UPSTATE

CLINTON DISCUSSES PROBLEMS WITH DEMOCRATIC PARTY

President Clinton, noting an “astonishing turnout among evangelical Christians” in this year’s election, warned yesterday that Democrats “cannot be nationally competitive when we don’t feel comfortable talking about our convictions.”

“I do not believe either party has a monopoly on morality or truth,” Mr. Clinton told an audience of more than 4,500 in a packed field house at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., during an appearance just a week after Senator Kerry failed to win back the White House for Democrats.

“I think the current divisions are partly the fault of the people in my party for not engaging the Christian evangelical community in a serious discussion of what it would take to promote a real culture of life,” Mr. Clinton said.

While the loss by Mr. Kerry has left Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Clinton, as a possible front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, both Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton have thus far avoided discussing that in public. He stuck to that strategy last night.

“I’ll do what I can to help Hillary, because I’m really proud of her,” was all he said as he discussed his future, and hers.

She is expected to seek re-election to the Senate in 2006.

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

PRINCIPAL USED SUBORDINATE AS CHAUFFEUR

The principal of P.S. 73 in Brooklyn admitted yesterday that she arranged for a subordinate to pick up her children from school for a five-month period last year.

The principal, Joelle McKen, said she usually pays for a van service to pick up her children from school. But, she said, between October 2003 and March 2004, she arranged for the family assistant from her school to transport her two children from P.S. 279 to P.S. 73 at the end of the school day.

The subordinate, Hilda Anthony, drove her own car to pick up the principal’s children when she should have been working. Ms. McKen saved $450 through the under-the-table transportation deal. She admitted that she violated the city charter and as part of a settlement agreement, committed to paying a total of $900 in fines – $450 to the Department of Education and $450 to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. The special commissioner of investigations, Richard Condon, who investigated Ms. McKen’s conduct, said, “Education officials should not use city staff to babysit or transport their children. Those in government service must separate their public functions from their personal and family commitments.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

SILVERSTEIN TRIAL SET TO CLOSE

Closing arguments are expected to take place Monday in the second trial pitting developer Larry Silverstein against his insurers in deciding the value of their policies covering the World Trade Center; jury deliberations could begin Tuesday.

At issue is whether the nine insurers should pay $1.1 billion, the policy limit, or $2.2 billion because the attacks on the south and north towers constituted separate occurrences. In his opening statement in mid-October, Mr. Silverstein’s lawyer, Bernard Nussbaum, argued, “If only one plane had stuck one tower, only that tower would have collapsed.” This argument failed to convince jurors in the first trial last spring, who found that Swiss Re and eight other insurers were bound by a document that treated the attack as a single occurrence.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

PORT AUTHORITY ASKS COURT TO STOP LAWSUITS IN 1993 WTC BOMBING

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey urged a state appeals court yesterday to stop more than 175 lawsuits charging that the agency ignored security warnings that preceded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Port Authority lawyer Arnold Kolikoff told a five-judge panel that reports received by the agency before the bombing only “described general possibilities and general vulnerabilities,” and he said the van bomb attack was unforeseeable.

The agency, which owns the trade center site, has asked the appeals court to overturn a January ruling by a lower court judge that the 175 lawsuits may proceed. In allowing the lawsuits to go forward, state Supreme Court Justice Stanley Sklar noted that the Port Authority’s own “eerily accurate” security reports had raised the specter of a vehicle bomb in the garage. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 injured February 26, 1993, when more than 1,200 pounds of explosives were detonated in a rented van in the public parking garage beneath the trade center’s Twin Towers. The five justices appeared skeptical of the Port Authority’s case yesterday, openly questioning whether enough police officers were posted at the site and whether the agency all but ignored pre-1993 security warnings.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE SEARCH FOR RAPIST IN BROOKLYN

Police are searching for a Brooklyn rapist believed to have assaulted female employees at two cell phone stores in recent weeks. “In both incidents a suspect enters a store inquiring about cell phones,” said Deputy Inspector Ann Marie Connell, commanding officer of the Special Victims Squad. “He then produces a black handgun and forces the lone female to the back of the store, where he sexually assaults her.” The suspect also stole cash and cell phones from the stores during the daytime assaults, and robbed the victims of personal property. The suspect stole a credit card from the rape victim in the more recent incident, at a Greenpoint store on November 4, leading investigators to the Queens Center Mall, where the suspect made several purchases with the stolen card later that day.

Police released a security video of a man believed to be the suspect, wearing a blue cap and a brown jacket and accompanied by another man and a woman, who police say might not have been aware that they were shopping with a rape suspect. The suspect was described as a clean-shaven, dark-skinned Hispanic man, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall, 160 to 200 pounds, aged 25 to 30.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FOUR SUSPECTS CHARGED IN HOMICIDE-HEIST

Four suspects have been charged in the homicide-heist of a Queens businessman last month, as police caught up with the alleged triggerman yesterday. Denworth Davidson, 21, of Brooklyn, is accused of gunning down Bruce Levy, 52, at his Long Island City dry cleaning plant on October 7 for the $17,000 in payroll cash he was carrying, according to police and the office of Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Mr. Davidson allegedly confronted Levy at gunpoint at the Red Cap Valet. According to a police source, Mr. Davidson fired shots at Levy inside his business, missing him but prompting him to drop the payroll bag. Mr. Davidson allegedly grabbed the bag and walked outside. When Levy followed him, Mr. Davidson killed him with a shot to the neck, according to the district attorney’s office.

Police in Orlando, Fla., arrested accused getaway driver Jerome Fletcher, 25, of Brooklyn, on Monday. Mr. Fletcher, a former employee of Levy’s, has been charged with second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, according to a law enforcement source. Police also arrested Mr. Fletcher’s two girlfriends: Davia Gabriel, 26, who lived with Mr. Fletcher at Brooklyn and was charged with first-degree robbery and criminal facilitation in the fourth degree, and Stacey Whittaker, 28, a bank teller from Farmingdale, who was charged with hindering prosecution in the first degree.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun