At the time, Jose Uribe said in Manhattan federal court, he assumed that Menendez knew he had made a $15,000 down payment and was making monthly payments on a Mercedes-Benz for Menendez’s girlfriend, who married Menendez a year later.

Prosecutors contend that the car, along with gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash found in the couple’s Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home, were bribes paid by three businessmen, including Uribe, to get the senator to use his influence to serve their purposes and earn them money from 2018 to 2023.

Bob Menendez Jun 7

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Defense lawyers for Menendez have argued that the meeting with Uribe and other evidence cited by prosecutors is nothing more than a senator meeting with constituents and doing what he can to help his state in his role as one of its representatives in Congress.

Menendez, 70, has resisted calls to step down as New Jersey’s senior senator, though he was forced out of his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after charges were unveiled last fall.

During Uribe’s two days of testimony, he has described meeting Menendez at a fundraiser he staged that raised $50,000 for the senator’s 2018 campaign, but he said he did not bring up the issue of investigations there or at several other meetings, including a dinner.

He said he thought the issue had already been raised with Menendez by his friend, Wael Hana, a businessman who told him in 2018 that the senator could be enlisted to help his legal troubles go away, but it would cost between $200,000 and $250,000.

Hana and a third businessman, Fred Daibes, are on trial with Menendez. Like Menendez, they have pleaded not guilty. Awaiting trial is Nadine Menendez, who is recovering from surgery. She has pleaded not guilty.

Uribe said he brought up the subject of investigations directly with the senator at an Aug. 7, 2019, dinner with Bob Menendez and Nadine Menendez, the senator’s girlfriend at the time. They married in 2020.

He said he told Bob Menendez that he was concerned that a probe of a friend’s trucking business was causing investigators to look at his insurance business and the senator said he would look into it.

“I asked him to help get peace for me and my family,” Uribe said.

A month later, Uribe said, he was invited to meet with Menendez again at their home, where he sat in the backyard with Menendez and provided facts about his company and a key employee because the senator was meeting with New Jersey officials in his office the next day.

After Menendez’s meeting with officials, Uribe said the senator told him in a brief meeting at a New Jersey apartment building: “That thing that you asked me about, it doesn’t seem to be anything there.”

In late Oct. 2019, Uribe said he got a surprise telephone call from Menendez from a Washington D.C. phone number and was told: “That thing that you asked me about, there’s nothing there. I give you your peace.”

Uribe said he sent a text to Menendez’s girlfriend, saying: “I just got a call and I am a very happy person. God bless you and him forever.”

Uribe also recalled having dinner in Aug. 2020 with Menendez, who boasted that he had saved him not once, but twice, involving the probes of the trucking business and the threat the investigation would spread to his insurance business.

Speaking in Spanish, Menendez said at the dinner: “I didn’t have to do much. I relayed to these people that what is this prosecution against hardworking Latinos,” Uribe testified.

Last week, former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal testified that he cut off the senator on a phone call and in an early September 2019 meeting when Menendez tried to raise the subject of a criminal probe.

Grewal said it was his policy to always instruct people to have their defense lawyers contact trial-level prosecutors working the case or the judge if they have complaints with how a case is handled.

Grewal said the senator had complained about the treatment of Hispanics in the trucking industry as well.

After the brief meeting, Grewal said, a top official in his office who he brought alone for the meeting said: “Whoa, that was gross.”

Uribe said that without his cooperation deal and the leniency expected to come with it, he could face up to 95 years in prison for his crimes.

Idelbel Colon, the job seeker, shared text messages with the NBC New York I-Team that appear to show someone from The Lobby, a sports-themed bar and restaurant in Elizabeth, excluding parents from employment consideration.

“Wanted to see if you still had openings for bartenders?” Colon wrote back in March.

In response, Terry Gonzalez, a former manager at the Lobby wrote back, “I Just hired 3 and I’m good for the moment. We are also looking to hire people without children.”

According to the text messages, Gonzalez further explained that the restaurant “had just let go two girls with kids because they kept getting sick.”

“This is discrimination,” Colon said. “There is no way for him to just say he doesn’t want to hire women with children.”

Colon said she had previously worked at The Lobby several years before having children. She conceded that Gonzalez once fired her, but later re-hired her to work at a sister sports bar in Newark. That job, too, was awarded before she gave birth.

The Lobby declined to answer questions about how hiring decisions are made at the company, instead issuing a statement from its legal representative, the Hatfield Schwartz Law Group. That statement distanced the company from Terry Gonzalez, calling him a “former” manager and suggesting he had no authority to make hiring decisions.

“The Lobby employs a diverse workforce and prides itself on providing a welcoming environment to all,” the statement read. “This was an informal text exchange between a former employee and a former manager. The views expressed do not represent those of The Lobby.”

The statement did not detail when Gonzalez departed his job as a manager and did not address a screenshot Colon said she captured on March 6, 2024, showing Gonzalez advertising job openings at the Lobby on his personal Instagram page.

The I-Team reached out to Terry Gonzalez for comment, but did not hear back.

Some states, including New York, explicitly ban employers from excluding people from job consideration because they are parents. Though New Jersey law does not specifically make it illegal for employers to discriminate based on what is known as “familial status,” the state’s Division on Civil Rights, a part of the attorney general’s Office, said parents are often members of other protected classes.

For example, bias against people with children could be considered as having a “disparate impact” on people who are in their 30s and 40s — and thus be targeted for enforcement under the prohibition on age discrimination.

Just this week, the Division on Civil Rights proposed adopting new language that clarifies how the state can penalize employers and landlords for business conduct that isn’t expressly prohibited by the Law Against Discrimination, but nevertheless tends to put a bigger burden on one or several protected classes.

“It’s important to understand that a policy or practice doesn’t need malicious intent to have a harmful impact,” said Attorney General Matt Platkin. “We no longer live in a time where ‘I meant well’ or ‘I didn’t think’ are accepted excuses for denying equal opportunity to anyone.”

David Lopez, a Rutgers Law School professor who formerly served as General Counsel to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said employers who exclude mothers from hiring consideration might also be committing sex discrimination.

“What the employer community needs to understand is that they can’t engage in stereotyping against women,” Lopez said. “Federal and state law both prohibit sex discrimination, so if an employer refuses to hire women because they have children — and does not refuse to hire men — that would be sex discrimination.”

Colon has initiated the process of filing equal employment opportunity complaints with the state and federal government. She said she wants customers of The Lobby to consider the fact that last month the restaurant publicized a Mother’s Day brunch, just weeks after she was told the venue preferred not to hire mothers of children.

“I think it’s just ironic that they would promote a Mother’s Day brunch,” Colon said

Federal prosecutors and the FBI have arrested and charged a man with allegedly placing bets and coordinating his betting with former NBA player Jontay Porter who was kicked out of the league earlier this year, according to NBA league records and a copy of the criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in Brooklyn.

Long Phi Pham, aka “Bruce”, 38 and from Brooklyn, was arrested on Monday at JFK airport after he allegedly booked a one way ticket to Australia just a day after federal investigators tried to interview him and was in federal court this afternoon where he was ordered detained, the FBI said. He faces charges of wire fraud. Three other people allegedly involved in the scheme remain at large according to federal prosecutors.

The criminal complaint against Pham does not identify the NBA player by name but the charging documents say that the player only played 4 minutes on Jan. 22 with three rebounds and one assist – statistics that match Porter’s stats for the day — and that he had reaggravated an eye injury which Porter also had claimed. A description of a NBA player banned and why they were banned by the NBA also appears in the complaint and it matches Porter.

Porter has not been charged in this complaint. He has been permanently banned by the NBA.

Representatives for Porter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear whether Pham had retained an attorney. No contact information for him could be found.

The charging documents say that Porter “had amassed significant gambling debts” to Pham and others. The document says that one of the people still at large encouraged Porter to clear the debts by “withdrawing from certain games prematurely to ensure that under prop bets on [Porter’s] performance were successful.

“Video footage of the January 26 Game neither shows any contact with Player 1’s eyes, nor any apparent reaggravation of the eye injury” and he “did not subsequently complain to team officials about the purported eye injury after the January 26 Game and played in his team’s next game two days later”, the complaint says.

The defendants then allegedly placed bets on the game netting them profits of over $100,000.

The scheme allegedly played out again in March of this year when Pham and the others all met at an unnamed casino in Atlantic City to place bets on Porter because Porter told them over Telegram that he would remove himself from the game on March 20 early, saying he was ill, the documents say.

Surveillance photos in the complaint allegedly show the defendants at the casino. The documents say that Porter would receive a percentage of the profits for participating in the scheme.

When Pham was arrested at JFK, the FBI says he had “approximately $12,000 in cash; two cashier’s checks totaling $80,000; a series of betting slips; and three cellular phones.”

If convicted, the maximum sentence for Pham is 20 years in jail. Attorney information was not immediately available.

In recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Uber said its own public release of data, showing thousands of trips ending with reports of sexual misconduct or even sex crimes, could harm the tech company’s ability to attract passengers and cause “future damage to our brand.”

“There have been numerous incidents and allegations worldwide of Drivers, or individuals impersonating Drivers, sexually assaulting, abusing, kidnapping and/or fatally injuring consumers,” the company said in its 2024 First Quarter Report. “If other criminal, inappropriate, or other negative incidents occur due to the conduct of platform users or third parties, our ability to attract platform users may be harmed, and our business and financial results could be adversely affected.”

According to the tech firm’s voluntary disclosures, between 2017 and 2020, there were more than 6,800 reports of sex crimes or sexual misconduct on Uber trips.

Amber Moye, a young mother from Brooklyn, is one of the passengers now suing Uber – alleging her driver raped her after she became intoxicated and fell asleep in the backseat in 2018.

“It’s really hard to process that that really happened to me,” Moye told the I-Team. “All the thoughts that go through my head of what could have been happening to me during that time. It really hurts and it’s really traumatic.”

Last year, a panel of judges cleared the way for Moye’s lawsuit and more than a hundred other legal claims to be consolidated into one massive case alleging Uber has failed to protect consumers from predatory drivers. Similarly, in 2020 multiple lawsuits from plaintiffs who say they were sexually victimized inside Lyft vehicles were combined.

That has prompted Lyft to warn investors there could be an unknown impact to the bottom line.

“Regardless of the outcome of these or other matters, litigation can have an adverse impact on the Company,” Lyft warned in its most recent Quarterly Report. “Although the Company intends to vigorously defend against these lawsuits, its chances of success on the merits are still uncertain.”

According to data made public by Lyft, there were more than 4,100 reports of sex crimes or sexual misconduct from users of the rideshare platform between 2017 and 2019.

Adam Slater, Moye’s attorney, says there are common sense steps rideshare platforms have failed to take, which would discourage sexual predators from getting behind the wheel.

“Uber has an absolute duty to prevent these assaults,” Slater said. “One simple fix would be to require cameras in the car that are monitored by Uber. That would be a very cheap and simple fix but it’s just not there right now.”

An Uber spokesperson declined to discuss Moye’s complaint, but sent the I-Team a list of recently launched safety features, including in-app 911 calling, the ability to record audio of a rideshare trip, and the ability to share real-time trip information with trusted friends and family members.

“Sexual assault is a horrific crime, and we take every report of this nature very seriously,” the spokesperson wrote. “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we are deeply committed to the safety of all users on the Uber platform.”

Similarly, Lyft emphasized a list of its own safety features, especially something called “Women+ connect,” an optional functionality that works to match female and nonbinary passengers who are more comfortable with female and nonbinary drivers.

“When rideshare is better for women and nonbinary people, rideshare is better for everyone,” said David Risher, Lyft CEO. “We’re proud to bring the comfort and camaraderie of Women+ Connect to millions across the country.”

Uber offers a “Women Rider Preference” feature in select countries, but the company declined to say if or when drivers and riders in the United States would be able to indicate a gender preference.

Rachel Abrams, an attorney whose firm represents about 1,400 passengers alleging rideshare sexual assaults, says most of her clients are women who became intoxicated after a night out – and thought they were doing the safe thing by using a rideshare app.

