CITYWIDE

2 COMPLAINTS PROMPTED LETTER FROM 7 COUNCIL MEMBERS ON PROFILING

The seven City Council members who expressed concern in a letter to the mayor Monday that police were deciding to conduct bag searches on the buses and subways depending on the passenger’s race or ethnicity, have received a total of two complaints from their constituents that police were using racial profiling. The seven members of the City Council yesterday condemned calls by other elected officials in the city who asked police to use racial profiling as they search people’s bags in the subway. – Special to the Sun

NYCLU TO SUE, SAYS POLICE SUBWAY BAG SEARCHES ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Random searches of bags and packages carried by subway riders are unconstitutional and ineffective at stopping terrorists from attacking the heart of the city’s public transit system, a civil rights lawyer charged yesterday. An associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Christopher Dunn, said the organization will file a lawsuit today in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to challenge the city’s new policy, enforced after deadly bombings in London last month.

“This program is unprecedented in terms of the threat it poses to core constitutional rights,” he said. Five plaintiffs to be introduced at a news conference today would include a survivor of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, whose bag was inspected in one of the random searches announced July 21 by the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, the NYCLU said. Since the searches began, thousands of people seeking to ride at the city’s 468 subway stations have had their belongings searched, the NYCLU maintains.

– Associated Press

PARENTS VOICE CONCERN OVER SCHOOL BEHAVIOR CODE CHANGES

Dozens of New York residents, including parents and students, voiced their concerns to officers of the Department of Education regarding the city agency’s Discipline Code last night at the Tweed Courthouse. The head of the coalition to implement the Dignity in All Schools Act, which was passed by the City Council last summer and vetoed by Mayor Bloomberg because superseding state education laws already covered the same ground, Phyllis Steinberg, said: “This Discipline Code is useless if we do not monitor and record why, where, when, and how harassment occurs in our schools.” – Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

MALONEY ENDORSES STRINGER FOR MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat who represents Manhattan’s East Side, endorsed the West Side assemblyman, Scott Stringer, a Democrat, yesterday in his run for Manhattan borough president. Mr. Stringer faces a crowded field of borough president hopefuls, including City Council members Eva Moskowitz of the Upper East Side, Margarita Lopez of the Lower East Side, and Bill Perkins of Harlem, in addition to Adriano Espaillat, Brian Ellner, Carlos Manzano, Keith Wright, and Stanley Michels. Ms. Maloney joins Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, as the second U.S. representative to endorse Mr. Stringer. – Special to the Sun

COLUMBIA ANNOUNCES $15 MILLION EFFORT TO DIVERSIFY FACULTY

Columbia University announced a $15 million initiative yesterday to increase the number of women and minorities on its faculty by adding 15 to 20 new positions over the next several years. Columbia’s trustees approved the funding unanimously at their June meeting. – Associated Press

STOCKBROKER PLEADS GUILT Y TO BILKING FIRMS

Calvin Darden pleaded guilty yesterday to swindling more than $4 million from three Wall Street firms and an investor, the office of the district attorney, Robert Morgenthau, said.

Darden’s corporate victims were his former employers, including $3,185,522 from AIC, Ltd. between July 7, 2003, and October 20, 2003; $632,448 from Wachovia Securities Financial Network, LLC between February 4, 2003, and April 29, 2003, and Smith Barney Citigroup between April 1, 2001, and July 27, 2001, the indictment says. He pleaded guilty to the top five charges: four counts of grand larceny and one count of scheme to defraud. When he is sentenced November 11, Darden is expected to receive four to 12 years in prison, the district attorney’s office said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

MARTHA STEWART’S HOME CONFINEMENT EXTENDED THREE WEEKS

Martha Stewart’s release from home confinement and the removal of her electronic anklet has been delayed three weeks, until the end of the month, her lawyer said yesterday.

Attorney Walter Dellinger said in a one-sentence letter that the home-and-hearth marketing queen “has agreed to an extension of the terms of her home confinement until August 31.”

Those conditions include staying inside her home north of New York City except for 48 hours a week of employment, food shopping, doctor appointments, and church. And Stewart must always wear the anklet, about which she has repeatedly complained, saying it irritates her skin.

“I am not allowed to take it off at any time, and I am not allowed, while in my home, to have any padding under the strap,” she once told fans during an Internet chat. “I hope none of you ever has to wear one.”

Stewart even boasted once that she had learned from the Internet how to remove the transmitter, although probation officials said she never did.

It wasn’t revealed what Stewart did to earn the extra three weeks of confinement. Mr. Dellinger’s assistant, Ann Kienlen, said he would not elaborate beyond his one-sentence announcement.

– Associated Press

SECURITY TO BE RAMPED UP ON AMTRAK

Police chiefs and other law enforcement officials from the states along the Amtrak path between New York and Washington, D.C., met at police headquarters yesterday to discuss improving security, police officials said.

Though many of the agencies present at the meeting claimed they already had strong security in place to defend the railway – especially in the aftermath of the bombings of transit systems in London, Madrid, and Moscow – they agreed they needed to increase coordination among one another, officials said. The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, called the meeting “an important step in an ongoing effort to improve passenger rail security by continuing to share intelligence information and coordinate the deployment of resources.”

– Special to the Sun

BOY DIES ON PLAYLAND WATER RIDE

A boy died yesterday on a water ride at the Playland amusement park in Westchester, the county executive’s office said.

The death, the park’s second in 15 months, occurred in late afternoon on Ye Old Mill, a boat-in-the-dark amusement beneath the Dragon Coaster on the midway. The ride is tamer than many others at the 77-year-old park. The boy’s name was not made public. He was described as 6 to 8 years old. A spokeswoman for county executive, Andrew Spano, Donna Greene, said the boy was found in the water. The cause of death was not immediately known.

– Associated Press

QUEENS

QUEENS MAN GETS 60 DAYS IN DWI CRASH THAT KILLED BOY

A Queens man who pleaded guilty to drunken driving in a crash that killed an 11-year-old boy and critically injured his best friend was ordered yesterday to spend 60 days in jail – a sentence that outraged the dead boy’s mother.

John Wirta, 56, also was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine, complete 15 days of community service, and participate in a drunken driving program, the Queens district attorney’s office said in a news release. Wirta’s driver’s license will be revoked.

The dead boy’s mother, Monique Dixon, was furious that Wirta would spend just weeks behind bars while her son was “never coming home.”

– Associated Press

BROOKLYN

POLICE FIND DEAD HISPANIC MALE Police discovered a dead Hispanic 21-year-old man at 925 Metropolitan Ave. in Brooklyn last night. He suffered multiple stab wounds to his torso and neck, police said. No arrests have been made, and the motive was unknown, but a police investigation is ongoing.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun