CITYWIDE

City Council Takes Up Queens Blackout

The City Council today will hold the second in its series of hearings on last month’s 10-day blackout in northwest Queens, this one focusing on the city’s response to the crisis. Joseph Bruno, head of the Office of Emergency Management, is expected to testify. Lawmakers have harshly criticized Consolidated Edison for its handling of the power outages and its efforts to reimburse customers. Yesterday council members, including the speaker, Christine Quinn, sent the company a letter in which they said Con Edison’s offer of a $3 credit for residents, in addition to spoilage claims, bordered on “insulting.” They demanded answers to a series of questions about the reimbursement policies and demanded that Con Edison offer customers more. The Bloomberg administration has largely defended the utility, although Mayor Bloomberg has pledged to hold Con Edison accountable for its actions.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

Man Who Preyed On Elders Gets 10 Years

A man who posed as a city employee to fool older homeowners into letting him into their houses and then stole from them was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison. Wando Delmaro, 47, pleaded guilty earlier this month to second-degree burglary as a hate crime, admitting he picked older victims because their age made them easier targets, the Queens district attorney, Richard Brown, said. Delmaro, of Ozone Park, would knock on the doors of his victims and tell them he was from the city’s water department and needed to check their pipes. He then would demand money for repairs and sometimes would steal property before leaving. Delmaro told an 85-year-old man he needed an $800 deposit to repair a boiler, took the man’s bank card, and withdrew $2,000 from his account, prosecutors said.

—Associated Press

Heat Death Toll Climbs To 36

The death toll from an early August heat wave continues to rise, with three New Yorkers added to the victim list late yesterday. At least 36 people have died from hyperthermia, a spokeswoman for the chief medical examiner’s office, Ellen Borakove, said. Recent autopsies led pathologists to say the latest fatalities — a 46-year-old Bronx man as well as an 82-year-old Brooklyn mother, and her 47-year-old son — died of heat stroke. An inquiry ordered several weeks ago by Mayor Bloomberg into all the heat deaths when temperatures surpassed 100 degrees will be completed soon, Ms. Borakove said.

— Special to the Sun

Brooklyn Bank Employee Pleads Guilty

A former JPMorgan Chase & Co. mailroom employee pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, admitting his role in the theft of $100 million in corporate checks, some of which he hid in his socks. Gregory Halley, 38, entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He faces up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced June 8. Prosecutors noted in a release that Halley had about 40 stolen checks worth $4 million stuffed in his socks when he was arrested April 21 as he finished his shift at one of the bank’s facilities in Brooklyn. The government said he used his mailroom job to steal more than $100 million worth of checks starting in 2005 until his arrest. Prosecutors said he handed the checks to co-conspirators, who gave him cash in return.

— Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

Man Killed In Brooklyn Car Accident

A man was struck and killed by a car on a busy highway in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn early yesterday morning, police officials said. The man, who wasn’t identified by police because his family was not yet notified of his death, tried crossing the Belt Parkway about half a mile east of Knapp Street when a car hit him, police said. The car and a second car remained at the scene and police found no criminality in the accident, officials said.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

TRISTATE

N.J. Bars Protests At Soldiers’ Funerals

TRENTON — New Jersey has become the 12th state to adopt a law limiting protests at funeral services for soldiers killed in combat. Governor Corzine signed the bill yesterday. “Families that lose a loved one who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their country deserve respect and admiration, not the indignity of a graveside political protest,” said Assemblyman Jack Conners, the bill sponsor, a Democrat who introduced the bill after a Kansas church group began protesting funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. The Westboro Baptist Church contends the deaths are God’s vengeance for American homosexuality. The group has not protested at a New Jersey funeral. The law restricts protests within 500 feet of funerals, funeral processions, funeral homes and places of worship. It makes it a disorderly persons offense to protest within an hour before or after a funeral. Such offenses are punishable by up to 18 months in jail and $1,000 in fines. President Bush recently signed a bill curbing pickets at national cemeteries.

— Associated Press