“These companies market with bars and Budweiser to get ‘hey have another drink and get a free ride home to drink more,’” Abrams said. “They know which drivers are utilizing this for livelihood versus those who are likely utilizing it for predatory behavior. They know everything. They have all of the data.”

While both Uber and Lyft tout continuous background checks aimed at flagging predatory drivers, Amber Moye says she believes the driver who sexually assaulted her in 2018 was a foreign national who may have had a limited history living in the US, thereby making a background check of little value.

Moye’s lawsuit says the results of a hospital rape kit confirmed she had been sexually assaulted after her Uber trip. She says she reported the crime to the NYPD Special Victims Unit.

Five years later, the NYPD declined to answer questions about Moye’s case, including whether her driver was ever located or questioned.

In response to an I-Team inquiry, an NYPD spokesperson only said:

“The NYPD takes sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors.”

A prosecutor and a defense lawyer delivered contrasting visions of the once-powerful Democrat and the senior senator from New Jersey. Central to the openings from both the government and the senator’s advocate in Manhattan federal court was Nadine Menendez, a woman the Democrat began dating in early 2018 before marrying her two years later and moving into her Englewood Cliffs home.

“She kept him in the dark about what she was asking others to give her,” defense lawyer Avi Weitzman said of Nadine Menendez’s desperate search for funds from relatives and friends as the relationship between the two blossomed. “She wasn’t going to let Bob know that she had financial problems…Bob was kept out of the conversations, whether she got money from friends to support her.”

Earlier, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz assigned Nadine Menendez a central role in her husband’s alleged corruption, saying he hid behind her by communicating through her to the businessmen who delivered the bribes.

“He was careful not to send too many texts,” she said. “He used Nadine as his go-between to deliver messages to and from the people paying bribes.”

Menendez faces 18 counts in all, including obstruction of justice, bribery, fraud and acting as a foreign agent. If convicted on each count, he faces up to 45 years in prison.

Nadine Menendez is charged in the case as well, but her trial has been postponed until at least July because a recently discovered serious medical condition requires surgery.

The trial stems from charges lodged against the three-term senator last fall when Menendez held a powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was forced to quit that post after his arrest, but he resisted calls for his resignation, saying he’ll run as an independent this year if he runs at all.

A jury chosen in the afternoon was introduced to the case by a prosecutor who said the trial was about a “public official who put his own interests above his duty to the people.”

“This is Robert Menendez, U.S. senator from New Jersey,” Pomerantz said as she pointed to the 70-year-old man. “And he was entrusted with making big decisions, including decisions that affected this country’s national security. He was also corrupt…This was not politics as usual. This was politics for profit.”

Repeatedly, the prosecutor mentioned gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz as bribes leading to criminal charges including bribery, fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. She said the FBI found gold bars and over $400,000 in cash in the Menendez home “in a safe, in jacket pockets, in shoes, all over the house.”

In return, Pomerantz said, the senator took official acts to aid Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer, businessman Wael Hana and a third businessman, Jose Uribe. Daibes and Hana, who are on trial with Menendez, have pleaded not guilty. The jury will hear opening statements from their lawyers Thursday.

Uribe recently pleaded guilty to charges in a cooperation deal, and Pomerantz told jurors they will hear him testify.

Pomerantz said Daibes, in part, delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to get the senator to help him secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund by acting in ways favorable to Qatar’s government.

She also said Menendez did things benefiting Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana as the businessman secured a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.

“This case is about a public official who put greed first, who put his power up for sale,” the prosecutor alleged.

After the jury was sent home for the day, the defense requested a mistrial, claiming the government went too far in its opening statement. The judge denied it.

As he was leaving court for the day, Menendez said he “thought it went well” and said while getting into his car that the defense attorney “did great.”

During her opening, Pomerantz said Nadine Menendez has known the three businessmen for many years, and Weitzman said Menendez has known Daibes for decades as well. The prosecutor said the corruption scheme began in 2018, soon after the couple began dating that year.

She said Hana was a failed businessman who knew nothing about the business of Halal meat certification when he was awarded the monopoly through favors Menendez did for the government of Egypt. Pomerantz said Hana recruited the deep-pocketed Daibes because the cash-strapped Hana was unable to deliver on bribery promises.

“Menendez put his power up for sale and Daibes and Hana were happy to buy it,” said Pomerantz.

Weitzman called Menendez “an American patriot” and prosecutors “dead wrong.” He said Menendez “took no bribes and did not accept any cash, or gold, or a car,” and added that the senator “was never and is not a foreign agent of the government of Egypt. He did not violate the law, period.”

Pomerantz, though, said the businessmen showered Menendez and his wife with gifts to ensure Menendez would help them, and evidence will show Daibes’ fingerprints and DNA were on cash found in his home. Weitzman countered that Daibes’ fingerprint was found on only one of hundreds of envelopes belonging to the senator, and he said that would not be a surprise given the decades that Menendez had known him. All the rest of the fingerprints, he added, were found on envelopes of cash belonging to Nadine Menendez.

The lawyer said the gold bars were in the home because of a “cultural” practice by Nadine Menendez, who was raised in a family from Lebanon who kept gold for financial safety and to give as gifts.

Weitzman told jurors they will see that Menendez’s family, which fled Cuba before he was born, had lost its life savings except for cash hidden in their home. As a result, he said, Menendez had been withdrawing as much as $400 to $500 a week for decades to store at home, keeping much of it in bags in the home’s basement.

“You will not see any fingerprints and any DNA on the senator’s cash. Every fingerprint and DNA was found in his wife’s closet or in her safe deposit box at a bank,” Weitzman said. “Who has gold bars in their home? Who has so much cash in their home? I’ll acknowledge it smells a bit weird…resist that urge, listen to the evidence. There is innocent explanation for the gold and the cash.”

Weitzman said there was nothing unusual or wrong about Menendez’s dealings with Egypt and Qatar because senators must engage in diplomacy and help constituents. He noted that Menendez was tough on Egypt, including its president, over its human rights record.

The trial represents the second time Menendez has been criminally charged in a federal court in the last decade. In 2017, a federal jury deadlocked on corruption charges brought in New Jersey, and prosecutors with the Justice Department did not seek to retry him.

On Friday, the ACS Commissioner testified at budget hearings at City Hall — but in his testimony did not address questions as to where the money is now, and why the agency did not give federal funds directly to disabled children in foster care.

ACS previously acknowledged that from 2011-2019, it took $18.8 million dollars in survivor benefits. However, it says the policy changed under the Adams administration, during July 2022, to conserve those benefits in interest-bearing accounts.

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The agency continues to divert federal disability funds, saying it will now give disabled children leaving foster care a $2,000 benefit. ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser, who testified Friday, said hundreds of children have received that benefit.

“The Social Security Administration rules cap the amount that you can provide a child at any given time. So during their time in care, they’re receiving support through their foster parent, they’re receiving lots of different services,” said Dannhauser. “This is a draft policy — we’ve gotten great feedback. We’re going to work to see if other states have worked around those rules and ways, and we’re going to try to perfect this policy.”

NBC New York spoke to one person who formerly was in foster care under the supervision of ACS, and because of his disability, should have been eligible for those federal benefits. But he said he’s never gotten any benefits from the agency.

For four years as a teenager, Julian Aviles was under ACS care. Because of his disability, he should have received the maximum benefit: $943 a month, or roughly $11,000 a year.

Money he never saw, he told News 4.

“I didn’t receive anything from them,” said the 20-year-old Aviles, who is legally blind.

When asked if he got the $2,000 benefit ACS said it would dole out to disabled foster children, his answer didn’t change: “I never received anything from them,” he said.

“It would have helped with getting clothes, getting hygiene products, getting food,” he told the I-Team.

Even if he had gotten $2,000, that is only a fraction of the $44,000 he was entitled to receive for his years in foster care. Now that he has aged out of the system, Aviles relies on government assistance to live. Sometimes he runs out of food, or has no clean clothes.

The Legal Aid Society says it had to go to court to force ACS to pay for basic necessities, including Julian’s smart cane, which has a motion sensor.

“What they have done is for some children, they haven’t applied for disability benefits at all. And for other children, they applied and kept all that money,” said Anna Blondell, a staff attorney in Legal Aid’s law reform unit. “Their argument is that it goes to offset the cost of foster care. But the problem is that the Social Security Administration is clear: The benefits have to be used to benefit the specific child…and that means either use the money for what the kid needs now or save the money for what they’ll need in the future.”

The I-Team previously reported that ACS, for years, also diverted survivor funds from orphaned children in foster care. One teen lost out on more than $29,000 in survivor benefits.

When asked if the kids who were owed money should be paid back, ACS Commissioner Dannhauser said “the “that policy precedes me, we’re going to have to take a look at that.”

But for those who may have lost out on money, the issue still stings.

“You’re basically stealing from these kids every day,” said Aviles.

In Fall 2024, it’s expected there will be another hearing specifically on the issue of survivor’s and disability benefits.

And in an unusual twist, Charles Linehan — a former investigator who uncovered key evidence in Green’s case — now leads the unit that will decide on his bid for exoneration.

“I got arrested and charged for crimes that I didn’t do,” said Green.

In 1990, Anthony Green was found guilty of fatally shooting Demetrius “Mimi” Ware on Saratoga Avenue in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill section. After Green went to prison, he enlisted Linehan for help in proving his innocence. Linehan came through. In his re-investigation of the killing, Linehan obtained a sworn statement from a man who lives near the murder scene, suggesting his own son was most likely the killer.

In an affidavit signed in March of 2020, Kevin Fields said his son, Rick Morrison, disappeared from the neighborhood after Mimi Ware was shot. In a phone call a few weeks after the sidewalk murder, Fields said his son admitted that “he had a beef with Mimi.” In the same affidavit, Fields added he “believed that Rick had killed Mimi, so I told him to lay low.” Rick Morrison, known then in the neighborhood as “Little Rick,” was, himself, shot and killed about a year after that phone call.

On top of the affidavit from Kevin Fields, Anthony Green has also obtained sworn statements from four other witnesses who say they saw “Little Rick” Morrison shot Mimi Ware – with their own eyes. Those eyewitnesses include:

• Alvida Woods, a former teenage girlfriend of Rick Morrison, who swore “I saw Rick pull a gun out of his pants and fire at Mimi.”
• Shemene Minter, a former Ocean Hill neighbor, who swore “I saw Little Rick pull out a gun and shoot the other guy several times.”
• Agnes Foster, a woman who said she and her friends were sitting on lawn chairs on Saratoga Avenue at the time of the murder and swore, “I saw ‘Ricky’ point a large square-like gun and start shooting at ‘Mimi.’”
• Linda Foster, Agnes Foster’s sister, who swore “we were picking up our chairs when Ricky started shooting” and “I heard Ricky shooting many times.”

In their sworn statements, Minter and the Foster sisters said NYPD investigators interviewed them about their eyewitness accounts but seemed to be focused only on Anthony Green as a suspect.

Nicholas Liakas, Green’s civil attorney, says the investigative record suggests police wanted to pin the crime on Green and ignored other evidence that didn’t fit their narrative.

“This was an orchestrated effort to lock somebody up who they pre-judged as guilty,” Liakas said.

Two years after obtaining key evidence suggesting Anthony Green may be innocent, Charles Linehan was appointed to lead the Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit (CRU), which is currently considering whether the DA should now move to vacate Anthony Green’s conviction. But the DA’s official re-investigation has now gone on for more than two years and Green is becoming impatient.

“With all the evidence he has, what are we continuing to wait for?” Green said. “It’s been 40 years.”

Oren Yaniv, a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, said the office is methodically considering all the new evidence, but stressed Green is the one who asked the CRU to re-examine his case after a judge granted him a hearing to consider the merits of his wrongful conviction claim in court.

“[The CRU] is working diligently and collaboratively on this complex reinvestigation which pertains to events from nearly four decades ago,” Yaniv wrote in an email to the I-Team. “Given its track record, it is not surprising that Mr. Green asked the CRU to review his case even after a post-conviction court hearing had been granted to him, but he’s free to pursue that remedy at any time.”

