Tag: NYPD
Man robbed by woman after refusing to pay for sex
A man was allegedly robbed at knifepoint in the Bronx by a woman he met on a dating app after he refused to pay for sex, police and sources said Tuesday.
The 60-year-old man had been messaging with the woman on an app called Skout, and the pair met around 3 a.m. Monday at an apartment on Holland Avenue near Pelham Parkway South, police and law enforcement sources said.
She allegedly performed sexual services on him, and demanded to be paid, police said. But the man refused — later telling cops he’d never agreed to pay — and she allegedly took out a knife and stole $100 from him, along with a Bluetooth device and three cellphones, the sources added.
She then allegedly forced the victim to withdraw money from an ATM inside a nearby deli but was scared off when the man told a store clerk to call 911.
The man was uninjured. His date is still in the wind.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/05/21/man-robbed-by-woman-after-refusing-to-pay-for-sex-sources/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Mom turns herself in after slashing throats of her two children
A Bronx mother slashed her two young children’s throats before turning up at a police precinct covered in blood to confess to the heinous crime, cops said Monday.
A passerby saw Shanice Martin, 24, allegedly stab her 2-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son in the neck and body on the corner of Washington Avenue and Brook Avenue at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, police reported.
Martin ran off as witnesses called the cops, officials said.
Shortly after the 911 call, Martin, covered in blood, walked into the 42nd Precinct and confessed to her crimes, police added.
She now faces 12 counts of assault, two counts of child abandonment, two counts of child endangerment and two counts of possessing a weapon, police said.
A razor blade was recovered, but it was not immediately clear whether it was the weapon she used to stab her children, officials said.
Martin is undergoing psychiatric evaluation and observation at Lincoln Hospital.
The children were treated at New York Presbyterian Hospital, but their conditions were not immediately clear, according to authorities.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/29/mom-turns-herself-in-after-slashing-throats-of-two-children-cops/
Man allegedly killed girlfriend for staying out overnight
The Bronx man who walked into a local police precinct station house and confessed to killing his girlfriend was angry because she had stayed out overnight, police sources told The Post Thursday.
Angel Esteban Felix Rodriguez, 24, strolled into the 48th Precinct station house with an interpreter around 6 p.m. Wednesday and admitted to officers that he killed Indira Ramirez-Rivera, 21, two days prior, police and sources said.
Rodriguez gave his apartment keys to cops, who went to the couple’s Nelson Avenue basement apartment and found her lifeless body in a bedroom, sources said.
Rivera was discovered strangled to death face-up on a bed, the sources said.
Rodriquez was later charged with murder and manslaughter for the slaying. Police have not released a motive.
Shocked neighbors told The Post on Thursday the couple had a hot-and-cold relationship, and that Rivera had moved out of the apartment in the past before moving back in.
“They seemed lovable but then they argued and it was heated,” neighbor Smily Rodriguez, who has no relation to the suspect, told the Post.
Rodriguez, 35, was home when police flooded the scene Wednesday night, and said she knew things were bad when she saw police head downstairs with their rubber gloves on.
“I heard one EMT say: ‘It looked like the devil was in there,’” she said.
Neighbors said Rivera had just returned from the Dominican Republic, where she had plastic surgery.
“She wasn’t able to move around that well,” said 18-year-old Andy Ramirez.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/11/man-allegedly-killed-girlfriend-for-staying-out-overnight/
NYPD cop accidentally recorded oral sex with her boss on police bodycam
The NYPD is probing claims that a Brooklyn cop performed oral sex on her boss inside a squad car while on the job — blissfully unaware that her body camera was capturing crystal-clear audio of the deed.
During a recent midnight tour in East New York’s 75th Precinct, the officer and her sergeant purportedly started getting frisky inside their car, with the female cop tucking her body camera into her vest, thinking it was turned off, police sources said.
But the camera was rolling throughout the action, capturing audio of the lusty law-officers — neither of whom was immediately identified by name — that left little to the imagination, sources said.
The female officer can even be heard gushing to her lover about the apparent sex act as they basked in the afterglow, according to sources.
The recorded rendezvous was likely uncovered by a precinct superior during a routine review of the couple’s body camera footage after their shift ended, sources told The Post.
