CITYWIDE

BLOOMBERG GETS PERSONAL

Mayor Bloomberg made an appearance yesterday evening at a book party to celebrate the children’s book written by one of his predecessors, Mayor Koch. Mr. Bloomberg brought his own children’s “book,” titled “Eddie, Michael’s Big Helper.” Among the lines: “Oh Eddie at 80 was hearty much more…at Mark Green he did yell and that’s why I’m at this party.” The “Eddie” character in Mr. Bloomberg’s children’s tale also “told Cablevision where they could stick it.” The references are to the former public advocate, Mr. Green, and to the company that owns Madison Square Garden and has been opposing the mayor’s plans for a new Jets stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. Mr. Koch wrote his book, “Eddie: Harold’s Little Brother,” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) with his sister, Pat Koch Thaler. It is illustrated by James Warhola, who is Andy Warhol’s nephew. It tells the story of a child who is not good at baseball but is good at speaking in public and who later “even became the mayor of New York City.” The party, hosted by real estate magnate Jack Rudin at the Four Seasons restaurant, was swamped with paparazzi. The photographers were not there to stake out the two mayors, but were instead waiting for Martha Stewart, who was expected at the restaurant later in the evening.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

NYCLU SUES NYPD FOR CONVENTION ARRESTS

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed two federal lawsuits against the city yesterday, challenging the police department’s methods of arresting protesters during the Republican National Convention.

“The police practice of arresting lawful protesters, bystanders, and observers during the RNC and holding them for days at Pier 57 was a flagrant violation of their rights,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU.

The lawsuits apply to two separate mass arrests of protesters made near Union Square and ground zero on August 31.The suits were filed the day after the Manhattan district attorney’s office announced it would not prosecute 227 protesters arrested during a march of the War Resisters League on Fulton Street.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly stood by his arresting officers, dismissing the NYCLU complaints.

“The NYCLU continues to distort the facts,” Mr. Kelly said. “Its characterizations of conditions at Pier 57 is false, and it lied when it said today that the NYPD used arrests ‘as an excuse to fingerprint political activists.'”

The American Civil Liberties Union has continued to criticize conditions at the Pier 57 post-arrest processing facility used by police during the convention, claiming that the entry of fingerprints into government databases is a fundamental invasion of privacy.

An attorney for the city said yesterday the legal papers regarding the NYCLU cases had yet to be reviewed.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

REPORT CRITICIZES DAY CARE BUREAU

The city health commissioner released a scathing report on his own Bureau of Day Care in response to the August death of a baby at a day care center in Queens. The 34-page report confirms the commissioner’s initial findings, which were made public after the death of 7-month-old Matthew Perilli was deemed a homicide. Matthew was found to have suffocated under a pile of toys just an hour after two city inspectors left without issuing any violations to the day care facility he was in. The Perilli death has led to a shakeup in the way day care centers are licensed and inspected.

Dr. Frieden fired the head of the Bureau of Day Care; ordered an immediate overhaul of the division, including transferring the bureau to the Division of Environment Health; installed a new acting director to oversee operations; and started a search for an assistant commissioner.

Yesterday city officials closed another unlicensed day care center in Queens with ties to the facility where Matthew Perilli was killed.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

POWELL INVESTIGATION HALTED

The Special Victim’s Squad has terminated its investigation into the alleged sexual assault of a 38-year-old woman by state assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV this summer and no criminal charges will be filed, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. In May, Mr. Powell, son of the late congressman and civil rights activist Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was also accused of serving alcohol to his 19-year-old intern in an Albany motel room and then raping her, although the intern quickly recanted her charge that she had been raped. In June, Mr. Powell, 42, a Democrat whose district includes Manhattan, again became the subject of alleged sexual assault when he escorted the 38-year-old woman back to her Upper West Side apartment after meeting at a cocktail party. After Mr. Powell left the woman’s apartment, she reportedly called 911 and went to St. Luke’s Hospital for treatment.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FRESHDIRECT DELIVERYMAN CHARGED WITH STALKING

A deliveryman for online grocer FreshDirect was charged yesterday with stalking and harassing five female customers – two of them eight months pregnant – by using threats of sexual violence. Prosecutors said Erik Reynolds, 33, of Manhattan, admitted he took telephone numbers and addresses from the order forms of FreshDirect customers and used the information to terrorize East Side women over the past three weeks. Assistant District Attorney Duncan Levin said in Criminal Court at Reynolds’ arraignment that the defendant, a FreshDirect driver since July, called a pregnant customer two weeks ago, said he was downstairs and told her, “I’m going to come up and rape you.”

“Needless to say,” Mr. Levin said, “she was horrified.”

Mr. Levin said Reynolds was caught after one of the women put a tracing block on her telephone, allowing police to determine that the deliveryman was making the calls. After his arrest late Wednesday, Reynolds admitted making the calls, Levin said. The prosecutor quoted Reynolds as saying, “I made those calls. I was just doing it for fun. I like to play around on the phone. I shouldn’t have done it.”

– Associated Press

HARLEM ‘TIGER’ MAN SENTENCED

The Harlem man who pleaded guilty to illegally keeping an alligator and a tiger in his apartment while children lived there was sentenced yesterday to five months in jail.

State Supreme Court Justice Budd Goodman, who promised the man, Antoine Yates, no more than six months in jail after he pleaded guilty in July to reckless endangerment, also sentenced him to five years’ probation. He also told Yates to get a job and not to keep wild animals. Yates, 36, apologized, saying, “I never intended to hurt the public, not at all.”

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

REWARD OFFERED IN BENSONHURST SLAYING

At the Brooklyn street corner where an elderly woman was robbed and fatally stabbed in broad daylight last week, police officers announced that a reward is being offered for information that might lead to the arrest of her killers.

Rachel Paliseno, 76, was walking near her Bensonhurst home when she was stabbed multiple times at the intersection of Bath Avenue and Bay 20th Street at 1:35 p.m. on September 30. While bleeding heavily, Paliseno managed to stagger two blocks to the 62nd Precinct stationhouse, where she collapsed. She was taken to Lutheran Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Police released sketches based on eyewitness accounts of the slaying. A white man, described as 35 to 45 years-old, 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet tall, weighing 220 pounds. Police offered a $12,000 reward and urged anyone with information to call 1-800-577-TIPS.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

QUEENS

INCUBUS SINGER ARRESTED AT LA GUARDIA AIRPORT

The lead singer of the rock band Incubus was arrested inside La Guardia Airport at Queens for carrying a switchblade in his bag while trying to board a plane on his way to a concert in North Carolina. Brandon Boyd, 28, was stopped Wednesday when La Guardia Airport baggage screeners spotted the knife in his carry-on luggage, said Lou Martinez, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. Mr. Boyd was charged with criminal possession of a weapon but was able to continue on to Raleigh, N.C., in time for a scheduled concert on the band’s nationwide tour, said a spokeswoman for Epic Records, the band’s label.

– Associated Press