The case against Anthony Green was based primarily on the testimony of two women – Vicky Colon, the teenage mother of Green’s unborn child, who said she saw him pull the trigger, and Cindy Pressley, a surprise witness at trial who testified she was in the car with Green as he drove to the murder scene.

After Green was convicted, Colon recanted her story – claiming she lied on the stand because detectives and prosecutors threatened to take her unborn child if she didn’t testify against Green.

Colon has since died of breast cancer. None of the women who swore they saw Rick Morrison shoot Mimi Ware would agree to do an interview with the I-Team. The I-Team was unable to reach family of Demetrius “Mimi” Ware, the murder victim, for comment.

After taking over the CRU, Linehan re-interviewed Pressley who said Little Rick Morrison could have been the shooter but she wasn’t sure. In an audio recording of the re-interview, Pressley told Linehan police kept her in a hotel for weeks before the trial while she was coached on what to say on the stand..

“How long were you in the hotel?” asked Linehan.

“Maybe a couple weeks,” Pressley responded. “They just prepped me for the court.”

The NYPD did not respond to the I-Team’s email seeking comment on the allegation a key witness was held in a hotel for weeks, but in the audio recording, Linehan expressed concern about the practice.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Them behaving like that is not something we would have had them do.”

Liakas said he believes the CRU is taking Anthony Green’s wrongful conviction claim seriously – but he also expressed concern that his client has already spent decades in prison – and cannot move on with his life without shedding the label “murderer.”

“You have the Conviction Review Unit, which I think has great intention,” Liakas said. “But there’s a proverb that says the road to hell is paved with good intentions and even if there are good intentions here, he’s still going through hell.”

In a unanimous decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court justices ruled that a 2019 law passed in the state barring non-disclosure agreements designed to prohibited victims of discrimination from going public should also apply to so-called non-disparagement clauses.

Retired Neptune Township Police Sergeant Christine Savage said that decision is vindication for her and everyone else who was made to keep quiet.

“It means everything to me. It means everything to other victims in the world that are suffering in the same silence. You can’t buy silence. You can’t bully people into silence,” she said.

Savage, who settled a previous discrimination lawsuit against the Township, settled a second retaliation claim with the township in July 2020. She signed a non-disparagement agreement not to discuss past practices of the police department.

“I only had two choices in front of me,” Savage told the I-Team after the court’s decision. “Lose my pension and get fired or settle.”

In an interview with NBC New York the month after she signed the agreement, Savage did not discuss the past, but described what she said was an ongoing culture.

“They don’t want women there,” she told the I-Team. “It’s not going to change. It’s the good ol’ boy system.”

The Township sued Savage, claiming she had violated the settlement. The Supreme Court justices listened to oral arguments in January, and have now ruled in Savage’s favor. They also lifted all restrictions on her speaking out about the treatment she says she received.

“It’s a much bigger decision because it applies to any agreement that can potentially be used to silence a victim of discrimination. So the label doesn’t matter,” said Donald Burke Jr., Savage’s attorney.

“You think it’s about you but it becomes about other victims. I’ve made case law. It was a long journey—I didn’t know where it was going to go,” said Savage. “But at the end of the day, we win. Our voices won.”

Neptune Township did not respond to repeated requests for comment. They are ordered to pay Savage’s legal fees and court costs.

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A high-profile New York real estate lawyer, whose law license was once suspended, said he approached the judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud case to offer unsolicited advice about a law at issue in the case.

Attorney Adam Leitman Bailey made the claim during an interview with NBC New York, saying he spoke to Judge Arthur Engoron three weeks prior to the judge’s February decision to fine the former president $454 million for falsely inflating the value of his assets.

The judge, through a court spokesman, denied impropriety and said he was “wholly uninfluenced” by Mr. Bailey. New York’s judicial oversight body has now launched an investigation into the alleged interaction, according to sources familiar with the matter.

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Donald Trump Mar 25

Court agrees to block collection of Trump's $457 million civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175M

“I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago,” Bailey said, during an on-camera interview with NBC New York on Feb. 16, the day the judge’s decision was due. “I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why…I really want him to get it right.”

NBC New York asked a spokesman for Engoron whether the judge had spoken with Bailey about any legal issues surrounding the Trump civil fraud matter, and whether the alleged interaction had been appropriate.

“No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person. The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual,” said Al Baker, a spokesman for the New York State’s Office of Court Administration, in a written statement

In legalese, the term “ex parte” describes a communication between a party or their legal counsel and a judge about a pending case without all the parties present.

Bailey, who said he is no fan of Trump, was not involved in the civil case and is not connected to any of the four separate criminal cases against the former president. He said he knows the judge from having appeared before him as a litigant “hundreds of times.”

Bailey said he “explained to him” that a fraud statute at issue in the case was not intended to be used to shut down a major company, especially in a case without clear victims. He said such a ruling would hurt New York’s economy. Engoron had rejected a similar argument raised by the Trump team in court.

“He had a lot of questions, you know, about certain cases. We went over it,” Bailey said.

Baker, the court spokesman, did not reply when asked whether the judge had engaged with Bailey or asked questions.

State legal conduct rules govern interactions with judges about their pending cases outside of official courtroom proceedings.

The New York State Rules of Judicial Conduct state that “a judge shall not initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to the judge outside the presence of the parties or their lawyers.” The rules do allow an exception to “obtain the advice of a disinterested expert,” if a judge gives notice to the parties in the case and gives them the opportunity to respond.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct will now consider whether the rules of judicial conduct were violated in this instance, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The commission’s administrator, Robert Tembeckjian, declined to comment, citing a statute on confidentiality.

Christopher Kise, a member of the Trump defense team which has repeatedly criticized Engoron’s handling of the case, said if Bailey’s claims are true, it casts doubt on the integrity of the process.

“The code doesn’t provide an exception for ‘well, this was a small conversation’ or ‘well, it didn’t really impact me’ or ‘well, this wasn’t something that I, the judge, found significant,” Kise said. “No. The code is very clear.”

Several experts consulted by NBC New York said the rules are meant not only to prevent outside influence, but also any appearance of outside influence.

Retired Presiding New York Appellate Justice Alan Scheinkman said he has questions about Bailey’s account. However, he said in a case as consequential as the Trump civil fraud matter, if Bailey’s allegation is true, it would have been prudent for Engoron to disclose the interaction to both parties in the case.

“If there’s any substantive dialogue about the law in a pending case, it should be disclosed,” Scheinkman said.

In a second on-camera interview with NBC New York, Bailey stood by his account, but said he didn’t think he or the judge had done anything wrong. Bailey said they only spoke about the law.

“We didn’t even mention the word Donald Trump,” Bailey said. When asked if he thought the judge understood him to be talking about the Trump case, he said: “Well, obviously we weren’t talking about the Mets.”

Scheinkman, who now teaches legal ethics at Pace University Law School, said the interaction described by Bailey is “very troubling.”

“The fact that this lawyer made these statements — unprompted — during a recorded TV interview should raise serious concerns,” Scheinkman said.

Professor Bruce Green, director of Fordham Law School’s Center for Law and Ethics, said it’s not against the rules for judges and lawyers to talk about the law in the abstract.

“Judges don’t have to live in a bubble,” Green said. “Whether a judge’s hallway conversation with a lawyer is permissible or impermissible depends on the conversation.”

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Letitia James, who brought and won the civil case against Trump, declined to comment on Bailey’s claims.

Bailey has appeared as an expert for two decades in The New York Times’ “Ask Real Estate” column. In Nov. 2011, he sued the Trump Soho condominium, alleging that buyers were misled. In a settlement, Bailey’s clients got most of their money back and Trump admitted no wrongdoing.

In 2019, a New York appellate court suspended Bailey’s law license for four months for misconduct in two separate matters. Bailey improperly used his cellphone to take photos of witnesses during an arbitration hearing and threatened to share them with the media, court records show. In the other incident, Bailey told a tenant in a case that they “should just kill themselves,” according to the appellate court’s decision.

New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct say that lawyers should not “state or imply an ability” to improperly influence a judge.

Since February, both Bailey and the judge’s spokesman have stopped responding to NBC New York’s questions, declining to provide details that might shed light on the disparity between Bailey’s account of a dialogue, and the written denial from the court spokesman.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct investigates alleged improprieties involving state judges. Of nearly 3,000 complaints filed in 2023, only about 200 resulted in an investigation, according to the commission’s data. About one in four investigations resulted in a finding of wrongdoing, with consequences ranging from confidential letters of caution to a judge vacating the bench.

Investigations by the Commission on Judicial Conduct are conducted in secret, and can take anywhere from months to more than a year, according to recent annual reports.

Nicole Staso joined the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office in 2017 as a correction officer in the county jail after graduating at the top of her academy class.

“I was pulled aside and told I am too pretty for the job and that it was going to get me into trouble,” she told NBC New York.

Recently filed court documents state Staso had been “dogged by comments about her appearance and false rumors about her sexual activities.” The notice to sue also said that the county sheriff’s office “retaliated against Officer Staso for complaining about the workplace rumors.”

“She became the butt of all these jokes that were fake — that she’s a slut, that she sleeps around, that she’s a porn star, and these jokes took on a life of their own because nobody in the county did the right thing,” said her attorney, Gina Mendola Longarzo. “It’s all about protecting the boy’s club and that frat boy mentality.”

Staso told the I-Team she was suspended for one day because of “seditious behavior” and denied a transfer because a supervisor thought she might be too flirty in the new assignment. She also said she was moved to an overnight shift which created a family hardship.

The officer claimed in legal documents that when she complained about the lack of a women’s bathroom in the jail, a supervisor said if she has “a problem being able to access a bathroom, I could pull my pants down and squat over the floor drain.”

But she says the ultimate betrayal came in March when she was finally offered a promotion to a detective position in a specialized unit.

“A mere two hours later, I get a text message from the undersheriff informing me of the bad news that they were going to rescind the order,” she said.

Staso kept the messages she said came from Undersheriff Kevin Dickson.

“The officers in the courthouse are already pushing rumors that I am b***ing you, and that’s me hooking you up,” the text message from Dickson said, adding “I feel bad for backing down.”

“It was horrible,” said Staso. “I was so embarrassed.”

Staso recorded a phone conversation with Acting Sheriff Gary Giardina who called her a week later to apologize. In that phone call, Giardina said he “authorized the move” and was looking to see what happened after that.

“What transpired between that time and our conversation today bothers me, and I am looking into the situation,” Giardina said. “Promises were made to you that I am prepared to honor if you still want that transfer.”

Staso, currently out on medical leave, said she doesn’t want to go back to an environment where sexual discrimination is “almost encouraged.” But she said she does have a message to other women.

“You need to be a force. If things like this are done to you, you have to stomp it out. Enough is enough already,” she said.

The I-Team reached out to officials in the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, and was referred to the county counsel who said no one would be commenting about anything related to Staso’s claims.

No doubt you’ve been there after a long day at work or school, or any long day. Grabbing a seat on the train, you start scrolling through your phone, and as the subway rumbles forward, your eyes grow heavier and heavier. 

Suddenly, you’re awake. Your phone is gone. Your apps, your pictures, your contacts, your personal information all gone as well.

Sadly, you would not be alone in having this happen to you — and the NYPD is sounding the alarm on the trend. 

“It’s one of the lowest levels of theft. If you think about like it’s just somebody is innocent sleeping. They can’t even defend themself and you’re just taking stuff from them,” said Sgt. Jason Bernfeld, one of the leaders of NYPD’s Transit District 20 plainclothes team. 

The team has been riding trains throughout Queens at night, where the sleepy crime trend is spiking, looking for the thieves and delivering a wake up call to riders. 

“It’s more than just enforcement too, there’s outreach. We aren’t only there to stop people and ticket them. We are also here to help people, educate people. And watch over people,” explained Bernfeld. 

