Tag: Brooklyn
A Manhattan prosecutor could face criminal charges after he and his wife allegedly videotaped their nanny undressing and showering in their bathroom
The nanny’s lawyer said a grand jury could soon hear evidence against the husband, Matthew Seltzer, 35, including possible felony charges of unlawful surveillance, attempted unlawful surveillance and falsification of business records.
“I am glad to see the District Attorney’s office finally moving forward with some semblance of justice,” said attorney Vincent White, noting that Brooklyn prosecutors told him they would present the case to a grand jury within four to six weeks.
Seltzer is married to Lauren Angelo-Seltzer, a Manhattan DA assistant.
Vanessa Rivas, 23, claims she caught the couple red-handed in January 2018 just as she was about to disrobe and shower at their StuyTown apartment.
She told The Post that she spotted the hidden camera, disguised to look like a black iPhone charger.
“I noticed a glare, and I was just like, wait this is odd, so I pulled it out of the socket, and the last video is me looking at it like, ‘What is this?’”
When she confronted Angelo-Seltzer, the ADA denied any knowledge of the camera — then used her law enforcement connections to try to intimidate the young care giver, Rivas claims.
The prosecutor summoned cops from the 13th Precinct, who threatened to arrest Rivas if she didn’t hand over the camera’s memory card, the nanny says. When she refused, officers let her go.
Then Angelo-Seltzer’s mom, former Manhattan Criminal Court judge Eileen Koretz, offered to pay Rivas for lost earnings after she’d quit her nanny gig if Rivas agreed to “end this.”
Instead, Rivas filed a police report and hired White to file a civil case against the couple.
Koretz, a judicial hearing officer, has since resigned from that post amid a probe by the state court inspector general, which is looking into whether the ex-judge meddled in the case, according to a court spokesman.
“I resigned solely for personal reasons and to spend more time with my family,” Koretz said in an email to The Post when asked if her departure was related to Rivas’ claims.
But court IG Sherrill Spatz launched her probe in January after The Post reported on the lawsuit. Koretz resigned in April, before the probe was completed, according to state court spokesperson Lucian Chalfen.
Rivas declined to drop the charges in an early deal offered to Seltzer by Brooklyn prosecutors, who are handling the case to avoid a conflict of interest, according to White of White, Hilferty and Albanese.
He said prosecutors revealed that Seltzer tried to alter his credit card statements to hide the camera purchase, leading to the possible falsification of business records charge, White claims.
Court documents show that Seltzer and Angelo-Seltzer have hired separate attorneys.
If convicted, Seltzer faces four to seven years in prison and could have to register as a sex offender.
Seltzer and his attorney could not be reached for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/06/01/man-could-face-7-years-in-prison-if-convicted-in-nanny-spycam-case/
Photo Credit: nypost.com/Angel Chevrestt
Brooklyn teacher allegedly molested 11-year-old student on field trip
The middle school teacher accused of molesting an 11-year-old East Flatbush student had sexual contact with her at least three times — including on a school bus during a field trip, a prosecutor said Tuesday at the disgraced educator’s arraignment.
Daniel Santiago stood cuffed as Assistant Brooklyn DA Wilfredo Cotto described how the 29-year-old — whose wife and infant child appeared in court with him — first grabbed the 11-year-old’s breast on a school bus, and then sat next to her and slid his hands down her pants on the return trip.
Santiago’s wife remained stone-faced as she heard Cotto tell the court how her husband later met the girl in a classroom at Brooklyn Science and Engineering Academy inside PS 224, where he allegedly tried to kiss her and had her touch his penis.
During another classroom encounter, Santiago allegedly fondled the child’s buttocks and genitals over her clothing.
“There are multiple instances where the defendant asked the complainant to text pictures, and she sent photos of herself with panties and a shirt on,” Cotto said.
The prosecutor said that the inappropriate contact was only revealed when the girl’s friends started spreading rumors, and one eventually told an adult. The child at first told cops the rumors were false, but broke down and confessed after her cousin stole her cellphone and viewed the texts.
Defense attorney Michael Postiglione said his client “is well respected by his peers” and is “prepared to fight this case.”
Santiago’s wife declined comment as she left court with her mother and brother-in-law.
Judge Ellen Edwards ordered Santiago to stay away from the girl before ordering him held on $7,500 bond.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/16/brooklyn-teacher-allegedly-molested-11-year-old-student-on-field-trip/
Brooklyn woman falsely told she was HIV-positive, lawsuit alleges
Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital incorrectly told a Brooklyn woman she was HIV-positive, a lawsuit says.
Sandra Peralta went in for HIV testing in March 2016. The results came back positive, according to the Brooklyn Supreme Court suit, but the results of two more rounds of bloodwork were negative. The hospital told Peralta the negative conclusion was “final.”