“It’s disgusting and an embarrassment,” fumed one police source, who added that the sergeant should be demoted for fooling around with a subordinate if the erotic audio is as it seems.
“Especially since he is a supervisor and he would do that to his worker.”
It wasn’t immediately clear when or exactly where the clip was purportedly recorded, but word of its existence spread like wildfire around the East New York cop shop — and back to brass in 1 Police Plaza.
“These claims are under review,” the NYPD said in a statement, though
department insiders said that as of Wednesday afternoon neither of the
cops purportedly involved had been interviewed.
They remain on full duty.
Internal investigators have also yet to give the audio a listen, and were working Wednesday to get their hands on it to determine its authenticity, another source said.
The alleged raunchy recording comes just one week after the NYPD proudly announced that every beat cop, sergeant and lieutenant on the force — some 20,000 Finest — is now equipped with a body camera.
“Body-worn cameras enhance the safety and accountability of the dedicated men and women of the NYPD,” said Police Commissioner James O’Neill in heralding the milestone.
The department, which had been expanding body camera usage in waves since 2017, has already hit at least one other X-rated speed bump.
In December 2018, Brooklyn Detective Specialist Raymond Williams, 44, was suspended without pay for grabbing a colleague’s unattended body cam and using it to record a clip of his testicles.
Secret camera found in NYPD women’s bathroom
A civilian security guard planted a cellphone in the ceiling of a women’s bathroom at an NYPD building in Brooklyn and recorded cops as they used the toilet, law enforcement sources said.
Pedro Rodriguez Sanchez, 34, was arrested on Wednesday.
He recorded multiple videos with his phone inside the NYPD Property Clerk Division ladies’ room at the Erie Basin Pound, sources told The Post.
The bust came after a female officer found the phone, left it and told a sergeant. But when they returned to retrieve it, it was gone.
Sources said Sanchez, who is charged with unlawful surveillance in the second degree, allowed police to search his phone. Investigators allegedly discovered that he deleted the footage but were able to get it back.
“Nothing’s ever really deleted on your phone,” a source said. “The computer-crimes unit can retrieve stuff.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/18/secret-camera-found-in-nypd-womens-bathroom/
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.
Cop found not guilty in fatal shooting of mentally ill woman
The NYPD sergeant on trial for the fatal shooting of a bat-wielding Bronx woman has been found not guilty in the woman’s death, a judge ruled Thursday morning.
Bronx Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary said he found Sgt. Hugh Barry not guilty of all charges — including murder — in the Oct. 2016 shooting of 66-year-old Deborah Danner.
“Clearly this case involved a terrible tragedy and emotions on both sites are elevated,” Neary said, before declaring that Barry was found not guilty of second-degree murder, first and second degree manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide.
“In this case the prosecution has an additional burden beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is not justified,” she continued. “In both regards the prosecution’s evidence has failed to meet the burden of proof.”
Barry looked stoic and emotionless as the verdict was read. Jennifer Danner, Deborah’s sister, raised her eyebrows slightly. At one point, she appeared tearful as she rested her head on another woman’s shoulder.
Defense lawyer Andrew Quinn said that Barry is “overwhelmed.”
“He has been through a difficult time,” Quinn said. “We have always felt confident we would win, but you never know until you see the evidence.”
“I thought he was very honest,” he added. “I thought he explained in specific detail exactly what happened inside that room and described it as it was. It could’ve ended very, very differently. And I think that’s why he was able to convey this to the judge.”
Barry, who was escorted by police the whole time, was nowhere to be found after the verdict was read.
He was on his way to church “to catch a Mass,” Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said.
The Sergeants Benevolent Association received the news with “much joy and relief,” according to a statement posted on Twitter.
“Sgt. Barry committed no crime and was justified in his actions,” the statement said. “I commend Judge Neary for recognizing that and acquitting Sgt. Barry of these horrendous charges.”
But Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark had a more somber reaction.
“The judge has issued his verdict in this case,” she said in a statement. “We are disappointed but we accept his decision. However, I believe the death of Deborah Danner illustrates the larger issue of how we need changes in the way we address people with mental health issues.”
“There must be serious reforms to improve access to treatment so the situation does not rise to a crisis,” she added. “Mental health professionals should be part of the response to emotionally disturbed persons. I hope that measures will be taken to prevent another tragedy such as this.”
