CITYWIDE

PATAKI, SPITZER DEBATE TRANSIT UNION LEADER’S FATE

Governor Pataki yesterday said he will let the attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, decide what penalties to recommend for the president of the transit union that called an illegal strike, halting New York City’s buses and subways in December. Mr. Pataki believes Mr. Spitzer, as the top state law enforcement official, should decide what to recommend to a judge considering the fate of Roger Toussaint, Mr. Pataki’s spokesman, Kevin Quinn, said.

– Associated Press

$42,000 REWARD OFFERED IN KILLING OF GRADUATE STUDENT

In a case that has alarmed New Yorkers and baffled police, city officials and a Manhattan college offered more than $40,000 in rewards yesterday for information that would help catch the killer in the brutal slaying of a graduate student from Boston. The body of Imette St. Guillen, 24, was discovered Saturday night, dumped on the side of a remote service road in Brooklyn.

– Associated Press

MTA LOSES BOARD MEMBER

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority lost another board member yesterday, leaving two of the 12 voting positions open. Susan Kupferman, the mayor’s director of the Office of Operation, has accepted a position as president of MTA Bridges and Tunnels. She replaces Martha Walther, who was the acting president of the MTA agency since a former president, Michael Ascher, retired in October. The mayor and the governor each will appoint one person to replace two open positions on the board. Ms. Kupferman will begin as president on March 27.

– Special to the Sun

REPORT: MTA BEHIND ON SECURING TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is woefully behind in securing the public transportation system from terrorists, a report from the state comptroller showed yesterday. Of 16 projects in the authority’s capital security program, only 11 had started design work for the programs’ first phase within three months of their scheduled date, the report found. The first phase of the capital program won’t be completed until November 2009, a total of eight years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and 14 months after the MTA had planned, the report found.

– Special to the Sun

ALBANY

KING FILES PAPERS TO RECTIFY DELINQUENT ATTORNEY REGISTRATION

A Democratic attorney general candidate, Charlie King, yesterday made a payment to the state’s Office of Court Administration to bring his delinquent registration back in good standing.

– Associated Press

SENATOR MARCHI IN HOSPITAL FOR BLEEDING ESOPHAGUS

A state senator, John Marchi, the nation’s longest serving legislator, was taken to an Albany hospital on Wednesday for bleeding in his esophagus, a spokesman said. The 84-year-old Staten Island Republican first began experiencing discomfort on Tuesday night and went to the hospital the following evening. A spokesman, Gerald McLaughlin, said doctors at Albany Medical Center were able to stop the bleeding and that the senator was resting comfortably yesterday. He was expected to remain in the hospital for a few days.

– Associated Press

PATAKI PROPOSES NEW LAWS FOR TOUR BOAT SAFETY

Governor Pataki proposed yesterday bills requiring stricter safety and insurance requirements for commercial passenger boats on the state’s waterways. The legislation mirrors proposals the governor made in the fall after the 40-foot Ethan Allen tour boat capsized and sank in Lake George in the Adirondacks.

– Associated Press

PATAKI, LEGISLATIVE LEADERS REACH AGREEMENT ON REVENUE FIGURES

Governor Pataki and legislative leaders reached an agreement yesterday on how much money the state will have to spend in next year’s budget. The leaders agreed that another $750 million will be coming into the state coffers for this year and next. The 2006-07 state budget is due April 1. State revenue from taxes, fees, and other income is expected to reach $47.93 billion in the current year and $51 billion next year, a spokesman in Mr. Pataki’s budget office, Michael Marr, said.

– Associated Press

SENATOR SAYS SPITZER RUNS AFOUL OF ATTORNEY GENERAL ROLE

A state Senate education committee chairman, Stephen Saland, chastised the attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, yesterday for mixing his campaign for governor with his duties as attorney general. Mr. Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican, said Mr. Spitzer shouldn’t have commented on the still active case in which the Court of Appeals ordered the state to pay billions of dollars more in school aid to New York City schools.

