POLICE BLOTTER

NYPD INVESTIGATES HIP-HOP DJ’S RANTS AS POSSIBLE HATE CRIME

Despite an apology, a hip-hop disc jockey was being investigated for a possible bias crime after making threatening racial and sexual remarks about a rival’s wife and 4-year-old daughter, police said yesterday. The New York Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force launched the probe after the chief of detectives reviewed a transcript of DJ Star’s on-air comments about DJ Envy and his family, a police spokesman, Paul Browne, said. Star, whose real name is Troi Torain, apologized yesterday through his attorney, Benjamin Brafman. The lawyer called the remarks “unsuitable and inappropriate” and assured the rival’s wife she had nothing to fear. But he also claimed his client was the victim of threats by her husband. “The statements made by Star in response, while inappropriate, were, however, made under great duress and at a time when he was fearful for his safety and the safety of members of his staff,” Mr. Brafman said in statement. Mr. Torain worked for Clear Channel Radio’s Power 105.1 FM before being fired Wednesday amid protests from elected officials.

– Associated Press

PRINCIPAL ARRESTED, ACCUSED OF STEALING $10,000

The principal of a troubled Brooklyn high school has been arrested on charges that she stole more than $10,000 in education funds, authorities said. Joanne Pierre, head of the Rachel Carson High School for Coastal Studies, is accused of stealing the money by requesting reimbursements for things she didn’t buy or returned. According to the office of Richard Condon, the lead schools investigator, the thievery began when she worked for an alternative school program and continued after she became a principal.

– Associated Press

GRAMMY-WINNING OPERA STAR JERRY HADLEY ARRESTED ON DWI

Jerry Hadley – a Grammy winning singer who has appeared in the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera in London – has been arrested for being intoxicated while sitting behind the wheel of his parked car, the district attorney’s office said yesterday. Mr. Hadley, 54, was arraigned Wednesday night in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and impaired, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, Barbara Thompson, said.

– Associated Press

QUEENS BABY SITTER CHARGED WITH SHAKING 1-YEAR-OLD GIRL

A baby sitter has been arrested on charges that she shook a 13-month-old girl so violently that the child suffered bleeding on the brain, prosecutors said yesterday. The child, Andrea Lopez Placious, had no heartbeat when she was taken to a hospital on Tuesday morning, and she remains there in critical condition on a ventilator, the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, said. The force inflicted on a baby shaken in anger “is equivalent to the impact of a fall from a second-story window,” Mr. Brown said.

– Associated Press

FORMER BUTCHER ARRESTED IN KILLING

A former butcher has been arrested in connection with the grisly killing of another man, whose dismembered body was found Wednesday inside five garbage bags. Victor Gonzalez, 44, was arrested on charges of murder, police said yesterday.

– Associated Press

MAN SHOT IN CHELSEA AFTER DISPUTE

A Brooklyn man was fatally shot early yesterday morning after a dispute on the West Side Highway in Manhattan turned deadly. Police said Jahmein Williford, 30, of Park Avenue in Brooklyn, was parked on the highway near West 14th Street in Chelsea when he was shot in the chest by another driver around 4 a.m. After Williford was shot, one of his passengers took the driver’s seat and brought him to Brookdale Hospital, where he died around 4:20 a.m., police said. The initial crime scene investigation, focused on the highway area near a popular Mobil station, stalled traffic until around noon yesterday.

– Special to the Sun

CITYWIDE

STUDY: 20% OF WOMEN FAIL TO GET ROUTINE CERVICAL CANCER EXAM

Twenty percent of New York City women – or one in five – do not get routine cervical cancer screenings, the health department said yesterday. Poor and uninsured women, young women (age 18 to 24) and older women (65 or older) were least likely to get the Pap tests, according to a study conducted by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

– Associated Press

SILVER JOINS QUINN IN FIGHT TO EXPAND PRE-KINDERGARTEN

The speaker of the state Assembly, Sheldon Silver, yesterday joined his fellow speaker, Christine Quinn of the City Council, to stump for Ms. Quinn’s proposal to expand the city’s entire pre-Kindergarten program to a full day. The two visited a universal pre-Kindergarten program at the Chung Pak Day Care Center in Chinatown. Ms. Quinn announced the plan as part of the council’s official budget response last month, but the mayor did not include it in his executive budget. The proposal would phase in a full day for 34,000 pre-Kindergarten slots over three years, at a cost of $135 million.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

PARENTS, STUDENTS RALLY FOR CELL PHONES IN SCHOOLS

More than 100 parents and children rallied yesterday to demand that the city Department of Education reverse a long-standing ban and allow students to take their cell phones inside school buildings.

– Associated Press

OFFICIALS SIFT THROUGH PROPOSALS TO REMAKE GOVERNOR’S ISLAND

Government officials are sifting through developers’ proposals to remake Governor’s Island into a destination for New Yorkers and tourists. Wednesday was the deadline for a city and state request for proposals to develop part of the 172-acre former military base in New York Harbor, which the city bought from the federal government for $1 in 2003. Despite concerns in the development community that the bid would fail to attract much attention because of onerous requirements and lack of transportation, the president of a city and state corporation in charge of developing the site, Leslie Koch, said yesterday that she was “encouraged by the number of responses we have received to date.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

IN THE COURTS

PROSECUTOR: DEFENDANT BOASTED HE FEIGNED ILLNESS TO TRICK JUDGE

As a mob defendant accused of racketeering sat with an oxygen tube in his nose, a prosecutor yesterday accused him of once boasting that he feigns illness so well in court that he deserves an Academy Award. In an opening statement, an assistant U.S. attorney, Scott Marrah, made the shenanigans of 74-year-old Gregory DePalma an element of a case that also features sensational allegations of extortion, among other charges. The case will rely heavily on the testimony of an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the Gambino crime family for two years.

– Associated Press

DEFENSE TO REVIEW PHOTOS, AUDIOTAPE IN SEX ATTACK CASE

Explicit photographs and audiotapes made by a writer accused of sexually abusing a woman after posing as a firefighter on Halloween night must be provided to defense lawyers, a Manhattan judge ruled yesterday. A state Supreme Court justice, James Yates, directed the prosecution to make the materials available to lawyers for Peter Braunstein, although the photos and tapes are those of a woman not involved in his current case.

– Associated Press

MANHATTAN

HIGH COURT’S KENNEDY CHALLENGES NYU GRADUATES TO FURTHER FREEDOM

Supreme Court Justice Kennedy challenged New York University graduates, representing 83 countries, to do more than the previous generation to bring freedom to all parts of the globe. “The verdict is out,” Justice Kennedy said yesterday. “The jury has not yet returned on whether or not freedom is the appropriate cause. You must do more to make the case.”

– Associated Press

CHAIRMAN OF AGENCY IN CHARGE OF REBUILDING GROUND ZERO RESIGNS

John Whitehead, 84, announced yesterday that he will step down after four and a half years as the chairman of the city-state agency in charge of rebuilding Lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. From its inception, Mr. Whitehead led the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was integral in putting together the master plan for the redevelopment of ground zero, and distributing about $2 billion in grant money intended to rebuild downtown. Critics, who have included the city’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, have pointed to little to no construction at the former site of the World Trade Center. Mr. Whitehead will also step down as the chairman of the nonprofit in charge of raising money to build a memorial at ground zero.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

BROOKLYN

BROOKLYN COLLEGE EXHIBIT, DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE, GETS NEW SPACE

A Brooklyn College art exhibit that was shut down because parks officials thought it was inappropriate for visitors to the public war memorial that housed it will reopen at a new location, the school said yesterday.

– Associated Press