Barry, who opted for a non-jury trial, testified during the two-week proceeding that he fired two bullets into the schizophrenic woman–using his service weapon, not a taser–because he feared for his life.
“I just see the bat swinging, and that’s when I fired,’’ the 32-year-old said from the stand Tuesday. “I’m looking at this bat that can crack me in the head and kill me.”
Quinn argued Wednesday that Barry was imminently threatened when Danner took a step in his direction holding the bat.
“If she hadn’t taken that step, we wouldn’t be having a trial. We wouldn’t be having a funeral,” the defense attorney said.
But prosecutors insisted during the proceedings that Barry ignored his training when he walked into the mentally ill woman’s bedroom — causing the already angry and agitated Danner to have become even more aggravated.
“[Barry] failed to fulfilled his duties as a patrol supervisor,” Assistant DA Wanda Perez-Maldonado argued during her closings. “He failed to make use of the resources available to him.”
“He created to the situation….that led to her death,” Maldonado added.
The deadly incident began when the 31-year-old sergeant and others arrived at Danner’s apartment after a neighbor reported a screaming resident.
Barry peered into the woman’s bedroom, where he spotted her sitting “on her bed furiously snapping a pair of green-handled metal scissors,” according to court papers.
He claims he asked her to put the scissors down, but she brandished them in his direction, and spat, “I’m not f–king coming out!”
She eventually dropped the scissors, but then pulled a baseball bat from between her bed sheets and lunged at Barry–who was also armed with a taser, the papers say.
He fired two shots from his service weapon, hitting her in the torso, and she later died at a nearby hospital.
The shooting prompted street protests and was immediately criticized by police commissioner James O’Neill, who told reporters, “We failed,” and Mayor de Blasio, who called Danner’s death “tragic and unacceptable.”
Mullins sharply criticized both officials — and the ADA — on Thursday, saying that they “play politics.”
“Sgt. Barry should be immediately reinstated,” he declared. “He was wronged all along and it’s up now to the commissioner to make it right. He owes him an apology, the mayor owes him an apology and so does the district attorney.”
Barry’s case marks the first time an on-duty officer has faced murder charges since the notorious police shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999.
Danner’s family has filed a federal lawsuit against the city.
A nine-year veteran of the 43rd Precinct, Barry could have faced up to life in prison if he was convicted on the murder charge.
“There is no victory here today,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch said in a statement, “only relief that justice has been served and a good man who was doing a difficult and dangerous job has been exonerated.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/02/15/cop-found-not-guilty-in-fatal-shooting-of-mentally-ill-woman/
“I failed my drug test because of my weave” : de Blasio detail cop
An NYPD sergeant who once worked in First Lady Chirlane McCray’s personal security detail has coiffed-up quite an excuse after testing positive for marijuana — she’s claiming the department mistakenly tested a strand from her human-hair weave. The hair-brained claim is the latest bid by Sgt. Tracy Gittens to keep her job after a random drug test came up positive for pot and she was pulled from overseeing security at Gracie Mansion, sources tell The Post.
The 13-year department veteran — who has been on paid desk duty in Queens since this winter and is awaiting a departmental trial — insists that when she was tested, technicians unknowingly collected strands of human hair from her weave.
They snipped from the back of her head, where she couldn’t see, sources said she is claiming — and had they tested her actual hair, it would have been clean of drugs.
“She doesn’t smoke marijuana and she’s unaware how it may have gotten into her system,” one police source told The Post. “That’s why she’s thinking it may have been the weave.”
Other colleagues say it’s tuft to believe.
“Oh stop; it doesn’t even pass the laugh test,” scoffed one police source. “That’s one of the lamest excuses I’ve ever heard. What people will do to save their jobs is pathetic.”
Another cop said the sergeant should have said she was wearing a weave at the test site, if she was concerned.
“She should have said upfront that is not my real hair so they could take the hair from somewhere else. I’ve heard every excuse, but those tests are 100 percent accurate and I tend not to believe her story.”
Gittens did not respond to requests to interview; her lawyer, John D’Alessandro, also declined to comment.