– Associated Press

IN THE COURTS

RAPPER BUSTA RHYMES SUED BY FAN WHO CLAIMS HE WAS BEATEN

Busta Rhymes and his bodyguard have been sued by a fan who says the two men beat him after he asked for the rapper’s autograph. Melvin Smith, 37, says in a lawsuit filed at Manhattan’s state Supreme Court that the rapper and his bodyguard, Troy Green, both 33, “maliciously assaulted, beat, pushed, and shoved him” outside the Corner Gourmet II deli near City Hall on September 6, 2005.

– Associated Press

JUDGE REFUSES TO DISMISS CHARGES AGAINST ANTI-WAR GRANDMOTHERS

A Manhattan judge yesterday refused to dismiss disorderly conduct charges against 18 grandmothers who were arrested at the Times Square military recruiting station while protesting the war in Iraq. Judge Alexander Jeong, saying that his personal feelings had no place in his ruling, said there was sufficient evidence to sustain the disorderly conduct charges, and the defendants had not offered extraordinary circumstances warranting dismissal.

– Associated Press

STATEWIDE

PROSECUTOR’S ATTENDANCE AT MEETING PROMPTS CALL FOR INVESTIGATION

BUFFALO – A Southern Tier prosecutor was fired yesterday over his attendance at a conference of “white preservationists.” An assistant district attorney, Michael Regan, was terminated following an investigation by his boss, the Allegany district attorney, Terrence Parker.

– Associated Press

PATAKI RENEWS CALL FOR DEATH PENALTY IN OFFICER KILLINGS

BIG FLATS – A car used by suspected bank robbers to flee a gun battle in western New York during which a state trooper died was found abandoned about 20 miles away yesterday near the Pennsylvania line. Two police officers have been killed by robbery suspects in New York this week, bringing a renewed call from Governor Pataki for the death penalty as a possible punishment for convicted cop killers.

– Associated Press

STUDENTS PRESS TO CHANGE TAP WITH TIMES

College students whose families suffered financial hits due to war service, death, and unemployment lobbied yesterday for a more flexible Tuition Assistance Program. The students came to Albany as the New York Public Interest Research Group tried to get the Legislature and Governor Pataki to bring the state aid program into line with the federal Pell Grant program for low-income students.

– Associated Press

DONOR BLOOD IN BODY PARTS SNATCHING CASE NOT TESTED, FDA WARNS

A New Jersey biomedical supply house that illegally removed body parts for sale failed to test the blood of some donors, federal regulators said yesterday. The owner of the company and three others were charged in New York last month in what prosecutors said was a multimillion-dollar scheme to sell body parts for use in transplants.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

POLICE SEARCH FOR POSSIBLE WITNESS IN SHOOTING OF CHASIDIC MAN

Police said they would like to interview the driver of a white Chevy van who was in the vicinity of the fatal shooting of a chasidic man in Crown Heights on February 28. Images of the van were captured on a video taken outside a nearby store, police said. The van can be seen driving southbound on Schenectady Avenue away from the intersection of Schenectady and Carroll Street, just moments after Frederick Klein, 47, was fatally shot there.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE SHUT DOWN QUEENS MARIJUANA LAB

Police shut down a marijuana growing operation inside two private homes in Queens, confiscating more than 250 pounds of hydroponic marijuana with a street value between $500,000 and $1 million, police said. Police arrested two individuals, whose names were not released last night. Investigators found marijuana plants in various stages of growth, and also confiscated $12,000 in cash, police said.

– Special to the Sun

DOCTOR ARRESTED FOR FONDLING TEENAGER DURING EXAM

A Staten Island doctor was arrested yesterday for allegedly sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl during a medical exam, police said. Safwat Rafala, 51, a doctor at St. Vincent’s hospital, was charged with sexual abuse, forcible touching, and endangering the welfare of a child after the teenager reported to police that he touched her genital area while he was examining her for an asthma attack.

– Special to the Sun