IN THE COURTS

JURY WEIGHS CHARGES AGAINST NORMAN

A jury in Brooklyn yesterday began weighing charges, including grand larceny, against a former assemblyman, Clarence Norman Jr., after lawyers for each side summed up their arguments by comparing their opponent’s case to magic tricks meant to obscure the truth. Assistant District Attorney Michael Vecchione quoted John Lennon and made reference to the magician Harry Houdini while the defense attorney, Edward Rappaport, called his client’s actions “stupid” but defensible under the circumstances. The head of the Brooklyn Democratic party until his conviction on other charges in September, Norman is accused of stealing a $5,000 check made out to his campaign but deposited into his personal bank account in 2001. He claimed on the stand that the check was intended as a reimbursement and not as a contribution to his campaign. Jurors were to resume deliberations this morning in state Supreme Court.

– Special to the Sun

COURT RULES CITY NOT AT FAULT IN THUNDERBOLT DEMOLITION

A federal court ruled yesterday that the city was not at fault when it demolished the iconic Thunderbolt roller coaster, a Coney Island landmark for more than 75 years before it was taken down in 2000. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling that the city was not responsible for compensating the owner because the rollercoaster had not operated since 1982, was not adequately maintained afterward, and therefore had little value.

– Special to the Sun

QUEENS

DEADLY FIRE IS THIRD STARTED BY A CHILD WITH A LIGHTER THIS YEAR

As fire officials yesterday sorted through a damaged Elmhurst home after a fire broke out, killing three children and an unrelated elderly man, the fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, said that this was the third fire started by a child playing with an all-purpose butane lighter this year alone. On Tuesday at 6:16 p.m., an 8-year-old boy set fire to a plastic toy car under the bunk bed he shared with his uncle in the family’s basement apartment at 40-77 Denman St. Clothing stored under the bed and sheets that hung from the bottom mattress caught on fire and the blaze “raced through the building,” Mr. Scoppetta said. The two-story structure was alleged to have been illegally converted into apartments for more than 20 people. The Buildings Department was investigating the living arrangements.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE BLOTTER

FORMER HEAD OF DAY CARE CHARGED WITH GRAND LARCENY

A former head of the Bureau of Day Care was arrested yesterday and accused of working as a highly paid, private consultant while he was on the city’s payroll. Donald Nolte, 63, of Brooklyn, faces up to seven years in prison on charges of grand larceny and defrauding the government. Manhattan prosecutors say that while director of the city day-care agency in the mid-1990s, Mr. Nolte took an outside job with Cicatelli Associates Incorporated, a consulting firm with city and state contracts. Mr. Nolte allegedly falsified 62 city time sheets for days when he said he was either working at the Day Care Bureau or on sick leave, but was actually conducting business for Cicatelli in locations across the state. As a result, Mr. Nolte, the bureau’s director for 13 years, allegedly took home more than $30,000 in city pay he didn’t earn, while at the same time pocketing more than $100,000 in consulting fees. The charges stemmed from an inquiry by the Department of Investigation, which said yesterday that it would start conducting random checks of day care facilities. Mr. Nolte was fired as director of the Day Care Bureau in 2004 after the death of an infant in a city center in Queens.

– Special to the Sun

TWO HIGH SCHOOLERS ARRESTED FOR BRINGING GUN TO SCHOOL

Two 17-year-old students at a Brooklyn high school were arrested after bringing an unloaded gun to school yesterday, police said. Christopher Boston and Javon Mosquito, both of Brooklyn, were arrested at the Boys and Girls High School on Fulton Street at 11:45 a.m. yesterday, said police. Police said Mr. Boston brought the .38 revolver to the Bedford-Stuyvesant school, which does not have metal detectors. When the school principal confronted Mr. Boston about the gun, he passed it in a jacket to Mr. Mosquito. Both teens were charged with criminal possession of a gun and will be tried as adults since they are over 16, police said.

– Special to the Sun

POLICEMEN INDICTED ON SEX ABUSE CHARGES

Two New York City police officers have been indicted on charges they sexually assaulted several women while on patrol, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office announced yesterday. The indictment of officers Charles McGeean and Fernand Clerge stems from a November 20 incident in which they stopped a woman in her car and then followed her to her apartment in the Bushwick section, where she was sexually assaulted, District Attorney Charles Hynes said in a statement. Since their arrest, four other women have told authorities they were victims of the two officers.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

1,100 HEALTH CARE WORKERS TO GO ON STRIKE

More than 1,000 home health care workers will go on strike today in an effort to force their employer, People Care Home Health Agency, to raise their pay by 2007. The 1,100 aides, represented by Local 1199 of the health workers union Service Employees International Union, plan to walk out for four days. A union spokesman said the aides, who work in homes across the city for an average of $6.50 an hour, want their wages increased to $10 an hour. Several local elected officials, including council members Christine Quinn and David Weprin, and the public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, voiced their support for the union in statements released last night.

– Special to the Sun

BRONX

CONSTRUCTION WORKER FALLS TO DEATH

A 27-year-old construction worker fell five stories to his death in the Bronx yesterday, said police. The man, who was unidentified as of last night, was perched on a makeshift scaffolding on Botanical Square in Bedford Park when he fell around 1:40 p.m., police said. According to police, the accident occurred when the worker somehow misstepped off a wooden plank bridging two fire escapes. The worker was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital and pronounced dead shortly before 2 p.m.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

MANHATTAN SUBWAY TUNNEL WORK UNCOVERS OLD FORTIFICATIONS

Workers extending a subway tunnel under historic Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, recently unearthed a section of stone wall that apparently is part of fortifications dating to New York’s pre-Revolutionary era, city parks officials said yesterday. Preliminary inspection shows the mortared stone wall is more than 40 feet long and 7 feet wide and reaches down to bedrock 10 feet below the surface. The officials said it appeared to be part of a gun emplacement connected with one of the several forts, dating from the early 17th century, that gave Battery Park its name.

– Associated Press