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.

CITYWIDE
LOPEZ ENDORSES BLOOMBERG
Mayor Bloomberg announced the endorsement of another prominent Democrat yesterday as City Council Member Margarita Lopez pledged her support for his re-election. Ms. Lopez, who represents the Lower East Side and the East Village, has praised Mr. Bloomberg in the past and follows Mayor Koch and a former Council speaker, Peter Vallone Sr., as Democrats who are endorsing him. In a statement, she called Mr. Bloomberg a “great mayor” and said New York was headed in the right direction. Ms. Lopez lost a Democratic primary bid for Manhattan borough president and will be forced out of the City Council by term limits at the end of the year. An outspoken advocate for gay rights, she first won election in 1997. – Special to the Sun
SELLING METROCARDS TO BECOME IMPRISONABLE OFFENSE
Beginning October 19, selling fraudulent or doctored regular or unlimited ride MetroCards will carry up to a 3-month jail sentence, a much stiffer penalty than the current $75 fine. New York City Transit has said it loses $10 million a year as a result of Metro-Card scams. – Special to the Sun
ALBANY
CATHOLIC CHURCH LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN FOR SCHOOL TAX CREDITS
Catholic churches statewide are planning to blitz Albany like never before with up to 1.5 million postcards calling for a tax credit to offset religious- and private-school tuition. The effort would also provide tax credits for families with children in public schools and for all public- and private-school teachers to offset classroom expenses. Supporters emphasize this isn’t a voucher program, in which some states have allowed families to apply government per-pupil funding toward nonpublic school tuition. The proposals would provide a tax credit of up to $3,000 a year for a family with two or more children in school or in home school.
– Associated Press
STATEWIDE
CLINTON SPEAKS AT WEST COAST YOM KIPPUR SERVICE
Senator Clinton shared her thoughts on repentance and atonement at Jewish New Year services in Beverly Hills, Calif., yesterday. “I’ve had quite a bit of opportunity to think about forgiveness. I’ve had some good guidance about how to purge myself and move forward,” Mrs. Clinton told more than 1,000 members of the Temple of the Arts, a Jewish congregation that gathers in a historic movie house, the Wilshire Theatre. Mrs. Clinton, who is a Methodist, said she and her husband often study a book of Yom Kippur prayers the couple received from friends. “We both have read this over and over. The words never get old nor do they ever fail to both surprise and cause us to contemplate where we stand in this journey of life,” she said.
The Democratic senator did not say specifically what she has sought to atone for or forgive, but she said she was particularly challenged in the late 1990s, when President Clinton was impeached after his affair with a White House intern was disclosed. Mrs. Clinton is on a three-day swing through Southern California to attend several celebrity-studded fund-raisers for her bid for re-election next year. She is also scheduled to deliver speeches to two women’s organizations.
– Staff Reporter of the Sun
BROOKLYN
MOBSTER GOES MISSING IN MIDDLE OF CORRUPTION TRIAL
A Genovese family capo, facing a five-year jail term in a Brooklyn mob case, disappeared in the middle of his trial, prompting speculation that he instead received a Mafia imposed death penalty. “I do not consider my client’s absence to be a voluntary one,” defense attorney Martin Schmukler said in court on Wednesday, the second consecutive day that Lawrence Ricci was missing from the courtroom. Mr. Ricci, who generally kept a low public profile, went on trial September 20 in the waterfront corruption case. – Associated Press
Correction: State Senator Thomas Duane, Assemblymen Richard Gottfried and Scott Stringer, and a candidate for City Council, Rosie Mendez, attended an NYC Park Advocates’ press conference. The attendees were misidentified in the New York Desk on page two of yesterday’s New York Sun.