New York Desk

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

CITYWIDE


BLOOMBERG SAYS CITY IS PREPARED FOR NATURAL DISASTERS


Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday that his administration has plans for how to react if New York City were faced with a natural disaster on par with Hurricane Katrina.


At a press conference yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said the city could “easily” be slammed by a hurricane, and that the Office of Emergency Management tracks storms. He said the city also coordinates plans with the Red Cross, the Police Department, the Fire Department, and other city agencies.


“We’ve studied the topography of New York City,” he said.”The city has no land that is lower than sea level, but it clearly has some areas that are very close to sea level and that flood occasionally.” He said susceptible areas within the five boroughs include Lower Manhattan, the Rockaways, and Coney Island.


“We’ve looked very carefully at these,” he said. “We’ve made sure that we have evacuation routes and have a way to inform people. We’ll use radio. We’ll use television.We’ll go knocking door to door if that’s what it takes.We just have to make sure that we are prepared, and if a storm comes in this direction, we take appropriate action.”While Mr. Bloomberg said certain parts of the city might have to be evacuated in an emergency, he said evacuating the entire city would be unnecessary because it is not below sea level.


– Staff Reporter of the Sun


AIDE TO YEMENI CLERIC SENTENCED TO 45 YEARS


A deputy to a Yemeni cleric who plotted to raise money for Al Qaeda was sentenced yesterday to a maximum 45 years in prison, despite his urgent disavowals of terrorism. “I’m opposed to all sorts of terrorism, I swear to God,” Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed said in Arabic through an interpreter before being sentenced. “I do not believe in terrorism.” Defense attorney Jonathan Marks had argued that Zayed, 31, was a naive bit-player in the conspiracy involving his boss, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad. The assistant U.S. attorney, Kelly Moore, agreed that the defendant, though guilty, “played a much smaller role” than al-Moayad. But the U.S. district judge, Sterling Johnson Jr., ordered Zayed to serve consecutive 15-year terms for convictions on three conspiracy counts. The judge sentenced al-Moayad to 75 years in prison, also the maximum, in July.


– Associated Press


POLICE CHARGE 28 IN CIGARETTE BOOTLEGGING OPERATION


Twenty-eight people were charged with involvement in a multimillion dollar Bronx-based bootlegging operation that bought untaxed cigarettes from Native American reservations in Long Island and sold them to bodegas and grocery stores in upper Manhattan, the Bronx, and Yonkers. The four “main organizers” in the operation were Brian Bess, Charles Antley, Emad Al-Naimat, and Ahmed Alnuaimat, said the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, at a press conference.


The other indicted men were allegedly involved either in distributing the cigarettes, which were stored in a facility at 3018 Barnes Ave., the Bronx, or in the production of counterfeit tax stamps out of 1669 Holland Ave., the Bronx. When the counterfeit stamps were affixed to cigarette cartons, the price that store owners paid increased from between $24 and $26 per carton to between $30 and $35 per carton, Mr. Kelly said. He said the bootleggers bought the cigarettes for $20 a carton from the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton and the Poospatuck Reservation in Mastic. A legal carton costs around $75, said Mr. Kelly, or $65 wholesale. Authorities estimate that the operation was bringing in $10 million annually, and that at least $500,000 was shipped to Amman, Jordan. “A major concern is to determine for what purpose this money was being shipped out of the country,” said the Bronx district attorney, Robert Johnson. Police are investigating the possibility that the funds are being directed to a terrorist organization, Mr. Kelly said.


– Special to the Sun


LAWYER READS LETTER BY JUROR IN LYNNE STEWART TERROR CASE


A lawyer read in court yesterday excerpts from a letter written by a juror who said she was intimidated or coerced into convicting civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart on terrorism charges. The lawyer, Jill Shellow-Lavine, said the anonymous juror, identified only as Juror 82, should be questioned by the judge after telling him in a March 25 letter that her verdict was unfair. “‘Never in my life did I imagine that I could be intimidated or coerced into rendering a verdict against my will, but that is exactly what occurred during the course of the deliberations,'” Ms. Shellow-Lavine said the juror wrote. “‘My verdict came about only as a result of the fear and intimidation. I was made to fear for my life during the course of deliberations.'” In the letter, the juror said she was told by other jurors that they would settle for nothing less than a guilty verdict. In court papers, prosecutors said the claim by the juror was “exceedingly vague” and “riddled with layers of hearsay.”


– Associated Press


LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL: RUSSIAN U.N. OFFICIAL ARRESTED


A Russian United Nations official who works with the General Assembly’s budget committee was arrested by the FBI yesterday on money laundering charges, a federal law enforcement official said. Vadim Kouznetsov, who was handcuffed and taken into custody, is the second Russian U.N. official to be arrested for money laundering by the FBI in the last month. Mr. Kouznetsov was to be arraigned in Manhattan Federal Court Friday. The charges against him were contained in a grand jury indictment to be unsealed in court. The official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the indictment is sealed, said that the charges involve money laundering and are only remotely connected to the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq which is the target of numerous corruption investigations.


– Associated Press


LONG ISLAND


WOMAN DIES AFTER BEING THROWN FROM AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE


For the second time in as many days, a person has died from injuries suffered at a Long Island amusement park, this one thrown from a ride and into a nearby parking lot, police and state officials said yesterday. Barbara Brady, 45, was killed after being tossed from the Top Scan, flying over a 20-foot-high wall before smashing into the windshield of a car parked next to the Adventureland Amusement Park and rolling off onto a roadway, said Detective Lieutenant Jack Fitzpatrick, commander of the Suffolk County homicide squad. Brady, who lived at the Central Manor Home for Adults in Queens, was part of a group of 25 people on a field trip to the park with five counselors, Detective Fitzpatrick said. Adventureland general manager Paul Gentile said his staff was cooperating with the investigation into what happened.


– Associated Press


ALBANY


BILL ALLOWS RIFLE-HUNTING OF BIG GAME IN 11 COUNTIES


Hunters in 11 upstate New York counties will be able to use rifles for big game under a bill signed into law by Governor Pataki yesterday. The legislation brings rifle regulations in the following counties in line with rules for parts of the North Country: Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chenango, Herkimer, Montgomery, Oneida, Oswego, Otsego, Schoharie, Tioga, and Broome County east of the Susquehanna River. Hunters previously could use pistols, shotguns, muzzle-loading firearms, or long bows to shoot deer and bear.


– Associated Press


STATEWIDE


SYRACUSE AND CORNELL OFFER TO HOST TULANE STUDENTS


Syracuse and Cornell universities are offering their assistance to Tulane University students left without a school by Hurricane Katrina. Syracuse is temporarily taking in some students, and the university also has established a relief fund to assist the storm’s victims and will collect donations at the Syracuse-West Virginia football game Sunday at the Carrier Dome. “Our hearts go out to those whose homes and lives have suffered the tragic effects of Hurricane Katrina,” Chancellor Nancy Cantor said yesterday.


– Associated Press

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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