News 4’s I-Team followed along with the law enforcement team on patrol in the subways. We saw the team wake up more than 10 riders across several subway lines in Queens in less than an hour. The team will approach a resting passenger, start recording the interaction on their body camera, and then wake the sleeping straphanger. 

Bernfeld approached a slumbering straphanger to warn about what could happen.

“Hey, how are you doing? Sorry to bother you. NYPD. Just so you know, I’m recording, OK?” Bernfeld told the passenger. “Just be careful sleeping in the train alright. You got your bag out. We got a lot of thefts of people sleeping.”

The thieves have a specific subway shopping list they’re after, according to police.

“Cellphones are huge. I mean cellphones are just they’re taking them a dime a dozen. And then wallets containing cash or credit cards. Jewelry,” said Bernfeld. “Something easily accessible with jewelry, they’re not taking a ring that’s gonna be hard to get off someone sleeping — but if it’s a loose necklace, gold chain or something like that.”

The team also stressed the choice of seating makes a difference. Those sitting next to a subway door need to be even more alert: Thieves will quickly grab a phone and dash off the train before the rider even realizes what happened. 

“The doors open, the doors close. If I’m sitting here, my phone is in my hand, my laptop is on my lap and I’m sitting by the door. It’s quite easy for someone to jump in. Grab it and run. Before I even realize something happened, the door closed and I can’t even get after that person,” said. Bernfeld. 

The Democrat’s line of defense was filed in secret with a federal judge in January. The document were made public on Tuesday after the news media fought to make the documents public.

In those documents, Menendez’s legal team wrote that if the senior senator from New Jersey were to take the stand, his story would clear him of the allegations he accepted any bribes — but that story could implicate his wife Nadine. The lawyers stated that she kept information from him and he was apparently unaware of what she had been doing, leading him to believe nothing illegal was occurring.

Bob Menendez Apr 15

Sen. Bob Menendez raises nearly $190,000 for legal defense in alleged corruption case

New Jersey Apr 11

Judge severs Menendez bribery case, ordering separate trials for NJ senator, wife

news Apr 9

Sen. Bob Menendez grills Treasury official on curbing illicit finance a month before bribery trial

“While these explanations, and the marital communications on which they rely, will tend to exonerate Senator Menendez by demonstrating the absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s part, they may inculpate Nadine by demonstrating the ways in which she withheld information from Senator Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place,” the documents state.

Menendez’s lawyers said that if he were called to the stand, he could testify about communications with his wife that prove he was unaware of any wrongdoing.

Menendez and his wife are accused of accepting tens of thousands in cash and gold bars from three businessmen in what prosecutors have said was a wide-ranging bribery scheme. In exchange, the senator stands accused of trying to help secure overseas business deals as well as interfere with separate criminal investigations related to two of the businessmen.

The senator, his wife and two businessmen each pleaded not guilty.

Earlier in April, a federal judge ordered separate trials for Bob and Nadine Menendez amid news she had fallen ill and would require surgery and weeks of recovery. 

The couple wanted separate trials so that he could tell the jury his wife was the one who accepted money – without that story putting her in jeopardy. After separate trials were granted, the senator was no longer at risk of violating privileged marital communications between him and his wife, because his defense at his trial will not be part of her later trial.

This document was originally written and sealed in January, well before Nadine got sick and the trials were severed. NBC News legal analyst Danny Cevallos said that despite the move theoretically hurting Nadine’s case, it could actually be “protective” of her.

“If the defense gets their way, Menendez can take the stand, point his finger at his wife and then none of that can be used against her at her subsequent trial,” Cevallos told NBC New York. “It may be this is really a preview of what Menendez plans to do at trial.  Or it is possible the defense really wants a severance and they are coming up with theories to bolster their argument for a severance.”

“The defense poses a hypothetical that Menendez may take the stand and point the finger at his wife as part of his own defense,” Cevallos continued. “The reason that is a hypothetical is statistically defendants usually don’t take the stand – especially when they might have credibility issues like Menendez does.”

One of the businessmen, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty and has been cooperating with prosecutors. He admitted he helped both the senator and his wife buy a Mercedes as part of a bribe scheme and later made up a cover story to try to fool federal investigators. 

New York City will move to end its contract with a medical services company hired to house and care for a recent influx of international migrants, following scrutiny over the firm’s costly deal with the city and the quality of its humanitarian services.

Mayor Eric Adams’ office on Tuesday said the city would not renew its contract with DocGo before it expires on May 5 and will instead search for a new housing provider for migrants.

DocGo, which previously worked with the city to provide COVID-19 testing, was awarded a $432 million no-bid emergency contract last year to help the city manage a massive new population of migrants.

The arrangement drew questions from city Comptroller Brad Lander, who in reviewing the contract determined there wasn’t enough detail to justify the cost and that it wasn’t clear how the company had the expertise to transport, house and feed thousands of migrants.

News reports from the New York Times and Albany Times Union also detailed alleged mistreatment of migrants under the company’s care, including issues with health care and food waste, among other things. Its chief executive officer resigned after he admitted to lying about his educational record.

DocGo currently provides care for 3,600 migrants in New York, half in the metro area and half upstate, officials said.

The company will continue to provide services for migrants who were relocated upstate until a new vendor is picked, with the city aiming to have a new contractor by the end of the year. In New York City, officials will temporarily use an existing contract with the company Garner Environmental Services to care for migrants.

“This will ultimately allow the city to save more money and will allow others, including non-profits and internationally-recognized resettlement providers, to apply to do this critical work, and ensures we are using city funds efficiently and effectively,” Camille Joseph Varlack, chief of staff for the mayor, said in a statement.

The city has other ongoing contracts with DocGo and will continue to work with the company in those deals.

In a statement, a DocGo spokesperson said the company is “immensely proud of the exceptional work that our team has accomplished and continues to perform in aiding the City’s response to this unprecedented crisis.”

New York has struggled to handle an influx of international migrants who have arrived in the city since 2022, with more than 187,000 people coming through its intake system seeking shelter.

Politico first reported the news of the city declining to renew its contract with DocGo.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. There is hope.

Video obtained by the NBC New York I-Team shows Rikers Island correction officers failing to intervene — for nearly eight minutes — as an inmate hangs himself in their plain view.

The family of Nicholas Feliciano, the inmate who attempted suicide, shared the disturbing images with News 4 as part of a desperate call for jail reform.

“He was hanging off a hook. And you got these officers just walking by and standing there,” said Madeline Feliciano, the former prisoner’s grandmother. “Who in their right state of mind does that? Who does that!”

Nicholas Feliciano’s suicide attempt took place on the night before Thanksgiving 2019, but the video is only now being released after the former inmate’s family settled a civil lawsuit against the City of New York for a record $28.7 million. 

David Rankin, the lead civil rights attorney who sued the city on behalf of Feliciano, said the payout is believed to be the largest pre-verdict settlement paid to a single plaintiff in city history.

“I mean the reason we released this video was that we want to shock people out of their lanes and their calcified thinking about Rikers Island,” said Rankin. “I mean, you can describe what happed with Nicholas, but until you see it and really understand what happened in that 8 minutes and before, the impact just isn’t the same.”

NBC New York is not showing those portions of the video recordings that depict the actual suicide attempt. 

Over the course of the 7 minutes and 51 seconds in which Feliciano hung motionless in his cell, at least seven members of the jail staff walked by without entering to check on him. Some of the correction officers can clearly be seen turning their heads to look inside the cell — and then walking away. When Feliciano was finally cut down he was revived by medics, but he had already suffered severe and permanent brain damage from oxygen deprivation.

According to a Board of Correction report released in 2021, members of the jail staff told investigators they believed Feliciano had made a “manipulative gesture” and was faking his suicide attempt. The report concluded that a series of institutional failures led up to the jail’s botched response to Feliciano’s suicide attempt. That included:

• A suicide-risk screening failed to detect Feliciano’s likelihood of self-harm despite his lengthy history of suicidal behavior in City custody.
• Irregularities relating to Feliciano’s access to psychiatric medications.
• Significant periods of time Feliciano spent in Department of Correction custody as a teenager.
• Pending disciplinary charges against the on-duty Intake Captain for failure to supervise and failure to provide medical assistance.

The Bronx district attorney ultimately filed criminal charges against that Intake Captain, Terry Henry, and three other correction officers. Two of them, C.O. Mark Wilson and C.O. Daniel Fullerton, pleaded guilty to misdemeanors. Henry and C.O. Kenneth Hood have pleaded not guilty to felony reckless endangerment charges and are awaiting trial.

James George Frankie, the defense attorney for Henry, said his client witnessed Feliciano agitated and playing with a sweatshirt that was hanging from the ceiling of his cell. But he argued Henry had no duty to remove the garment hanging from the ceiling because departmental guidelines advise staff not to engage a “hostile inmate” inside his cell.

After Henry walked away from Feliciano’s cell and went to his office, his attorney said it was the responsibility of subordinate correction officers to intervene when — and if — they saw Feliciano tie that sweatshirt around his neck.

“I think the officers should not have waited some seven minutes. If you see that, you’re supposed to go in immediately,” Frankie said. “But I’m not making a final judgement on the conduct of the officers.”

Once Henry was notified of the possible suicide attempt he entered the cell and cut Feliciano down. 

“He’s actually the one who saved this guy’s life,” Frankie said of Henry.

Attorneys for the other correction officers seen in the video ignoring Feliciano did not immediately respond to the I-Team’s request for comment.

In all, six jail staff members were suspended or charged with procedural violations after the incident. One correction officer was terminated. Two others jail employees resigned. 

The FDNY reviewed the conduct of a team of EMTs who passed by the attempted suicide as they rendered aid to a different inmate. Those medics were cleared of wrongdoing and continue to serve as members of the FDNY.

“The EMTs in question were engaged with their original patient and were preparing for transport as they passed through the intake area with a DOC escort,” said Jim Long, an FDNY spokesman.

Annais Morales, the press secretary for the Department of Correction, said jail administrators made significant improvements to their suicide prevention strategies in the four years after Feliciano’s attempt at self-harm.

“The Department has increased training related to mental illness and suicide prevention, increased the presence of and training related to naloxone, provides support to people in custody who demonstrate self-harm behaviors, and made physical improvements to jails, including installing anti-ligature air register covers in housing units,” Morales wrote in a statement to the I-Team.

But attorneys for the Feliciano family say video of the suicide attempt demonstrates a breakdown in the very culture of Rikers Island – that goes beyond lapses in training.

“It’s a disregard for his basic human dignity,” said Regina Powers, one of the civil rights lawyers who sued the city on Feliciano’s behalf. “We talk about treating people more humanely. At Rikers Island I would say they are not treated as humans at all.”

“We’re putting people in a place that everybody knows is a substandard, unconstitutional hellhole,” said Jonathan Moore another member of the legal team.

After years of oversight by a federal monitor, last summer, the U.S. Department of Justice called for a full-fledged takeover of Rikers Island.  A federal judge is currently considering that possibility and could decide the question of federal receivership in the coming months.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. There is hope.

NBC New York’s Linda Gaudino contributed to this report.

A popular Medicaid program that lets elderly and disabled New Yorkers choose their own caregivers has grown exponentially in just a few years, an I-Team analysis has found. Now proposed restrictions to that program are at the center of a fierce battle between Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislators, as they seek to hammer out a budget deal in Albany.

The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, CDPAP for short, allows individuals to select friends or members of their families to help with tasks like dressing, bathing, meal preparation, and cooking at home.  The personal care aides are then paid with Medicaid funds for the time they spend assisting with those tasks of daily living.

While the ability to choose one’s own home care employee has proven to be a hit with senior citizens and people coping with disabilities, it’s also proven to be increasingly expensive.  In just the last five years, Medicaid expenditures under CDPAP have grown from $2.5 billion to more than $9 billion, according to New York’s Division of the Budget.  State taxpayers pay for half of that cost, while federal taxpayers shoulder the other half.

