ALBANY

STATE TO CONSIDER SETTLEMENT IN SILVER GIFT CASE

The state lobbying commission on Wednesday is scheduled to act on a proposed $25,000 penalty against Caesars casinos for providing a discounted room in Las Vegas to the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, while casino issues were pending in Albany. The penalty would be a fifth of the maximum and “significantly lower” than fines in similar cases, according to a staff memo. The agreement negotiated by the lobbying commission staff and Caesars Entertainment, now Harrah’s Entertainment, was tabled in June by the commission.

– Associated Press

ASSEMBLYMAN TO CONDUCT INQUIRY INTO WATER PLAYGROUND

A New York state assemblyman is launching an inquiry into the state-run water playground that may have spread more than 2,000 cases of gastrointestinal illnesses.

“All visitors to New York State Parks should be confident that they will have a healthy and safe experience,” a state assemblyman, Joseph Morelle, said in a statement. The number of reported gastrointestinal illnesses possibly spread by the water playground at Seneca Lake Park has grown to 2,202 cases across 24 counties in western and central New York as of yesterday. So far, 13 cases in four different counties have been confirmed as cryptosporidiosis, a common waterborne disease.

– Associated Press

LONG ISLAND

SCOUTMASTER HELD ON CHARGES OF SEXUALLY ABUSING BOY

A Scoutmaster of a Boy Scout troop in Great Neck, Long Island was charged yesterday with sexually abusing and taking sexually explicit photos of one of his 13-year-old charges, according to the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown. The defendant, Ronald Occhipinti of Bayside, Queens, allegedly took the victim to his home at 58-14 East Hampton Blvd., where he performed oral sex on the boy at least eight times since November 2003 and had him pose naked for lewd pictures. During a search of Mr. Occhipinti’s home on Friday, police found at least 20 images of the alleged victim in “lewd and obscene poses with exposed genitalia,” according to the district attorney’s criminal complaint.

– Special to the Sun

BRONX

MAN KILLED BY SUBWAY IN APPARENT SUICIDE

A man was killed by a downtown no. 1 train this morning in the Bronx in an apparent suicide, police said. Known in police vernacular as a “jumper,” the unidentified Hispanic male in his 50s leapt in front of an oncoming downtown train at the 231st Street station in the Bronx at approximately 6:20 a.m., police said.

– Special to the Sun

BROOKLYN

POLICE APPREHEND ALLEGED MURDERER

Eleven days after 53-year-old Esperance Labidou and her Chihuahua were stabbed to death and Labidou’s niece was slashed in the face in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, police apprehended 35-year-old Pierre Carrenard in Miami for the crime. On August 9, police say Mr. Carrenard, enraged over a breakup, murdered his ex-girlfriend’s mother, wounded her cousin, and killed the dog. Mr. Carrenard, of 311 E. 54th St., is in custody in Miami and will be sent back to New York for his arraignment.

– Special to the Sun

STATEN ISLAND

BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES $6M PARK ON FRESH KILLS

The Fresh Kills landfill, once the world’s largest garbage dump and home to more than 250 million tons of trash, will soon have a $6 million, 28-acre park on it, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday.

As part of a 30-year, $100 million master plan to transform the site, which closed in 2001, the new park, called Owl Hollow Fields, will contain recreation facilities including soccer fields and nature trails when construction concludes in fall 2007. This portion of the project is being funded by the mayor, the City Council, and $450,000 in federal monies.

The mayor said that when the ecological reclamation of Fresh Kills is complete, it will contain “2,200 acres of recreation space, wetlands, woodlands meadows, and open water and will be two and a half times the size of Central Park and will increase the total amount of open space on Staten Island to nearly 30% of the entire borough.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

COMPTROLLER OPPOSES MTA’S USE OF $833M SURPLUS

The city’s comptroller, William Thompson, joined a growing number of public officials criticizing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan to use more than half of an $833 million surplus to build a deck over the Hudson Yards on the far West Side of Manhattan. In a letter sent to the MTA’s chairman, Peter Kalikow, on August 15, Mr. Thompson said using the unforeseen surplus from the authorities’ share of real estate tax revenue on building platforms, instead of improving subway service, was “speculative.”

– Special to the Sun

RADIO HOST TESTIFIES AT GOTTI TRIAL

A radio host known for mouthing off against the Mafia testified yesterday about how a 1992 cab ride became a botched kidnapping that prosecutors say was ordered by John A. “Junior” Gotti. Taking the witness stand at Gotti’s conspiracy trial in federal court in Manhattan, Curtis Sliwa told jurors that after hailing the cab, a masked gunman hiding in the front passenger seat “popped up like a jack-in-the-box,” swore at him, and began shooting. Wounded in the stomach and bleeding profusely, Mr. Sliwa discovered the stolen cab had been rigged so he couldn’t open the back doors.

– Associated Press

CONSTRUCTION BLOCKS WHEELCHAIRS FROM ELEVATORS AT 34TH STREET

Disabled subway riders are upset that construction at the 34th Street station has blocked people using wheelchairs from boarding the elevator on the northbound platform of the Sixth Avenue B, D, F, and V lines, one of 51 of the system’s 468 stations that is wheelchair-accessible. New York City Transit is installing a new escalator as part of the stations rehabilitation, but caging around the construction site has made it difficult for riders using a wheelchair or scooter wider than 24 inches to reach the elevator.

– Special to the Sun