PRIVATE CHEN DREAMED OF JOINING NYPD AFTER SERVICE
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN, CORKY SIEMASZKO AND RICH SCHAPIRO (NYDN)
Army Pvt. Danny Chen didn’t fit the mold of the classic tough-as-nails American soldier.
He was soft-spoken and slender — more gentle than tough, more awkward than athletic.
Friends described the only child from the lower East Side as quirky and brainy, with an offbeat sense of humor.
But deep within Chen’s unimposing facade was a warrior.
EIGHT SOLDIERS CHARGED IN DEATH OF DANNY CHEN
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN AND CORKY SIEMASZKO (NYDN)
The best friend of Pvt. Danny Chen, the Chinatown soldier who was allegedly hounded by members of his unit before his death in Afghanistan, said Wednesday he doesn’t believe his pal killed himself.
Raymond Dong spoke out as the Army charged eight soldiers in connection with the death of Chen, whose body was found in a guard tower in Kandahar Province Oct. 3.
“I kind of saw this coming,” Dong told he Daily News. “I knew there had to be something because I can’t believe he would commit suicide.”
UTICA TEEN SHOT DEAD IN THE SOUTH BRONX
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN AND ROCCO PARASCANDOLA (NYDN)
A masked gunman shot and killed an upstate teen who was back home in the Bronx to visit his grandparents Monday night, police said.
Justin Williams, 16, was shot in the stomach by a man wearing a ski mask in Mott Haven about 11:40 p.m., cops said. The gunman fled with an accomplice, also wearing a ski mask, and is still being sought.
QUACK GETS 8 MONTHS FOR FATAL BUTT IMPLANT SURGERY
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN AND KEVIN DEUTSCH (NYDN)
A “cold and calculating” quack Bronx plastic surgeon whose botched butt implants killed a woman was sentenced to three to nine months in prison Monday.
Elsa Then, 58, broke into sobs when Judge Martin Marcus gave her jail time instead of the probation for which her lawyer begged.
He also admonished her for preying on Hispanic women who frequented her flourishing, but illegal, cosmetology practice.
POLICE ARREST FIVE PEOPLE TO BREAK UP OCCUPY THE BRONX RALLY
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN (NYDN)
The national wave of Occupy crackdowns swept through the South Bronx Saturday, as police arrested five people and broke up an Occupy the Bronx rally at the site of a community garden razed by the city.
Four activists and a freelance journalist were handcuffed on the sidewalk outside a vacant lot at Southern Blvd. and Union Ave. in Mott Haven, formerly the Morning Glory Community Garden.
They were the first Occupy the Bronx activists arrested since the movement formed in October.
TEENAGE BOY FATALLY SHOT BY BUS MADMAN SHEPHERDED NABE KIDS
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN (NYDN)
The mother of the teenage boy killed by her ex-con boyfriend minutes before he shot up a Queens bus said Saturday there had been no signs of trouble.
“It was out of the blue,” Sheena Tucker said of Friday’s shocking violence.
“I didn’t know he had a gun,” she said of boyfriend Damel Burton, the suspect charged with killing a second man on the Q111 bus. The pair are parents of a 9-year-old son.
CATHOLIC SCHOOL OFFICIAL BUSTED FOR CHILD PORN
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN AND LARRY MCSHANE (NYDN)
A pervert assistant principal, in a plea bargain deal to dodge jail time, admitted perusing his kiddie porn stash on a library computer inside his all-boy Catholic high school.
Brother Lawrence Gordon — who was canned from his job at Mount St. Michael Academy — accidentally left his smut-laden USB drive in the computer last Valentine’s Day, officials said.
The drive, holding sexually explicit images of underaged boys, was discovered by another teacher at the Bronx school.
FORDHAM HEIGHTS NEIGHBORS BAND TOGETHER TO FIGHT CRIME
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN (NYDN)
They woke to a late-night shootout, with bursts of gunfire echoing down their Bronx block. Now the good people of Marion Ave. are refusing to go back to sleep.
The Marion Ave. Neighborhood Association - a new community group determined to make Fordham Heights safe again - held its first meeting last week.
FEDS EYE PROJECTS IN BROOKLYN, BRONX FOR LABOR ABUSES
BY DANIEL BEEKMAN (NYDN)
Illegal labor is the foundation of the city’s affordable housing industry, construction workers and union leaders claim.
Mayor Bloomberg has vowed to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2015. But Hizzoner’s push is coming under scrutiny, with a top contractor headed to trial for wage infractions at an East Harlem project and a housing agency bigwig arrested Oct. 6 for corruption.
Now the U.S. Labor Department and the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development are probing underpayment and kickbacks at affordable housing projects in the Bronx and Brooklyn, the Daily News has learned. At the Bronx site - 780 Prospect Ave. - workers are due $575,000.
BRONX REV ARRESTED FOR COLLECTING DEAD TEACHER’S PENSION
BY BEN CHAPMAN, DANIEL BEEKMAN AND CHRISTINA BOYLE (NYDN)
A Bronx pastor has been busted for pocketing nearly $250,000 in pension payments intended for a dead public school teacher, officials said.
The Rev. Victor Rosa, 72, is accused by federal prosecutors of cashing the monthly payments for more than a decade after his tenant Maria Sicardo passed away in 2000.