According to data obtained by the I-Team using New York’s public records law, CDPAP companies collectively billed more than 328 million hours of home care last year.  That’s a 262 percent increase since 2018.  Although the average beneficiary receives about 3 hours of help around the house per day, the data show dozens of CDPAP companies, called “fiscal intermediaries,” average double or triple that.  In one case, the I-Team found a fiscal intermediary with beneficiaries that averaged more than 25 hours of care per day.  That’s against the rules, as 24 hours of care per day is the upper limit.

When the I-Team asked about the unusual billing pattern, a representative for company in question insisted there must be a mistake.  When the I-Team asked the New York State Health Department, which administers CDPAP, to double check the accuracy of the records a spokesperson declined to share details.

“We cannot comment at this time as the subject is part of ongoing budget negotiations,” wrote Monica Pomeroy, a Health Department spokesperson.

As part of her budget proposal, Governor Hochul recently suggested new restraints on CDPAP, including lowering hourly wages for some downstate personal care assistants.  But the proposed changes have drawn fierce opposition from the union representing home care workers and their clients.

“I just hope that our system of government finds a way to fund the program the way that it should be.  We find money for everything else,” said Jose Hernandez, a disabled father who suffered a spinal injury and gets 24 hours of in-home care each day.

Valerie Bogart, an attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, a nonprofit dedicated to helping underprivileged people get the benefits they deserve, said Hochul is looking for savings in the wrong place.

“CDPAP has been scapegoated,” Bogart said.  “If you value keeping people at home rather than sending them to a nursing home, New York is doing well.”

Bogart says a better way to rein in costs would be to reduce payments to the big insurance companies that act as middlemen in the administration of New York’s Medicaid program.

“Let’s move away from this insurance model where the state is overpaying for these services.”

Yet critics of CDPAP say the program’s architecture incentivizes over-use of the benefit.

Bill Hammond, a Senior Fellow for Health Policy at the conservative-leaning Empire Center for Public Policy, has argued that families naturally want to avoid moving loved ones into nursing homes – so they’ve traditionally pitched in voluntarily to take care of frail friends and family members.  But CDPAP incentivizes that even more.

“They’re paying family members to do what they used to do for free,” Hammond said.   

He also argues the original rationale for CDPAP was to lower the state’s expenditures on nursing homes, but New York’s spending on nursing facilities remains among the highest in the nation.

“So we’re spending an extraordinary amount on this program that’s supposed to keep people out of nursing homes and it’s not working,” Hammond said.  “It’s going to be increasingly hard to sustain this level of spending and employment.”

In February, Blake Washington, New York State’s Budget Director, suggested CDPAP’s popularity – and the generosity of its benefits – could begin to threaten the state’s ability to serve the neediest of its Medicaid clients.

“In the last handful of years, we’ve had 12 hundred percent growth in CDPAP and its an area the Governor is very concerned about,” Washington said.  “We’re concerned that what we’re doing here, by having widened the net so greatly, is we’re inviting abuses to the system.  We’re hurting the program that we value for the consumers that need it the most.”

There is a growing mystery surrounding a shooting incident in the New Jersey office of Newark’s former public safety director, who is now a powerful consultant.

The circumstances of what happened at the Ambrose Group office building last Friday evening are shrouded in secrecy. The Essex County Prosecutor’s office will only say that one of the most powerful figures in law enforcement,  Anthony Ambrose, suffered a self-inflicted accidental gunshot wound to his foot. But questions remain: whose gun was it — and was it registered?

Several people tell News 4 New York they saw Cedar Grove Police Chief John Kennedy in police headquarters Tuesday morning, but by afternoon no one could tell us when he’ll be back. His department is in the middle of an investigation into the accidental discharge of a gun at the nearby office of the Ambrose Group last Friday evening — a shooting that ended up hitting Ambrose in the foot.

However, details of the incident are murky. Apparently, Chief of Detectives for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Mitchell McGuire was the one who called the police department. Law enforcement sources say Kennedy responded, along with other officers, some wearing bodycams. McGuire was still at the scene, but Ambrose was gone — allegedly driven by an unknown person to the hospital. The gun was recovered.

Questions surrounding a possible conflict of interest have arisen when it comes to Kennedy leading the incident investigation. However, there seems to be confusion about who is investigating.

The Attorney General’s Office said it is not investigating but law enforcement sources tell the I-Team two investigators from the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity Unit were at the Cedar Grove Police Department Monday inquiring about the bodycam video and other information.

Those same sources say McGuire is on the bodycam video. The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office is declining to say if he actually witnessed  the shooting incident.

“There is no current internal affairs inquiry into McGuire’s conduct,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said.

McGuire declined to comment on the incident. The I-Team was unable to reach Ambrose.

By all accounts, there was a camera directly outside the nightclub focused on the street. So was there footage from that camera and if so, what happened to it? What did it show?

Those questions are now the subject of a hearing as Plaza, sentenced to ten-year prison term, seeks to overturn his conviction.

While in prison, Plaza filed freedom of information requests. Multiple police reports show that detectives acknowledged they saw outside-camera video. During this ongoing hearing on Plaza’s motion to overturn his conviction, the original prosecutor testified the case detective told her there was nothing relevant to the crime on the video and she never followed up to confirm that account. 

Said Plaza’s defense attorney, Mark Bederow: “The prosecutors never sought to secure the video, to actually see what was on it. Ronald Plaza had a right to know about any evidence and he was kept in the dark. That’s not justice.”

Ironically, Plaza may have served his ten-year sentence before the judge rules on his motion.

The latest accusations, contained in a third indictment against Cheng, involve a 48-year-old woman who says, in November of 2021, she was sedated for a colonoscopy inside New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens only to wake up and find Cheng sexually abusing her.

In an exclusive interview with the I-Team last Fall, this latest alleged victim said she tried to push memories of the incident to the back of her mind, but after seeing news coverage of Dr. Cheng’s first two indictments, she decided to tell law enforcement.

“I was in the recovery area with the curtains drawn and Dr. Cheng was giving me a vaginal exam,” she said.  “I know myself that gastro and gynecology don’t go together.”

The woman’s attorney, Nicholas Liakas, has filed a lawsuit on her behalf and on the behalf of several other women who say New York Presbyterian failed to act on clear warning signs that Dr. Cheng’s behavior was predatory.

“The hospital failed on multiple levels, period,” Liakas said. 

In particular, he pointed to an incident during the summer of 2021 in which a 19-year-old patient of Dr. Cheng said she asked for a hospital investigation after being sedated with an unknown substance and waking up with severe pain in her lower abdomen.   After that episode, Cheng continued to practice at the hospital.  The DA would later accuse Cheng of raping that patient while recording cell phone video of the crime inside a hospital exam room.

“Had it been investigated properly at that point, had he been suspended, had his license been revoked at that point, you would have prevented an additional assault that we know of,” Liakas said.

In response to the latest indictment against Cheng, NewYork-Presbyterian issued a statement saying:

“The crimes detailed in these additional charges are horrific, and we are deeply sorry for all that the victims and their families have endured. We have continued to work with the District Attorney to advance the investigation and see that justice is served.”

The hospital says it fired Cheng after learning of the criminal case against him.

Cheng now faces more than 60 sex crime charges. He has pleaded not guilty to each of them and his attorney declined to comment on the indictments.  Cheng is being held in Rikers Island without bail.

In a statement, Thursday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz called Dr. Cheng a predator and urged other women to contact her office’s Special Victims Bureau if they think they may have been victimized by the gastroenterologist.

“What we have heard from the victims and seen in the videos is the shocking and horrifying exploitation of women at their most vulnerable,” said Katz.  “Taken together, the evidence details the repeated attacks of a sexual predator who time and again betrayed his sworn professional oath and the trust of women who were unable to defend themselves.”

The Special Victims Bureau can be reached by calling 718-286-6505 or emailing SpecialVictims@queensda.org

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine, pleaded not guilty on Monday to their latest criminal charges in an alleged corruption case involving gold bars, a luxury car and other alleged bribes.

A federal grand jury in New York hit the Democrat and his wife with two new counts last week tied to obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, bringing the total amount of charges faced by New Jersey’s senior senator to 18, a copy of the superseding indictment shows.

“Once again, not guilty, your honor,” Sen. Menendez told the judge at his arraignment in downtown Manhattan.

Menendez and his wife left the courthouse without speaking to reporters. Menendez ignored a shouted question about whether he intends to run for re-election.

Bob Menendez Mar 4

Judge rejects Menendez's claims search warrants in bribery case were unconstitutional

Bob Menendez Mar 1

Sen. Bob Menendez co-defendant pleads guilty to conspiracy, will cooperate with prosecutors

Bob Menendez Feb 13

Nadine Menendez claimed she inherited gold bars after mother's death, prosecutors say

The FBI alleges the pair lied about money they received for a new Mercedes convertible and home mortgage payments. The senator and his wife lied, claiming the money was given as loans they planned to repay – when all along the cash payments were alleged bribes.

In a statement, Menendez called last Tuesday’s superseding indictment “a flagrant abuse of power. The government has long known that I learned of and helped repay loans  — not bribes —  that had been provided to my wife.” The senator once again maintained his innocence, claiming prosecutors are “scared” and have no evidence of any crimes.

“The government has now falsely alleged a cover-up and obstruction. The latest charge reveals far more about the government than it says about me. It says that the prosecutors are afraid of the facts, scared to subject their charges to the fair-minded scrutiny of a jury, and unconstrained by any sense of justice or fair play. It says, once and for all, that they will stop at nothing in their zeal to get me,” the statement continued. “These prosecutors are trying to get me to give in simply by making wild allegations again and again, without actually proving anything.”

David Schertler, a Washington-based lawyer for Nadine Menendez, declined to comment on the new allegations.

Prosecutors said that from June 2022 into 2023, Menendez and his wife Nadine wrote checks that stated they were repaying a loan to businessman Jose Uribe, when in fact no such loan existed.

Those checks, according to prosecutors, were presented to the United States Attorney’s Office in an attempt to obstruct justice by falsely characterizing the return of bribe money “in an effort to interfere with an investigation of Menendez, Nadine Menendez, and others in the Southern District of New York.”

Uribe has pleaded guilty in the so-called gold bar corruption case, saying he paid bribes to the senator. He is now cooperating with prosecutors.

Uribe said he met with Nadine Menendez once the criminal investigation began and the pair concocted the story claiming the cash he gave them was not a bribe, but rather a loan.

Among newer allegations included in the indictment, Menendez is accused of sending his then-attorney in to allegedly tell a false story to federal investigators in June and September of 2023— a story that allegedly detailed the money he and his wife got was a loan. The attorney said the senator had been unaware until 2022 of a $23,000 mortgage payment one businessman made on the Menendez’s New Jersey home or the money another defendant paid toward a Mercedes-Benz convertible.

Prosecutors allege that Menendez also caused his lawyer to say in the September meeting that Menendez in 2022 had learned that the payments were loans. The prosecutors wrote that Menendez knew and “had learned of both the mortgage company payment and the car payments prior to 2022, and they were not loans, but bribe payments.”

Prosecutors also said in the rewritten indictment that Nadine Menendez caused her lawyer to tell prosecutors last August that the mortgage payment and funds provided for the convertible were loans when she knew they were bribe payments.

The new charges allege that the couple was trying to obstruct justice in the weeks before they were charged last September with a variety of crimes.

According to the indictment, Menendez and his wife accepted gold bars and cash from a real estate developer in return for the senator using his clout to get that businessman a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund. Menendez also was charged with helping another New Jersey business associate get a lucrative deal with the government of Egypt.

The senator and his wife have pleaded not guilty. They now face 18 counts in all and are accused of taking gold bars and cash from Uribe and two other businessmen who allegedly wanted help with international business deals and separate legal problems two of the businessmen were facing.

Two of the other businessmen have pleaded not guilty as well. A May trial has been scheduled.

The charges were added to the indictment just a day after Judge Sidney H. Stein rejected Menendez’s claims that search warrants that led to the discovery of gold bars and cash at his New Jersey home were unconstitutional. Defense lawyers had alleged that documents submitted to magistrate judges to obtain search warrants for email records, phones and materials at Menendez’s residence from January 2022 to last September were “riddled with material misrepresentation and omissions.”

