pear tree. Memorial official expect to put 360 trees altogether at the site.

“We chose swamp oaks because of their resilience and hardiness in an urban environment,” Kenney said.

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By Conor Febos & Ryan Sit

One of the two alleged killers in the brutal murder of a Chelsea businessman in March was granted protective custody Tuesday after officials agreed his dainty, frail physique put him at high risk of attack by other inmates.

Juan Carlos Martinez-Herrera, 26, who together with Edwin Faulkner, 30, allegedly robbed and murdered a Chelsea floral designer during a gay tryst, appeared under heavy guard in Manhattan Supreme where a trial date was set for October 30.

Three burly court officers surrounded Martinez-Herrera, 26, on Tuesday, further highlighting his slight figure.

The indictment charges that both men were having sex for money with John Laubach, 57, air max thea femmes a man from whom they had stolen jewelry two weeks only before the March 2 murder. The suspects allegedly choked Laubach to death in his West 22nd Street apartment after the three engaged in sexual games.

Cops caught Martinez-Herrera, 26, and Faulkner in Orlando, Fla. where the alleged killers fled following the gruesome attack that left Laubach’s wrists and ankles bound to his bed, records show.

The defendants each face a single count of second-degree murder.

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By Avril Regis

From the World Trade Center bombings and President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, to the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, NY1 has been there to give New Yorkers up-to-date 24-hour news coverage on everything happening in the city that never sleeps.

The station covers weather, local news, politics, traffic, sports and arts in the city’s five boroughs.

On Tuesday, in the Empire State Building’s lobby, the station commemorated 20 years on the air. There to celebrate were two of the station’s anchors, Pat Kiernan, who has worked for the station for 15 years, and Roma Torre who has been with the station since the debut.

“We started out as a very risky venture. Not too many people gave us much of a chance,air max 90 femmes ” said the anchorwoman. “We were the classic ‘Little Engine that Could’ in a city that was ruled by media giants. But we proved that youthful energy and good old fashioned chutzpah made us very competitive in this market.”

During the ceremony, the anchors flipped the switch on a miniature version of the Empire State Building to reveal lights in NY1’s signature colors, blue and yellow. The colors also lit the 1,454 feet Empire State Building Tuesday evening.

During her 20 years at NY1, Torre said that some of the best stories she’s covered were some of the most tragic.

“9/11 would have to be one of my best, while other stations were shut down because of their location,… we were able to broadcast live for two weeks straight, commercial free,” said the midday anchorwoman. “I didn’t go home that entire time.”

Anchorman Kiernan also described the September 11,Terrorist Attacks as one of the most important stories he’s covered.

“There were so many tuning in to us for information, we just told the stories of New Yorkers,” said Kiernan. “We’re just a part of the city, the same way the Staten Island Ferry is part of the city, the Yankees are part of the city, the New York Times is part of the city. NY1 is on that list now and that’s a pretty amazing accomplishment in 20 years.”

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