BROOKLYN

RATNER, EXTELL SUBMIT BIDS TO MTA FOR ATLANTIC YARDS

Two companies, Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Ratner Companies and the Extell Development Company, submitted bids to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by yesterday’s deadline for the right to develop over the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, an MTA spokesman, Thomas Kelly, said.

While Forest City Ratner has been lining up public support to build a $3.5 billion basketball arena and residential/office development on a site that would include the MTA’s Atlantic Yards, the development hinges on the approval of the MTA board. A spokesman for the company, Barry Baum, would not comment on the bid.

Extell Development Company, based in Manhattan, was a surprise entry in the Atlantic Yards bidding and is no stranger to multibillion-dollar real estate deals. Last month, the company teamed up with private equity firm the Carlyle Group to purchase three buildings and a tract of land on the Upper West Side for $1.76 billion from Donald Trump.

Mr. Kelly said the plans would be evaluated by the staff and presented to the board, though no timetable has been set to vote on the bids. The earliest the board could act would be at its next meeting July 27.

– Special to the Sun

CITYWIDE

PROSECUTORS CHARGE LONGSHOREMAN’S UNION WITH RACKETEERING

Federal prosecutors filed racketeering charges against the International Longshoremen’s Association yesterday, alleging that the union’s leadership conspired with the Gambino and Genovese crime families to rig union elections and award lucrative health care and pension contracts to members of organized crime syndicates.

The civil complaint filed yesterday is the latest development in law enforcement officials’ half-century-long battle to wrest control of the ILA from mobsters. In 1948, a reporter for The New York Sun, Malcolm Johnson, published a 24-part Pulitzer Prize-winning expose on the links between mobsters and ILA leaders, which served as the inspiration for Elia Kazan’s film “On the Waterfront.” Now, the Justice Department has resolved “to end organized crime’s control of the ILA,” according to a statement released yesterday by the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of New York, Roslynn Mauskopf.

Prosecutors are seeking to place the union and its benefit funds under the aegis of a court-imposed trusteeship, and to bar top union officials – including the president, John Bowers – from ever again holding an ILA post.

In a statement yesterday, union leaders said that the prosecutors’ move would have “devastating consequences” for the entire shipping industry and that it could jeopardize health coverage for 60,000 ILA members and dependents. According to the union’s statement, Mr. Bowers has prioritized anti-corruption efforts during his 18-year tenure as president. The union also charged that the Justice Department acted unethically by leaking information about the racketeering suit to the New York Times late last month.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

LIL’ KIM SENTENCED A YEAR AND A DAY IN PRISON

Raunchy rapper Lil’ Kim escaped a stiff prison sentence yesterday after telling a judge she was a “God-fearing good person” who regretted lying to a federal grand jury about a 2001 shootout outside a Manhattan radio station.

The Grammy winner was sentenced to one year and one day for perjury and conspiracy – a term far less than the three years and seven months sought by prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch said he had weighed the public perception of sending a young black entertainer to prison far longer than Martha Stewart, who spent five months in prison and remains under house arrest after a false statements conviction.

Mr. Lynch suggested Lil’ Kim – a stage named used by Kimberly Jones – deserved more time because she had lied about a violent crime, not a white-collar scheme. He also noted that unlike Stewart, she took the witness stand at her trial earlier this year and repeated her lies.

“At the time I thought it was the right thing to do, but I now know it was wrong,” she said, her voice breaking.

The case stemmed from a gun battle that erupted outside WQHT-FM, known as Hot 97, when Lil’ Kim’s entourage crossed paths with a rival rap group, Capone-N-Noreaga. Lil’ Kim, who was ordered to report to prison September 19, left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.

– Associated Press

COUNCIL MEMBERS ASK MTA TO REOPEN HUDSON YARDS BIDDING

Members of the City Council are asking the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to reopen the bidding process for the West Side rail yards in the wake of the city’s failed Olympics bid. The winning bid on the site – originally awarded to the Jets to build a $2.2 billion football stadium that would have doubled as the centerpiece of the city’s Olympic bid before the stadium plan was quashed by Assemblyman Sheldon Silver last month – has been upheld by a state Supreme Court after a group of labor and transit advocates sued the MTA.

Mayoral candidate and speaker of the council, Gifford Miller, who had strongly opposed the mayor’s efforts to build an Olympic stadium over the rail yards, said the MTA was cheating straphangers.

Another one-time bidder and rival of the Jets, Cablevision, which owns Madison Square Garden, had offered $750 million. The MTA’s own appraisal estimated the 13-acre parcel to be valued at $923 million.

– Special to the Sun

LAWYER FOR OFFICER WHO SHOT UNARMED MAN ASKS FOR VENUE CHANGE

A lawyer for the undercover policeman whose trial for fatally shooting an unarmed African art repairman ended in a hung jury has filed papers asking that the retrial take place somewhere other than Manhattan.

Attorney Howard Sterinbach said in court papers that he was seeking the change of venue because Officer Bryan Conroy cannot get a fair trial in Manhattan. A jury deadlocked 10-2 on second-degree manslaughter charges against Mr. Conroy in March.

Assistant District Attorney Armand Durastanti, the prosecutor in Mr. Conroy’s trial, said yesterday he will file papers next week opposing the motion to move the retrial.

Mr. Conroy, 25, admittedly shot Ousmane Zongo, 43, inside a West 27th Street storage warehouse during a May 22, 2003 raid to confiscate counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Zongo was not accused of any wrongdoing. Mr. Conroy faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Mr. Sterinbach, who filed the motion last week at the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, said the trial should be moved because of biased news coverage.

He said it was “the unrelenting and prejudicial media coverage since the first trial commenced and through the present time … that has made it crystal clear that defendant’s only hope for a fair and impartial trial means a trial outside of New York City and its crushing influences.”

– Associated Press

THE BRONX

COUNCIL MEMBER BLASTS BENEPE ON PARK REMARK

A City Council member from the Bronx who is the chairwoman of the Parks and Recreation Committee, Helen Foster, blasted the city’s parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, for telling the New York Times in an interview printed yesterday that it would be “a waste of money” to actively maintain a 3.3-acre strip on the Bronx shore of the Harlem River, University Woods.

Ms. Foster told The New York Sun yesterday that Mr. Benepe’s remarks were “out of touch and out of line.” According to Ms. Foster, the Bronx’s double-digit unemployment and high HIV rates have distracted city officials’ attention from quality-of-life issues such as parks. She said that her committee would hold hearings this fall to investigate whether park funding is distributed equitably across the five boroughs.

A Parks Department spokesman, Warner Johnston, declined to respond to Ms. Foster’s comments, but said that the city’s parks “are cleaner and safer than ever before.”

The parks commissioner during the Koch and Giuliani administrations, Henry Stern, said that University Woods was never intended for public use. “Although it is not attractive, you probably need higher fences or chicken wire to make it more difficult for trespassers to enter,” Mr. Stern told the Sun.

– Special to the Sun