FBI raids on the residence in June 2022 resulted in the discovery of over $100,000 in gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash, much of it hidden in closets, clothing and a safe, prosecutors said. Menendez said the cash found in the house was personal savings he had put away for emergencies.

After his fall arrest, the 70-year-old Menendez was forced to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but said he would not resign from Congress.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Menendez has held public office continuously since 1986, when he was elected mayor of Union City, New Jersey. In 2006, then-Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.

If Menendez does choose to seek re-election, he’ll likely have to face two other strong Democratic contenders in a June 4 primary: U.S. Rep. Andy Kim and Tammy Murphy, the wife of New Jersey’s governor.

Larry Neumeister of the Associated Press contributed to this report.

New Jersey. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine were hit with more criminal charges in an alleged corruption case involving gold bars, a luxury car and other alleged bribes, according to federal prosecutors.

A federal grand jury in New York hit the Democrat and his wife with two new counts tied to obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, bringing the total amount of charges faced by New Jersey’s senior senator to 18, a copy of the superseding indictment shows.

The FBI alleged the pair lied about money they received for a new Mercedes convertible and home mortgage payments. The senator and his wife lied, claiming the money was given as loans they planned to repay – when all along the cash payments were alleged bribes.

Bob Menendez Mar 4

Judge rejects Menendez's claims search warrants in bribery case were unconstitutional

Bob Menendez Mar 1

Sen. Bob Menendez co-defendant pleads guilty to conspiracy, will cooperate with prosecutors

Bob Menendez Feb 13

Nadine Menendez claimed she inherited gold bars after mother's death, prosecutors say

In a statement, Menendez called Tuesday’s superseding indictment “a flagrant abuse of power. The government has long known that I learned of and helped repay loans  — not bribes —  that had been provided to my wife.” The senator once again maintained his innocence, claiming prosecutors are “scared” and have no evidence of any crimes.

“The government has now falsely alleged a cover-up and obstruction. The latest charge reveals far more about the government than it says about me. It says that the prosecutors are afraid of the facts, scared to subject their charges to the fair-minded scrutiny of a jury, and unconstrained by any sense of justice or fair play. It says, once and for all, that they will stop at nothing in their zeal to get me,” the statement continued. “These prosecutors are trying to get me to give in simply by making wild allegations again and again, without actually proving anything.”

David Schertler, a Washington-based lawyer for Nadine Menendez, declined to comment on the new allegations.

Prosecutors said that from June 2022 into 2023, Menendez and his wife Nadine wrote checks that stated they were repaying a loan to businessman Jose Uribe, when in fact no such loan existed.

Those checks, according to prosecutors, were presented to the United States Attorney’s Office in an attempt to obstruct justice by falsely characterizing the return of bribe money “in an effort to interfere with an investigation of Menendez, Nadine Menendez, and others in the Southern District of New York.”

Uribe pleaded guilty on Friday in the so-called gold bar corruption case, saying he paid bribes to the senator. He is now cooperating with prosecutors.

Uribe said he met with Nadine Menendez once the criminal investigation began and the pair concocted the story claiming the cash he gave them was not a bribe, but rather a loan.

Among newer allegations included in the indictment, Menendez is accused of sending his then-attorney in to allegedly tell a false story to federal investigators in June and September of 2023— a story that allegedly detailed the money he and his wife got was a loan. The attorney said the senator had been unaware until 2022 of a $23,000 mortgage payment one businessman made on the Menendez’s New Jersey home or the money another defendant paid toward a Mercedes-Benz convertible.

Prosecutors allege that Menendez also caused his lawyer to say in the September meeting that Menendez in 2022 had learned that the payments were loans. The prosecutors wrote that Menendez knew and “had learned of both the mortgage company payment and the car payments prior to 2022, and they were not loans, but bribe payments.”

Prosecutors also said in the rewritten indictment that Nadine Menendez caused her lawyer to tell prosecutors last August that the mortgage payment and funds provided for the convertible were loans when she knew they were bribe payments.

The new charges allege that the couple was trying to obstruct justice in the weeks before they were charged last September with a variety of crimes.

According to the indictment, Menendez and his wife accepted gold bars and cash from a real estate developer in return for the senator using his clout to get that businessman a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund. Menendez also was charged with helping another New Jersey business associate get a lucrative deal with the government of Egypt.

The senator and his wife have pleaded not guilty. They now face 18 counts in all and are accused of taking gold bars and cash from Uribe and two other businessmen who allegedly wanted help with international business deals and separate legal problems two of the businessmen were facing.

Two of the other businessmen have pleaded not guilty as well. A May trial has been scheduled.

The charges were added to the indictment just a day after Judge Sidney H. Stein rejected Menendez’s claims that search warrants that led to the discovery of gold bars and cash at his New Jersey home were unconstitutional. Defense lawyers had alleged that documents submitted to magistrate judges to obtain search warrants for email records, phones and materials at Menendez’s residence from January 2022 to last September were “riddled with material misrepresentation and omissions.”

FBI raids on the residence in June 2022 resulted in the discovery of over $100,000 in gold bars and more than $480,000 in cash, much of it hidden in closets, clothing and a safe, prosecutors said. Menendez said the cash found in the house was personal savings he had put away for emergencies.

After his fall arrest, the 70-year-old Menendez was forced to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but said he would not resign from Congress.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Menendez has held public office continuously since 1986, when he was elected mayor of Union City, New Jersey. In 2006, then-Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.

Larry Neumeister of the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Several have written letters to town building officials and the Rockland County Health Department complaining that Rabbi Nissan Arash Kakakian is operating an illegal yeshiva and rooming house in two homes zoned as single-family houses.

“It is clearly a yeshiva. All day long. People sleeping there,” one resident said.

“This man is trying to take over the whole neighborhood. If we speak out, he sends some of his men to intimidate us, to bully,” said another resident. “He’s bought many houses and he’s bringing in families, which are his subjects, and he’s intimidating all the other people.”

The Airmont building inspector confirmed Kakakian did not get a change of use permit for either property, adding there is a code enforcement breakdown in the Village.

“The board fired the code enforcement officer last April and the fire inspector,” Lou Zummo told the I-Team.

He said there are 630 businesses which are supposed to be inspected for fire safety every year, which haven’t been properly inspected in the past seven years.

When the I-Team approached Rabbi Kakakian with questions, he walked away without answering and did not respond to follow-up inquiries.

The County Health Department says it issued a vacate order on one of the homes in Aug. 2023 when inspectors were repeatedly denied access but there was no follow-up because of no additional complaints. Residents say that’s just not true.

The County says it’s now launched a re-investigation after the I-Team reporting.

Businessman Jose Uribe pleaded guilty to seven counts in connection with the alleged corruption probe, including conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice and more.

Menendez, a Democrat, and his wife stand accused of taking bribes of gold bars, a luxury car and cash in exchange for using his outsized sway in foreign affairs to help the government of Egypt — and others — as well as other corrupt acts, according to an indictment that came down in Sept. 2023.

Uribe is a New Jersey businessman in the trucking and insurance business who was friends with fellow defendant Wael Hana, according to an indictment. Hana and Uribe allegedly got Nadine Menendez a Mercedes convertible after the senator called a government official about another case involving an associate of Uribe, according to the indictment.

“Congratulations mon amour de la vie, we are the proud owners of a 2019 Mercedes,” Nadine Menendez texted her husband, along with a heart emoji, after they got the vehicle.

Bob Menendez Feb 13

Nadine Menendez claimed she inherited gold bars after mother's death, prosecutors say

Feb 8

Gold bars featured in Bob Menendez bribery case linked to 2013 robbery, records show

Bob Menendez Jan 23

Sen. Bob Menendez says gold bars and cash at his home were illegally found and seized

Uribe was accused of buying a luxury car for Nadine Menendez after her previous car was destroyed when she struck and killed a man crossing the street. She did not face criminal charges in connection with that crash.

Uribe allegedly gave the Mercedes to Menendez and his wife as he sought help with a criminal investigation into his associates being run out of the New Jersey state attorney general’s office. In exchange, Menendez is accused of calling then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal directly about the matter.

Uribe agreed to cooperate with the prosecution looking into the allegations against New Jersey’s senior senator and will testify against Menendez. In his hearing before a judge on Friday, Uribe admitted to giving the car to Nadine Menendez “in return for Senator Menendez using his power and influence…to get a favorable outcome and to stop all investigations related to one of my associates.”

He also admitted the car was given as part of an effort to halt a different investigation “into another person who I considered to be a member of my family.” Uribe said he tried to hide the payments he made on the luxury vehicle “because I knew it was wrong. I knew that giving a car in return for influencing a United States Senator to stop a criminal investigation was wrong, and I deeply regret my actions.”

Uribe provided more information about his involvement in the alleged obstruction of justice crimes from June 2022 to 2023 during his plea. In the agreement he reached with prosecutors, Uribe must “truthfully and completely disclose all information with the respect to the activities of himself and others concerning all matters about which this Office inquires of him.”

Read the full plea deal agreement below:

Uribe is one of three businessmen from whom the couple is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, along with Hana and Fred Daibes. After he got a subpoena relating to Menendez, Uribe said he met with Nadine Menendez at a Marriott hotel, where she questioned him about what he would say about the car payments.

“I told her that I would say a good friend of mine was in a financial situation and I was helping that friend make the payments on the car, and when she was financially stable, she will pay me back,” Uribe said in court Friday. He said Nadine approved of his plan at the time.

He said he later told his attorneys the same version of what happened and they transmitted that “false story” to prosecutors with his approval. In late 2022, Uribe said he got a check from Nadine Menendez paying him back for the car payments, which he deposited.

Menendez, his wife and all of the other defendants have pleaded not guilty. Uribe previously pleaded not guilty in October, but in a surprise switch, changed his plea on Friday during a hearing the media had not been informed about before it happened.

Menendez is also accused of helping another New Jersey business associate get a lucrative deal with the government of Egypt. Prosecutors allege that in exchange for bribes, Menendez did things that benefited Egypt, including ghostwriting a letter to fellow senators encouraging them to lift a hold on $300 million in aid.

Menendez also has been charged with using his international clout to help a friend get a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund, including by taking actions favorable to Qatar’s government.

Uribe remains free on a $1 million bond, which was set when he was arrested. His plea deal, dated Thursday, was signed by him on Friday.

Uribe’s attorney, Daniel Fetterman, declined to comment. David Schertler, a lawyer for Nadine Menendez, also declined to comment.

An attorney for the senator said in a statement that the plea deal does not change anything for his client.

“Senator Menendez has spent months detailing the law and the evidence that demonstrate that charges should never have been filed in this case. Today’s news of Mr. Uribe’s change of plea does not change the core truth: Sen. Menendez is innocent and the prosecutors have got it wrong,” the statement from attorney Adam Fee read. “Sen. Menendez continues to look forward to proving his innocence to a jury.”

According to a plea agreement, Uribe could face up to 95 years in prison, though he could win leniency by cooperating and testifying against the other defendants, which he’s agreed to do. He also agreed to forfeit $246,000, representing proceeds traceable to his crimes.

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The city’s Department of Investigation sealed the chiefs’ third-floor offices at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn as part of a search Thursday morning, three people briefed on the matter told NBC New York. The accused chiefs — Brian Cordasco and Anthony Saccavino — work in the bureau of fire prevention and are involved with the safety inspection process of buildings.

Both were placed on modified duty after FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh learned of the warrant; neither has been charged with a crime or accused of any wrongdoing. According to sources, the two are well-respected veteran chiefs.

There was law enforcement activity at Cordasco’s home on Sheldon Avenue on Staten Island, an FBI spokesperson said. A law enforcement search was also conducted at Saccavino’s home.

Multiple attempts by NBC New York to reach Cordasco or Saccavino for comment were no successful Thursday.

Sources with firsthand knowledge told News 4 that Commissioner Kavanagh had reported an unsubstantiated tip to the DOI in April 2023 after she heard rumors about possible kickbacks worth tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for expediting fire inspections, but sources said fire officials at the time had no reason to believe the tip was true.