She’s not the first cop to attempt a crazy-sounding dodge after testing positive for pot. In 2006, an anti-terror detective, Anthony Chiofalo, claimed his wife had laced his meatballs with marijuana without telling him in hopes that a positive drug test would force him into retirement.
The “spacey meatball” defense failed utterly. Chiofalo was fired; two years later, he lost a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit that claimed the firing was “arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and unconstitutional.”
via: http://nypost.com/2017/09/17/i-failed-my-drug-test-because-of-my-weave-de-blasio-detail-cop/
Suspects claim teen was having sex with father before alleged gang rape
The fifth suspect wanted in the gang rape of an 18-year-old girl in Brooklyn last week was nabbed Tuesday at school, law enforcement sources said.
The suspect, Travis Beckford, 17, of Brooklyn was being questioned by cops after he was picked up at Tilden High School. He has yet to be charged, sources said. Meanwhile, two other suspects in the shocking crime told investigators that the five youths came across the young woman as she was having sex with her father in the Osborn Playground in Brownsville around 9 p.m. Thursday, sources said.
“Can we have some of that?” one asked the dad, who was allegedly drunk and had been boozing with his daughter before the attack, sources said.
Two of the teens say they then had consensual sex with the victim while her sloshed dad staggered away.
The dad returned and chucked a bottle at the teens, who fled, said one of the suspects, according to the sources. The victim, the sources added, was combative, tried to flee from cops at the scene and bit an officer when she was finally placed in an ambulance after first refusing to go to the hospital and fighting with EMS.The woman claimed to have bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, but was not prescribed any medicines.
Police observed multiple healed scars on the victim’s arms.
Once she arrived at Kings County Hospital, she finally consented to a rape kit test.
Cops took her clothing and underwear, which they found at the scene, for DNA testing.
The dad walked into two local delis looking for help — but was too drunk for anyone to understand him, witnesses said.
“He was swaying side to side. He asked me, ‘Lend me your phone.’ I said no,’’ said a worker in one of the shops, Zaida Deli and Grocery.
“He didn’t tell me it was an emergency or ‘I need to call the police’ or of course I would’ve given it to him or just called the police for him.”
As for two of the suspects’ claims that the sex was consensual, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said, “At this juncture, we have no doubt she was raped.”
The first four teens were charged early Tuesday for their roles in the gang rape, while charges were pending against the fifth alleged attacker.
Denzel Murray, 14, Shaquell Cooper, 15, Ethan Phillip, 15, and Onandi Brown, 17, were each charged with rape, forcible compulsion, criminal sex act and sex abuse, police said.
The four teens were all charged as adults and were being held pending arraignment early Tuesday.
Two of the teens were brought in by their mothers Sunday night, the third was picked up at an undisclosed location and the fourth turned himself in, sources said.
“She has cuts and bruises consistent with being physically attacked,” a source added of the victim.
Police said the girl told detectives in a “detailed interview” at her house that one of her attackers had a bright red “satin-type’’ jacket on.
A video of the teens at a local bodega shows at least one of them wearing such a jacket, police said.
While two of the teens claim they engaged in consensual sex with her, a third suspect said he left the playground before the assault, sources said. The fourth teen is refusing to talk.
Police said they have video that shows the girl and her dad buying 22-ounce cans of beer at a bodega and entering the park before the attack.
The victim told cops that she and her 39-year-old dad — whom she only recently reconnected with after being adopted — were drinking near the handball courts “to be away from the police,” sources said.
Their plan backfired when the teens, including one with a gun, confronted them and ordered the father to scram, the pair told cops.
Surveillance video from the store shows the victim’s father walking inside before he begins to chat with two men. He does not appear to be frantic or in distress.
After walking out of the store, the dad drunkenly ran past a marked police car before eventually circling back and alerting the cops to his daughter’s attack — 20 minutes after the alleged rape first began to unfold, sources said.
Local activists complained that residents didn’t learn of the attack until it was publicized by the media over the weekend — and Mayor Bill de Blasio joined in the chorus of gripes Monday.
“The mayor was informed on Sunday of the tragic assault in Brooklyn. After further conversations with the NYPD, the mayor now believes strongly that the local community should have been informed sooner and has instructed that the NYPD notify communities more quickly moving forward, whenever appropriate,” a rep said.