QUEENS

MAN ALLEGEDLY COMMITS SUICIDE AFTER RAPING DAUGHTER

A man plunged a kitchen knife into his own chest after raping and beating his 17-year-old stepdaughter early yesterday morning in Jackson Heights, police officials said.

The girl managed to escape the apartment after she was assaulted, police said. She called 911 from a neighbor’s house, police said. When officers arrived they found Daniel Fretes lying on the kitchen floor with the knife still embedded in his chest.

The girl was immediately taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center to undergo a sexual assault forensic exam and treatment for her wounds. According to police, she had wounds consistent with her story, including evidence of rape and physical assault. However, police are waiting to hear back from the New York City Medical Examiner to determine Fretes’s cause of death.

A spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, said the girl has not been charged with any crime.

– Special to the Sun

BROOKLYN

BOARD OF REGENTS APPROVES CHARTER SCHOOL APPLICATION

The doors of the United Federation of Teachers’ elementary charter school in East New York will open this September after the New York State Board of Regents approved the application yesterday, according the teachers union president, Randi Weingarten.

The independent public school will be home to 150 kindergarten and first graders selected by lottery, and will boast small classes and two teachers per classroom.

Ms. Weingarten made the announcement at a scheduled press event for the charter school’s first staff meeting, held at UFT headquarters. Twenty-five teachers and staff were selected from 600 applications. About half of them came from city public schools. Two kindergarten teachers present yesterday that they were looking forward to escaping the bureaucracy under the city Department of Education.

Because of the tense climate between the city and the teachers union over ongoing contract negotiations, Ms. Weingarten said the UFT charter school will likely be scrutinized.

“Ultimately I will expect that we will be under the microscope every single day,” she said.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

VETERANS, PRESERVATIONISTS, NEIGHBORS AT ODDS OVER USE OF ARMORY

At a public hearing today over the future of the Seventh Regiment Armory, veterans, preservationists, and neighbors agreed that the building is in urgent need of restoration, yet disagreed on who has the right to conduct the repairs.

The Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy has proposed a plan to lease the building from the Empire State Development Corporation for 99 years and restore it. The plan would designate the space for art and antique shows, historic rooms, concerts, and a homeless shelter.

However, the Veterans of the Seventh Regiment and the Seventh Regiment Fund say the building belongs to trustees of the Seventh Regiment, and filed suit yesterday against the state for allegedly confiscating the building in 2004 legislation. “I see this as a gesture of contempt for the military by the state of New York,” a veteran, Peter Wells, said.

Another lawsuit issued by the state in 1996, in which it sought sole control of the armory and its artifacts, is now in the state Supreme Court.

– Special to the Sun

JURY FINDS ASHANTI BREACHED CONTRACT, OWES EX-PRODUCER $630,000

Grammy-winning singer Ashanti hit a sour note with a federal jury, which concluded yesterday she owes $630,000 to her first producer for breaking her contract with him.

The singer was not in court when the jury returned its verdict after finding she was liable for a breach of contract with Genard Parker, who worked with her in 1996 and 1997 when she was 16 years old.

Ashanti testified during the four-day trial that Mr. Parker did not live up to the terms of their deal as he helped her create music in a home studio that was so crude she sang in the bathroom while the sound was mixed elsewhere in the apartment. Mr. Parker, now of Ellenwood, Ga., said after the verdict that he wished the singer and her mother well and had nothing bad to say about them “though they had plenty of negative things to say about me.”

Ashanti’s lawyer Harry Stokes said the singer was disappointed and the verdict will be appealed.

“We think the jury got confused somewhat, particularly on the damages,” he said. “We feel confident when this is said and done we won’t have to pay out anything.”

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

DEBATE PROGRAM ANNOUNCED FOR MAYOR, COMPTROLLER, PUBLIC ADVOCATE

The New York City Campaign Finance Board announced yesterday the 2005 debate program for candidates for mayor, comptroller, and public advocate. For the mayoral race, there will be two Democratic and two Republican primary debates and a runoff debate, if required, followed by two general election debates on October 6 and November 1.

For the comptroller and public advocate races, there will be two primary debates and two general election debates.

The second primary and second general election debates are reserved for leading contenders who are determined by the event sponsors using nonpartisan, objective, and nondiscriminatory criteria. The CFB debate program was created in 1996.

Yesterday, the CFB also unveiled a new edition of the City Voter Guide that will be mailed in late August to 3 million households with at least one registered voter. The guide provides information for all candidates running for office in the city and includes their answers to a list of general questions. It also contains instructions on where and how to vote, and information on the ballot proposals.

– Special to the Sun

HOUSING OFFICIAL UNDER GIULIANI SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS IN PRISON

A judge sentenced a housing official who worked for Mayor Giuliani to five years in prison yesterday for embezzlement and possession of child pornography, rejecting his mental illness defense as an “excuse.”

Russell Harding and his attorneys had sought leniency by suggesting that a troubled childhood and clinical depression had clouded his judgment when he used more than $400,000 in city funds to finance a personal spending spree and downloaded child pornography onto his computer.

But U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan called the claims “excuses for conduct for which the defendant is fully responsible, and not a basis to mitigate a sentence.”

Judge Kaplan gave Harding, 40, the maximum term after hearing the defendant speak for more than 40 minutes. Subjects ranged from his accomplishments at the Housing Development Corporation, to a 2001 dinner where he regaled Mayor Bloomberg with “copious amounts of wine,” to the temptations of Internet chat rooms and confusion about his sexual identity.

“I was screwed up in my head about my sexuality, and it caused me to do all these wacky things,” he said at one point, though he denied being a pedophile.

– Associated Press

ACCUSED ‘MAFIA COPS’ LEAVE JAIL ON $5 MILLION BAIL

Louis Eppolito left the courthouse with a grin, declaring his innocence and his hunger for a plate of macaroni. Stephen Caracappa emerged with a glower, wearing all black and staring daggers at the journalists who followed him down the block.

The so-called Mafia cops walked free on $5 million bail each yesterday, heading to relatives’ homes to prepare their defenses against some of the worst police corruption charges in the city’s history. The former partners stand accused of leading double lives as hitmen for the mob, gunning down, kidnapping, and tracking down rivals of a Lucchese family underboss for tens of thousands of dollars in blood money. Mr. Eppolito, who has called himself one of the city’s most decorated police officers, said yesterday evening as he left the federal courthouse in Brooklyn that he was eager to prove his innocence, kiss his wife, and eat Chinese food, pizza, and macaroni.

– Associated Press