“The FDNY’s first priority is always keeping New Yorkers safe, and we expect every member of the department to act appropriately,” the FDNY said in a statement. “As soon as Commissioner Kavanagh was alerted to these allegations last year, she immediately referred them to DOI to investigate them. Commissioner Kavanagh has proactively placed the employees at the center of this investigation on modified duty, and we are awaiting guidance from DOI regarding further action.”

As NBC News has previously reported, federal investigators have been trying to determine if there was any wrongdoing in the inspection process performed by the city on buildings that were under construction, including possible illegal favoritism granted to friends of Mayor Eric Adams. In 2023, an attorney for Joseph Jardin — the previous head of fire prevention in the department — told NBC New York there had been pressure to approve the new Turkish consulate after the mayor had contacted the agency.

Sources familiar with the matter said the allegations appear to be separate from an ongoing federal investigation into mayoral fundraising. A City Hall spokesperson said the administration “became aware of this operation when we were notified by FDNY this morning,” and there was “no indication of any direct connection to anyone at City Hall.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment. A DOI spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, other than acknowledging it had received a complaint.

Police said Darwin Gomez-Izquiel was part of a group who stole from the store at the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst and attacked a security officer, several senior law enforcement officials said.

Police sources said video surveillance footage of a suspect with dyed blonde hair at Macy’s appeared to match the image of the same man who allegedly took part in the Times Square attack on Jan. 27. Hours after the alleged robbery, officers spotted Gomez-Izquiel at the Times Square subway entrance at West 41st Street and Seventh Avenue just before midnight.

NYPD officials said the group of suspects tried to steal items and punched and kicked a loss prevention officer who attempted to stop them. The suspects then fled, running off with just over $600 worth of clothing.

Gomez-Izquiel was charged with robbery and petit larceny. Attorney information for the 19-year-old was not immediately clear. Police are still looking for three others — two men and a woman — involved in the incident.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office faced criticism after four of the migrants initially arrested and charged in the Times Square incident were released with no bail, including Gomez-Izquiel.

Meanwhile, the only migrant who was being held on bail in connection with the Times Square melee made bail on Tuesday and was released, according to the Department of Correction website and a senior law enforcement official.

Yohenry Brito, a migrant from Venezuela, is charged with assault and was being held on $15,000 cash bail. It was not immediately clear who posted the bail.

A spokesperson for the DA’s office did not have immediate comment.

Times Square Feb 13

Suspect wanted in Times Square brawl involving police arrested in the Bronx: Sources

New York City Feb 11

NYC imposing 11 p.m. curfew at more migrant shelters after Times Square shooting

NYPD Feb 9

Cop in Times Square melee once found liable in $5M police brutality case

Also on Tuesday, two other migrants charged in the Times Square incident were picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the morning on civil immigration holds, according to two law enforcement officers familiar with the case.

Police originally claimed the two, Wilson Juarez and Kelvin Servita Arocha, fled on a bus to California with the other migrants who were released. It was a claim that sparked a national outcry over DA Alvin Bragg’s decision to free them without seeking bail after the alleged attack on officers.

A closer review of the video showed the pair were present but did not strike any of the officers, according to Bragg.

Izquiel, the man now wanted for questioning in the Macy’s robbery, was also said to be on that bus out of town. The defendants are scheduled to return to court on Feb. 16.

This as another unnamed suspect in the Times Square brawl was arrested Tuesday morning in the Bronx. Prosecutors charged him last week but did not name him in the indictment. It is not clear whether he is under the age the of 18.

Three senior officials says when police executed the warrant for Tuesday morning’s Bronx arrest, officers found Juarez and Arocha in the same apartment.

In all, 11 people are believed to have played a role in the attack on the officers.

Federal prosecutors wrote in court papers filed late Monday that a Menendez staffer said the senator explained “the gold had come from Nadine Menendez’s deceased mother.” Prosecutors added Nadine Menendez made a similar statement to a jeweler “claiming that the gold had come from her deceased mother.”

Federal prosecutors allege Nadine Menendez’s statement to the jeweler was “a false cover story.” The FBI has said some of the gold bars were bribe payments to the Democratic senator from New Jersey developer Fred Daibes. In exchange, Daibes allegedly wanted the state’s senior senator to pressure the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office to go easy on him in connection with a separate bank fraud case.

Feb 8

Gold bars featured in Bob Menendez bribery case linked to 2013 robbery, records show

Bob Menendez Jan 23

Sen. Bob Menendez says gold bars and cash at his home were illegally found and seized

Bob Menendez Jan 16

Sen. Bob Menendez and wife seek separate trials on bribery charges

At least four gold bars linked to a search of Sen. Menendez’s Englewood Cliffs home once belonged to Daibes, according to court records. In 2013, Daibes had reported numerous bars stolen from his home and were later recovered by police, according to the Bergen County Prosecutors Office. Serial numbers on some of the bars Daibes once reported stolen appear to match bars discovered in a search of the senator’s home.

News that Nadine Menendez may have told others she got the gold bars from her own mom surfaced after months of no comments from the senator and his wife as to how they allegedly got all that gold.

“The problem is, is that there is no evidence of the giving or receiving of cash and gold bars. In fact there has been, and will be at trial, a full explanation of what is the truth about those issues. A truth that proves I am entirely innocent of the charges,” Menendez said on Jan 9.

Daibes, the senator, and his wife Nadine have each pleaded not guilty to the bribery-related charges. Attorneys for the couple did not respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors also provided more detail on the tens of thousands in cash found in Menendez’s home. In addition to envelopes of cash allegedly found in jackets, in their court filing the feds said there were “four boots, stuffed with cash, including one boot containing in excess of $5,000 in $50 bills, marked with a note stating ‘5350.’”

Investigators also said two bags of cash were found “on top of a large rack of clothes hangers…approximately $100,000 per bag.”

The FBI said Menendez and his wife accepted cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz, mortgage payments and other items of value as part of a wide-ranging bribery scheme. In addition to allegedly trying to help Daibes with his bank fraud case, prosecutors said Menendez also abused his position to try to help accused bribe-giver Jose Uribe in connection with a New Jersey state attorney general investigation.

The Senator is also accused of accepting cash and gifts from a third man, Wael Hana, who allegedly wanted help securing an exclusive halal meat inspection contract worth millions with the Egyptian government. While Menendez was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, prosecutors allege he used his position to influence foreign aid deals with Egypt in order to help Hana — in exchange for the bribe payments.

Hana also allegedly partnered with Uribe to ask Menendez to pressure to state attorney general’s office regarding that investigation into Uribe’s associates. Prosecutors with the Southern District of New York said Uribe texted Hana, “the deal is to kill and stop all investigation.”

In their latest filing, the SDNY said Hana “swindled” the senator by not paying him all the bribe money he promised — including a $35,000 ring allegedly to be used for the Menendez’s engagement. Menendez posted video of his proposal to Nadine in front of the Taj Mahal in 2019.

“Hana received money from an individual whose criminal case needed a ‘push’ from Menendez as part of a quid pro quo, and ‘swindled’ Menendez by buying Nadine Menendez a less expensive ring than promised in exchange for Menendez’ intervention in the criminal case,” the filing stated.

Prosecutors said an associate of Hana recorded at least one conversation about the alleged scheme and allegedly said Hana “had ruined the biggest relationship with one in the senate by swindling him.”

The court filing by prosecutors comes after lawyers for the senator, his wife Nadine, and the three businessmen all filed motions to try to get the charges dismissed and ask the judge to limit the evidence that could be used at trial. All of the defendants deny wrongdoing, with Menendez stating on the Senate floor that “there is no evidence of the giving or receiving of cash and gold bars.”

An attorney for Hana said they had no comment, other than that they were reviewing the court filings and will respond on Monday.

The judge has set a trial date for May 6.

According to a federal civil rights complaint, Lt. Ben Kurian, the cop seen on bodycam video wrestling with a migrant who was resisting arrest on a Times Square sidewalk, was once part of a group of officers accused of beating and choking a man in his own home back in 2011.

According to the lawsuit, Kurian was responding to a 911 call about a disturbance at a birthday party when he allegedly used a baton to place the homeowner in a “choke hold” that was “so tight, he could hardly speak or breathe.” When the case went to trial in 2016, a jury awarded the victim — an off-duty police officer named Larry Jackson — $15 million in damages. That award was later reduced to $5 million after review by a Brooklyn federal judge.

Times Square Feb 8

New bodycam video released in Times Square brawl involving NYPD cops

Times Square Feb 8

7 indicted in alleged attack on NYPD officers in Times Square

Times Square Feb 7

NY officials looking for 2 more men suspected in Times Square attack on NYPD officers

In January, Kurian found himself in the middle of a controversial arrest again, when he tried to cuff a migrant for failing to scatter when asked to move from the sidewalk on West 42nd Street near 7th Avenue.

Bodycam video released by the Manhattan DA Wednesday shows Kurian telling a group of Hispanic men to move as they gathered on the edge of a sidewalk in Times Square. The officer repeatedly yells “vamos,” urging the group of young men to disperse, but when one of the individuals fails to move fast enough, Kurian pushes him to the wall of an adjacent building, and a scuffle ensues with the suspect trying to get away — while several of his supporters try to block the arrest by physically pulling cops off of the suspect.

The NYPD said the reason police initially engaged the group of men was because they were blocking the sidewalk and the reason they tried to arrest the initial suspect, 24-year-old Yohenry Brito, was because he failed to comply with the order to move along. Brito has been indicted for assault in the second degree is now being held on Rikers Island. Six other co-defendants have also been indicted in the case which prompted uproar about the initial release of some defendants without bail.

NYPD brass have depicted the sidewalk altercation as a clear case of defying a police order.

“The crowd is given a direction to please disburse, that they’re blocking the sidewalk. Everybody disburses except for Mr. Brito,” said Joseph Kenney, NYPD Chief of Detectives. “He turned around and got confrontational with the police officers. He refused a lawful order. They attempted to place him under arrest and the melee begins.”

But not everyone agrees with the official NYPD characterization of the video.

“From what I’m looking at, it didn’t have to go this far,” said Neville Mitchell, a defense attorney who is not involved with the case. “Words shouldn’t be enough for police to act the way they acted. You would want to make sure you have, in this city, police officers are able to de-escalate situations.”

Mitchell said the bodycam video released by the Manhattan DA appears to show pedestrians were having no apparent problems passing on the sidewalk.

The I-Team was unable to reach Kurian for comment, but in the civil rights case, he denied using excessive force. He claimed he was the one being attacked as he responded to a 911 call and encountered a chaotic brawl already in progress inside the Queens residence.

There is no public record of Kurian ever being disciplined by the department. The NYPD’s officer profile shows Kurian was promoted to sergeant the year after he was accused of choking Jackson. He was again promoted to lieutenant in 2021. Kurian has received three awards for excellent police duty and one departmental commendation in his nearly 20 year career.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to questions about why Kurian was promoted without having been disciplined for the police brutality judgement that cost taxpayers millions.

Eric Sanders, the attorney who represented Jackson in his lawsuit against Kurian and the NYPD, said it’s troubling that the same police officer found liable for roughing up his client more than a decade ago has been promoted to lieutenant. Still Sanders, a former cop himself, said he didn’t find Kurian’s conduct in the Times Square incident objectionable.

“Although Kurian should have been fired for the Jackson assault and perjury in that case, this is a more nuanced crime problem,” Sanders said. “After viewing the body worn camera video, I’d say Kurian and the rest of the team handled this crime problem [complaints of loitering for the purposes of committing pick pockets, robberies, gang assaults and the like] in the Midtown area consistent with department training and prevailing law.”

About 70 people are charged in connection with varying alleged corruption and kickback schemes that occurred between 2013 and 2023 at NYCHA facilities, Southern District of New York attorney Damian Williams announced. The alleged kickback schemes included construction, maintenance and no-bid contracts for essential services like plumbing at nearly a third of the public housing buildings where “extorting was business as usual.”