But then a hospital employee left Peralta a phone message saying she in fact had HIV, the suit says. She was told the same thing when she called the hospital back, it says.
Before discovering once and for all that she was HIV-negative, Peralta underwent “unnecessary medical procedures” and “suffered a loss of marital intimacy,” the suit says. She could not be reached for comment.
“We are not in receipt of a complaint from this patient,” Mount Sinai said.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/03/16/brooklyn-woman-falsely-told-she-was-hiv-positive-lawsuit-alleges/
Basketball coach shot player’s dad for complaining
A Brooklyn high-school basketball coach was arrested Friday for shooting the father of one of his players — after the dad complained that his kid wasn’t getting enough playing time, police said.
The shooting occurred Dec. 22, but the coach lied to police and said a third man pulled the trigger — and his victim was too wounded to speak and finger the real culprit, authorities said.
It was only recently that the victim recovered enough to tell police what really happened, officials said.
Coach Todd Myles of the Pathways in Technology Early College HS on the Paul Robeson campus allegedly lied to cops about what went down that night with local dad Christopher Hooks, who had supposedly shown up at his house to argue over his son’s playing time.
Myles told police that a third person had also arrived — with a gun — and started blasting, authorities said.
Myles is accused of shooting Hooks and then concocting his story about the random street thug in an attempt to cover his tracks. Myles, 42, had actually gotten grazed by a bullet at some point, though it’s unclear now whether this was a ricochet wound or intentional act, police said.
Myles is facing charges of attempted murder, assault and criminal use of a firearm. He was taken into custody on Friday morning by detectives.
The city Department of Education called the allegations against him “incredibly shocking.”
“We immediately reassigned Mr. Myles away from students, and we’ll work to remove him from payroll as soon as legally possible,” said a DOE spokesman. “We are providing support to the school and are working with the NYPD throughout this investigation.”
Myles began his education career as a substitute in 2001 and later became a teacher in 2004, according to DOE.
He started working at Robeson in 2013 and has no prior disciplinary incidents.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/01/basketball-coach-shot-players-dad-for-complaining-cops/
Cops bust Brooklyn man who went berserk inside deli over bagel order
He’s going from egg sandwiches to bologna behind bars.
The enraged customer who threw bread and a metal bell at a deli worker for making him wait for his bacon, egg and cheese sandwich was arrested Thursday morning by the NYPD’s Warrant Squad in connection with the attack, police said.
Edilberto Burgos, 24, was picked up at his Bed-Stuy apartment just before noon for assaulting the 28-year-old clerk on Nov. 25 at the deli on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick, according to authorities.
“Make my cinnamon toasted raisin bagel with bacon, egg and cheese right now!” he screamed, as he repeatedly banged on the store’s display counter, according to video from the incident.
The footage later shows Burgos throwing store merchandise — and even bread — at the victim, who suffered bruising and swelling.
On Thursday, Burgos was charged with assault and menacing, cops said.
He was previously arrested for petit larceny in February 2015 and for being in possession of a loaded firearm in February 2012, police said.
He is due to appear in Brooklyn court on Thursday.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/01/03/cops-bust-brooklyn-man-who-went-berserk-inside-deli-over-bagel-order/
Woman let bandits into home so they could rob her husband
A Brooklyn man’s estranged wife set him up to be robbed by three masked thieves in a violent home-invasion robbery, police and sources said.
The 41-year-old man was in his apartment on Livonia Avenue near Mother Gaston Boulevard in Brownsville at about 2:40 p.m. on Saturday when his wife stopped by to pick up a bag of her clothes, cops said.
The man went to the bathroom, and when he came out, he saw her holding the door open for three men with bandannas covering their faces, police sources said.
One of the men was holding a black handgun, the sources said. The trio of robbers then punched and kicked the man, while his estranged wife shouted: “Look under the bed!” police sources said.
The robbers grabbed a lockbox with about $550 in cash from underneath the bed, cops said.
“That’s what you get for f–king with me,” the woman shouted at her husband before she and the robbers ran out of the apartment, police sources said.
“Love hurts,” a police source said.
The woman has not been caught, but police are searching for her, authorities said.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/14/woman-let-bandits-into-home-so-they-could-rob-her-husband-cops/
Worst maid ever drank my booze, wrecked my home and passed out on the floor
The only thing these maids cleaned out was the liquor cabinet!
A Brooklyn woman expected a spick-and-span home when she hired a cleaning company to tidy up her Williamsburg pad.
Instead, the maids trashed her apartment, ate her ice cream, guzzled her booze — and one of them even passed out drunk on the kitchen floor.
