BROOKLYN

RUSSO TO RUN FOR CITY COUNCIL

Pat Russo, prosecutor and former city council candidate, said he will announce his candidacy for the 43rd City Council District this morning. The Brooklyn resident will be running for a second time against incumbent Democrat Vinny Gentile along Republican, Conservative, and Independence lines.

During their 2003 race, just eight months after Mr. Gentile won a special election to finish current State Senator Martin Golden’s term, Mr. Russo won 46% of the vote but was not strong enough to defeat Mr. Gentile, who is a former state senator.

The Republican Party is hoping that a sexual harassment complaint filed by his former chief of staff will weaken the previously unbeatable Mr. Gentile. The 43rd district encompasses the fairly conservative Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, and Bath Beach.

Mr. Gentile, who ran under the Democratic and Working Families party lines in 2003, will most likely be this year’s Democratic candidate. While Mr. Russo was the only candidate to receive financial backing from the mayor during the 2003 citywide council elections, this year’s opposition field is still open, and at least two or three other candidates are expected to run in the primary.

Mr. Golden, who ousted Mr. Gentile from the state senate in 2002, will be speaking at Mr. Russo’s candidacy announcement today at Bay Ridge Manor. Assemblyman Matthew Mirones will also speak at the event.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

BRONX MAN FOUND SHOT IN HEAD IN BURNING CAR

Police homicide detectives and fire department marshals are investigating the death of a Bronx man found early yesterday morning in the backseat of a burning car with an execution-style gunshot wound to his head.

Yesterday around 2 a.m., firefighters were called to extinguish a gray Mazda burning at the corner of Viele Avenue and Casanova Street. Inside the backseat of the car, police discovered the body of Richard Lavoung, 32, whose last known address was at the Bronx. He was fatally shot in the right temple.

Police said yesterday they were still searching for a motive in the crime. According to fire department officials, the cause of the blaze appears to be gasoline dumped inside the front seat of the car and then ignited. Police yesterday were looking to speak with the owner of the car, which is registered in Connecticut and had not been reported stolen.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MAN SHOT OUTSIDE MILL BASIN CLUB

A Brooklyn man was in critical condition last night after getting shot twice early yesterday morning by an unknown assailant, police said.

Yesterday around 5 a.m., Tesfa Miller, 23, of Brooklyn, had become engaged in a dispute with a group of men outside the Four D’s International, a restaurant and catering hall in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn. For reasons that are still under investigation, one of the men in the group pulled out a handgun and shot Mr. Miller twice in the body. The shooting suspect then fled in a black Lexus with tinted windows, the police said.

Mr. Miller was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

RENOWNED CITY FUGITIVE CAUGHT IN CALIFORNIA

One of New York City’s most-wanted fugitives lived quietly in a Los Angeles suburb for years, according to police, taking care not to apply for a driver’s license or engage in other activity that would create a paper trail for authorities to follow.

Norman “Skip” Dennis was arrested last week at Gardena in connection with the slaying of his former girlfriend, Sharon Copeland, who was shot to death behind a building in Manhattan in 1986. He was jailed without bail pending extradition to New York.

Police said the man regarded as one of New York’s 25 most-wanted fugitives had lived at Gardena since the 1990s.

“He paid for everything in cash. He didn’t have a driver’s license. He pretty much stayed off the radar,” Detective Cliff Shepard of the Los Angeles Police Department’s cold case unit said Saturday.

Mr. Shepard, his partner, Detective Jose Ramirez, and New York City police detectives Stefano Braccini and Dominic Andreno took Dennis, 48, into custody outside his house. Police said the fugitive had been living under an assumed name and working as a carpenter. It was his arrest five years ago for narcotics possession that police said eventually led them to him.

Dennis was arrested under his assumed name, fingerprinted, and a copy of his prints were placed in an FBI database. New York police detectives found them there and used them to track him to Southern California.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

COUNCIL TO HONOR LABOR LEADER CHAVEZ

The City Council is planning on honoring the late labor leader Cesar Chavez in a ceremony at City Hall.

A spokesman for City Council Member Margarita Lopez, John Fout, said Paul Chavez, Chavez’s son, would be attending the March 31 event. The elder Chavez, who founded the United Farm Workers of America, died at the age of 66 on April 23, 1993.

Chavez, who was born in Arizona, achieved labor victories for migrant workers in California in the 1960s and 1970s and became internationally famous for organizing strikes and boycotts of grapes. Mr. Fout said the purpose of the celebration was to acknowledge the contributions of the city’s Mexican community rather than Chavez’s influence in New York.

“There wasn’t a specific contribution to New York,” he said of Chavez’s work. He said the event would “give political recognition to the Mexican community in New York.” Mexicans are the fifth-largest and fastest-growing major immigrant group in the city with a population of 122,550, according to city estimates.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

LOCAL GROUPS DEMANDING IMMIGRATION REFORM

New York religious, labor, and community leaders will demand action from the president and Congress on immigration reform today.

President Bush introduced an immigration reform program in January 2004, and reaffirmed his commitment to a temporary worker program last week at a summit with the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. But no specific legislation has been introduced.

The president said it is now up to Congress to introduce legislation that would create a humane system, matching willing foreign workers with jobs that Americans will not take.

The New American Opportunity Campaign, which is organized by groups such as the New York Immigration Coalition, the Church of Saint Joseph, and SEIU – Local 32BJ, calls for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship for illegal immigrant workers.

With nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in America, the campaign maintains a smart, safe, and orderly immigration system will maintain the economy, prevent worker exploitation, enhance security, and improve the lives of millions of immigrants and their families who want to be part of American society.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

JUDGE BRUCE WRIGHT DEAD AT 86

A former Manhattan judge, Bruce Wright, who earned the enmity of the police union and others in the 1970s with his controversial bail policies for minority and low-income defendants, has died. He was 86.

Wright, who had suffered a heart attack five years ago, died Thursday at his home at Old Saybrook, Conn. He had retired in 1994 after spending a quarter-century on the bench, presiding over both criminal and civil cases.

But he was perhaps best known for his policy on bail, which prompted the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association to dub Wright “Turn ‘Em Loose Bruce.” The judge was adamant that his imposition of low bail was simply upholding the Eighth Amendment, which states that “excessive bail shall not be required.”

The native of Princeton, N.J., first created a furor in 1972 when he released a man charged with killing a police officer on $500 bail – a figure another judge boosted to $25,000. Two years later, he released without bail another suspect accused of the attempted murder of a police officer.

That same year, Wright was transferred to Civil Court – a move the judge fought, suing to return to Criminal Court. He was transferred back in 1978, and quickly created another controversy by releasing without bail a suspect accused of slashing a police officer’s throat.

At that point, Mayor Koch – who would have to reappoint Wright when the judge’s 10-year term ran out – joined the chorus of critics. Wright, rather than await the inevitable, successfully ran for Civil Court judge in 1979 and was elected to the state Supreme Court three years later.

Wright was the author of a 1987 book, “Black Robes, White Justice,” about the role of race in the judicial system. He was named to the bench in 1970 by Mayor Lindsay, and retired on December 31, 1994.

Wright was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Davidson-Wright; a brother, Robert; and five sons, including Assemblyman Keith Wright, a Democrat of Harlem.

– Associated Press