“I hired two ladies from Joanna’s Cleaning Service in Brooklyn and they didn’t clean a thing, just drank all my liquor and f–ked up my home,” fumed Genevieve Snow, 29, in a now-viral Facebook rant posted Monday.
“My roommate came home to one of them blacked out face-down in our kitchen and the other long gone. My spice rack was smashed, my marble coffee table upended which smashed a stone bowl, keys were gone, booze was gone and chocolate ice cream left on the sofa.”
Now Snow says she’s out of pocket more than $400 for the damage — and, adding insult to injury, when she asked for reimbursment, the company tried to explain it all away with a sob story that the sloshed sweeper’s husband had just left her and her teen daughter was knocked up.
Snow says she’s used Brooklyn-based Joanna Cleaning Service for the occasional spruce-up dating back to 2013, and emailed her most recent contact at the business, a woman identifying herself as Joanna Oltuszewska, for the Aug. 27 job.
She let the two maids in that day before heading off to work — leaving $180 plus a $60 tip — but one of her housemates woke up a few hours later to find the cleaners sitting on their couch eating.
“You know when you are not supposed to be doing something, people jerk up really quickly? They did that,” said roommate Kristen Nepomuceno, 28, who then went off to her job at Soul Cycle.
But when Nepomuceno returned home from work around 5:30 p.m., it was a very different scene. The house was a mess, one maid was nowhere to be seen, and the other was passed out on the floor next to a smashed spice rack.
“I walk in and see bare feet — she is literally lying right here,” Nepomuceno said, pointing at her kitchen floor.
She left the apartment in horror and called the cops — and when they all returned, the maid was awake, sitting on the couch and digging into a pint of ice cream.
“She is licking ice cream and hammered, beyond hammered. She drank one whole bottle of Broker’s Gin and [most of] a bottle of Kettle,” said Nepomuceno.
The NYPD confirmed cops went to the apartment and sent a drunk woman from there to Woodhull Hospital. Snow says they didn’t take a report, however, telling her the cleaners hadn’t committed any crimes and advising her to “take it to civil court.”
Snow fired off an angry email to Oltuszewska asking to be reimbursed for the service, spice rack and getting her locks changed. But the woman kept trying to wiggle out of paying — claiming the passed-out maid was having “family problems.”
“Her husband left her after 19 years marriage, and that day when she was cleaning your apartment she had the phone call that her teenage daughter is pregnant,” Oltuszewska wrote in an email shared with The Post.
“She couldn’t stop her emotions and that’s why she used the alcohol, thats never happened before.”
When Oltuszewska stopped responding altogether, Snow posted about her experience Monday with a bad review on Joanna Cleaning Service’s Yelp page.
That’s when a woman identifying herself as Joanna Sokolowska got in touch — claiming her company, Joanna Cleaning Service, hadn’t cleaned her home since 2017, and insisting she must have been taken for a ride by Oltuszewska, a former employee who was fired in 2013 and set up a rival company called Joanna’s Cleaning.
“I have nothing to hide,” Sokolowska told The Post.
“[Oltuszewska] was working with us — an independent worker. She left and opened her company … I am 100 percent sure it was her.”
Snow says it’s possible a former employee stole her information and took her for a ride, but notes that Oltuszewska first got in contact with her in 2016 when she emailed Joanna Cleaning’s listed email address about getting some cleaning done.
She can’t find an address for either Joanna and just wants to know where she can send the bill — or a lawsuit. “The end goal is finding an address to sue the business,” Snow says.
“If there really are two Joanna’s Cleaning Services, I want to know who owns both of them and where they are registered.” The number listed for Joanna’s Cleaning was disconnected when The Post called Monday, and Oltuszewska did not respond to requests for comment via email.
Photo credit: Kristen Nepomuceno
Mail carrier accused of swiping thousands in social services checks
A Brooklyn postal worker and three accomplices targeted the city’s neediest — plucking social services checks from the mail.
Making matters worse, since-canned letter carrier Vanessa Bandie, 29, and her co-defendants allegedly carried out the scam during the holiday season — from Oct. 25, 2016 to Dec. 27, 2016 — stealing nearly $30,000 in benefits checks from 66 people, according to Brooklyn prosecutors.
The group even allegedly swiped nearly $4,000 from residents of a homeless shelter, prosecutors said.
Bandie, whose route was in East New York, was approached by James Black and Lauren Johnson with the proposition to find mail with checks inside to later cash. Bandie, who would get paid from the proceeds, agreed to help them, prosecutors said.
Then the trio brought the checks to a Pay-O-Matic check-cashing business on Linden Blvd. where employee Paul Daniels would cash them and take a cut, prosecutors said.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Monday that the group, “stole from the most vulnerable among us, including residents of homeless shelters. We will now seek to hold them accountable.”
They were charged with grand larceny, identity theft and related charges and pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Bandie and Daniels were released on their own recognizance while Black — who was already in jail on a separate matter — was held on $25,000 bail. Johnson was held on $1,000 bail.
Bandie stopped showing up to work in 2017 and was officially fired in Aug. 2018, according to a law enforcement source.
She is due back in court on Dec. 5 while the others are due back on Nov. 28.
Bandie’s lawyer, Gary Farrell, said, “She has no prior contact with the criminal justice system and is a hard-working single mother.”
A lawyer for Black did not immediately return requests for comment. Johnson’s lawyer declined to comment and Daniels’ lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/01/mail-carrier-accused-of-swiping-thousands-in-social-services-checks/
Off-duty cop pistol-whips man, steals his pants and shoes in Brooklyn
BUSHWICK, Brooklyn — An off-duty police officer allegedly pistol-whipped a man outside a Bushwick nightclub and robbed him, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Anthony Delacruz, 34, and an unidentified accomplice were caught on video in a confrontation with another man on May 28 around 3:30 a.m., officials said. Delacruz pointed his service weapon at a man who was hiding behind a car.
All three men go off camera and, when they return, the unidentified accomplice is carrying clothing and sneakers, prosecutors said. Delacruz and his accomplice walked away.
The victim, who can be seen on camera dressed only in a t-shirt and boxers, walked away with no shoes on, officials said. Delacruz allegedly pistol-whipped him when they were off camera. The victim’s DNA was found on the muzzle of Delacruz’ gun.
A shell casing at the scene also massed Delacruz’ gun.
“This defendant’s alleged brazen and criminal behavior was in direct contradiction to the oath he took to protect and serve,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. “He then allegedly made a deplorable situation worse by falsely accusing multiple individuals of robbing him.”
Delacruz had initially told other officers that his alleged victim had actually robbed him along with some other men, officials said. Officers responding to a call for shots fired found him near El Mekkah Bar and Grill.
He allegedly told them he was in his vehicle when he was surrounded by several men who stole his gold chain, Rolex watch and a gold ring before fleeing, prosecutors said. Delacruz said he chased after the perpetrators and fired at them once.
A group of people were taken into custody after Delacruz told police his version of what happened, but video evidence quickly showed his version of events was not accurate.
He was arraigned on 14 charges Wednesday. Delacruz was charged with robbery, assault, menacing, falsely reporting an incident and petit larceny, among other charges. He faces up to 25 years in prison for the robbery charges.
Prosecutor caught having ‘intimate relationship’ with cop accused of raping teen
A Brooklyn prosecutor was caught having an affair with one of the NYPD cops accused of raping a handcuffed teenager, The Post has learned.
Assistant District Attorney Nicole Manini, 34, is under investigation for potentially violating professional conduct rules for New York lawyers, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Manini’s illicit relationship with now-former Detective Richard Hall, 33, was uncovered when investigators with her office reviewed his cellphone records as part of the rape case, sources said.
The phone logs revealed multiple calls between Manini and Hall, who is married with two kids, sources said.
The calls began before the alleged Sept. 15 rape and continued afterward, sources said.
The DA’s office referred Manini for investigation to the court system’s Grievance Committee for the Second, Eleventh and Thirteenth Judicial Districts, which prosecutes cases of professional misconduct by lawyers.
“During our investigation of this case, we learned that a junior assistant district attorney in our office was engaged in an intimate relationship with defendant Hall and knew [second] defendant [Eddie] Martins socially,’’ a spokesman for the DA’s office told The Post Monday.
“This ADA had no involvement in or access to the investigation or prosecution,’’ the rep said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we have disclosed this information to all relevant parties.”
Michael David, the lawyer representing Hall’s rape accuser, said he plans to use the former cop’s affair with Manini in his client’s pending civil rights suit against Hall, Martins and the city.
“It’s completely relevant to this case. It goes to [Hall’s] credibility,” David said.
Hall and his former partner, Martins, are accused in a 50-count indictment of raping and sexually abusing the 18-year-old woman inside an NYPD van after she was picked up in Calvert Vaux Park for allegedly having illegal prescription pills.
Hall is accused of watching in the rear-view mirror as Martins allegedly raped the woman. Hall then allegedly forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The cops — who claim the entire incident was consensual — were fired over the allegations, which DA Eric Gonzalez has called “conduct that boggles the mind.”
Manini, who received her law license in 2012, previously worked as a defense and family court lawyer in New York City and as a correction officer in Lehigh County, Pa., according to her LinkedIn profile. She was hired by the DA’s Office in 2015 and is paid an annual base salary of $65,000, payroll records show.
Manini didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. Hall’s lawyer, Peter Guadagnino, declined to comment.