The investigation spanned over a year and arrests were made in six states and all five boroughs, prosecutors said.

A total of 55 current NYCHA employees and more than a dozen former employees were charged after allegedly demanding more than $2 million in bribe money from contractors in exchange for giving out more than $13 million worth of work. The bribes involved small jobs like plumbing for less than $10,000 each, prosecutors alleged, but building superintendents demanded kickback payments before work could begin.

Williams said it was the largest single-day bribery takedown in Justice Department history. So many NYCHA workers were arrested that federal agents had a bus waiting by to drive them all to court. Others were led to U.S. Marshals vans.

Ivan Arvelo, the Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge for New York, said that the NYCHA residents “may have been cheated out of better services and programs” due to the “lucrative, under-the-table deals.”

There are 335 NYCHA developments across the city and investigators alleged bribery at almost 100 of them, Williams said as he showed a map of the widespread corruption (below).

More than 300,000 people live in NYCHA buildings, the largest public housing organization in the country. 

Williams encouraged any contractors to report wrongdoings by NYCHA employees to the SDNY Whistleblower Pilot Program at USANYS.WBP@usdoj.gov, adding that many of them have already come forward. “Going forward contractors should understand that NYCHA employees should not be asking for a single penny,” he said.

New York City Department of Investigation Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber called on “significant reforms” to the public housing authority’s no-bid contracting process, which she said NYCHA has accepted.

“The conduct as alleged drove up the cost of this kind of work and diverted valuable public funds away from public housing and into the pockets of corrupt NYCHA staff,” Strauber said. Among the 14 recommendations she made to improve NYCHA: reform the micropurchase process, better oversight, create a centralized office to handle the work authorization, review work outside buildings and superintendents, and prequalified reviews of vendors.

Strauber advised the administration transfer responsibility “from development staff to a centralized procurement unit.”

Corruption has been plaguing NYCHA for years and those who suffer the consequences are its residents. In 2021, nine contractors were indicted for allegedly bribing superintendents for small repair contracts. In 2022, scores of NYCHA workers were fired for overtime abuse.

NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has previously recommended that NYCHA track repairs so it can work to manage problems and investigate all substandard repairs with a reliable tracker system. All 335 of the public housing buildings were on the public advocate’s 2023 “Landlord Watchlist.”

NYCHA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt said the accused “betrayed the public trust” and that the agency has zero tolerance for wrongful and illegal activity.

“The individuals allegedly involved in these acts put their greed first and violated the trust of our residents, their fellow NYCHA colleagues and all New Yorkers. These actions are counter to everything we stand for as public servants and will not be tolerated in any form,” Bova-Hiatt said in a statement. “In the past five years, NYCHA has achieved many significant milestones, while remaining vigilant to ensure integrity in every area of our work. We have already made transformative changes to our business practices and will continue to do so. We will not allow bad actors to disrupt or undermine our achievements.”

Housing and Urban Development Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis said that the alleged pay-to-play schemes “waste millions of dollars and risk residents staying in unacceptable living conditions.” Some resident were left wondering if repairs to pipes and other apartment problems were delayed due to the alleged bribery scheme.

“I mean that’s crazy. People put in work orders and wonder why they take so long and they’re taking money,” said NYCHA Mo Coulibaly.

In a statement issued one week after the attack, Bragg on Saturday also acknowledged some of those most responsible have not been identified or arrested. According to authorities, seven suspects have been arrested following the caught-on-camera beating of the two officers. Police think at least 13 people were involved.

“Our office continues to work with law enforcement to bring everyone responsible for these heinous attacks to justice. It is clear from video and other evidence that some of the most culpable individuals have not yet been identified or arrested, and we are working hand in hand with the NYPD to find and hold them accountable for their despicable acts,” Bragg’s weekend statement read, in part.

Bragg’s office emailed out the statement late Saturday along with a statement from the NYPD commissioner, which denounced the attackers and promised to work “tirelessly” alongside the DA to arrest all suspects involved in the attack.

The DA’s latest statement comes on the heels of an unusual Friday when Bragg dodged reporter questions before ultimately holding press conference hours later. In that briefing, he defended his decision to not request bail for several suspects, saying he’s proceeding cautiously to ensure the proper suspects are identified.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined early Friday afternoon to answer questions from NBC New York regarding the case and why several migrants accused of assaulting police were released without bond. He did not respond when asked if he thought not requesting bail was a mistake, instead walking past reporters without saying much at all.

Seemingly caught off-guard by the questions, Bragg offered only one answer: “We’ll speak in court.”

The DA was attending a law enforcement conference which reporters were invited to by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. She has made it clear she disagrees with the decision to let the suspects go free without bail, and has called for the attackers to be deported. Hochul said the problem was not about weak bail laws, but rather the failure to use the laws in place.

“All I know is that an assault on a police officer means you should be sitting in jail,” said Hochul.

Bragg and Hochul met behind closed doors, but he was noticeably absent when the governor emerged for a news conference with several other district attorneys from Queens, Brooklyn and Westchester. Hochul confirmed that she discussed the incident with Bragg, adding that she was “confident there will be more charges brought.”

Hours later, Bragg convened an early evening press conference to try and clarify his position — insisting he would not tolerate attacks on police, following days of criticism and silence from his office.

“We do not tolerate or accept assaults on police officers. I watched the tape this week, despicable behavior and it sickened me and outraged me,” Bragg said.

The embattled DA said his office was looking into new video to identify what role each individual may have played in the group assault. Bragg told reporters he did not request bail because he is proceeding cautiously to ensure they have the proper suspects identified in the case.

“That is what is required to secure a conviction and get accountability and send the right people to jail. That’s what we’ve been working on all week,” Bragg said, noting that the one who was “deemed to have committed the most serious crimes is currently on Rikers.”

He also said the office has received more information than it did after Saturday, and he expects to get further information in the next few days. What remains unclear is if Bragg has any hesitation or concerns about whether they have arrested and charged the right suspects, even if they were not held on bail.

Times Square Feb 1

Migrants in NYPD Times Square attack board buses to California after release on bail: sources

NYPD Jan 31

‘Cowards': 7 arrested in Times Square attack on NYPD officers

Seven suspects have been arrested for the attack so far, and police officials have said at least 13 people were involved in the attack on the officers. At least one suspect had bail set and is being held on Rikers.

Several of the suspects are migrants, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said, while police were familiar with some from past incidents.

“Some of them live in the migrant shelter, they appear to be migrants, obviously. I don’t know when they got here. Some of them already have lengthy police records,” said Chell. “These individuals who were arrested [or] will be arrested should be indicted, they should be sitting in Rikers awaiting their day in front of the judge. Plain and simple.”

Multiple sources familiar with the matter said they believe four of those initially arrested and released after court have since boarded a bus under aliases and were headed toward the California–Mexico border.

Federal officials said that in many cases, New York officials do not alert them when an undocumented defendant is being released from court or jail. A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said bail was not sought in part because they were still sorting out which defendants committed which acts during the assault.

An official with the New York Office of Court Administration said they were “not aware of the defendants’ whereabouts but they are obligated to return to Court on their scheduled dates”; their next court date in New York was scheduled for March 4.

Police do not track crime committed by undocumented residents, but arrest records show residents living at 30 of the city’s 200 migrant shelters have been arrested more than 1,200 times in the last year. City records show the top crimes include petit larceny, assault, grand larceny, endangering the welfare of a child and robbery.

Former NYPD Chief of Department and current NBC New York consultant Terry Monahan said that while the vast majority of migrants are coming to the U.S. to seek better lives, crime is a growing problem.

“A lot of times it shows it’s a first arrest for that individual because it’s the first time they’re here. And they’re getting sent right back out on the streets to do it again,” Monahan said.

Gov. Hochul has shared harsh words for the migrants arrested.

“Get them all — send them back,” the Democrat said Thursday. “You don’t touch our police officers, you don’t touch anyone.”

The lack of consequences for the suspects has sparked police pushback.

“Why aren’t they in jail right now? They brutally attacked a police officer and a lieutenant. Our criminal justice system is upside down,” said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry.

Details of the Times Square attack

Authorities say the caught-on-camera brawl erupted as cops tried to break up a group of migrants in front of a shelter on 42nd Street, steps from the New Amsterdam Theatre. Police officials said Thursday that it is believed at least 13 people were involved in the attack on the officers.

Multiple law enforcement sources said it all started when a couple of people walked up to the officers and said there was a group being disorderly, causing issues.

Police went to check it out, and the situation escalated quickly. Video obtained by NBC New York shows the moments before the beatdown, as a police officer and a lieutenant were talking to the group. They put their hands on one person and suddenly, the cops are surrounded. They stumble down 42nd Street, where the officers fall to the ground, before being kicked, stomped and punched in the face and head. 

One lieutenant suffered a cut to his face. The other officer has injuries to the side of his body.

“I’m appalled at this. The city, we have had enough,” said Chell. “The shame of this is they’re trying to keep this city safe, and they get attacked by eight cowards who are kicking them in the face, taking cheap shots.”

Those arrested have been accused of assault or attempted assault on a police officer and gang assault. Several are charged additionally with obstructing governmental administration.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have not commented on whether they will attempt to detain the defendants in this case. Camille Joseph Varlack, the chief of staff for Mayor Adams, said NYC’s sanctuary city status does not prevent police from coordinating with ICE.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Violence at migrant shelters has been a burgeoning problem as of late, prompting demands for fresh quality of life initiatives in certain neighborhoods. The city’s largest shelter is on Randall’s Island, where a deadly fight broke out earlier this month. Three people were arraigned Tuesday in that case.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined early Friday afternoon to answer questions from NBC New York regarding the case and why several migrants accused of assaulting police were released without bond. He did not respond when asked if he thought not requesting bail was a mistake, instead walking past reporters without saying much at all.

Seemingly caught off-guard by the questions, Bragg offered only one answer: “We’ll speak in court.”

The DA was attending a law enforcement conference which reporters were invited to by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. She has made it clear she disagrees with the decision to let the suspects go free without bail, and has called for the attackers to be deported. Hochul said the problem was not about weak bail laws, but rather the failure to use the laws in place.

“All I know is that an assault on a police officer means you should be sitting in jail,” said Hochul.

Bragg and Hochul met behind closed doors, but he was noticeably absent when the governor emerged for a news conference with several other district attorneys from Queens, Brooklyn and Westchester. Hochul confirmed that she discussed the incident with Bragg, adding that she was “confident there will be more charges brought.”

Hours later, Bragg convened an early evening press conference to try and clarify his position — insisting he would not tolerate attacks on police, following days of criticism and silence from his office.

“We do not tolerate or accept assaults on police officers. I watched the tape this week, despicable behavior and it sickened me and outraged me,” Bragg said.

The embattled DA said his office was looking into new video to identify what role each individual may have played in the group assault. Bragg told reporters he did not request bail because he is proceeding cautiously to ensure they have the proper suspects identified in the case.

“That is what is required to secure a conviction and get accountability and send the right people to jail. That’s what we’ve been working on all week,” Bragg said, noting that the one who was “deemed to have committed the most serious crimes is currently on Rikers.”

He also said the office has received more information than it did after Saturday, and he expects to get further information in the next few days. What remains unclear is if Bragg has any hesitation or concerns about whether they have arrested and charged the right suspects, even if they were not held on bail.

Times Square Feb 1

Migrants in NYPD Times Square attack board buses to California after release on bail: sources

NYPD Jan 31

‘Cowards': 7 arrested in Times Square attack on NYPD officers

Seven suspects have been arrested for the attack so far, and police officials have said at least 13 people were involved in the attack on the officers. At least one suspect had bail set and is being held on Rikers.

Several of the suspects are migrants, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said, while police were familiar with some from past incidents.

“Some of them live in the migrant shelter, they appear to be migrants, obviously. I don’t know when they got here. Some of them already have lengthy police records,” said Chell. “These individuals who were arrested [or] will be arrested should be indicted, they should be sitting in Rikers awaiting their day in front of the judge. Plain and simple.”

Multiple sources familiar with the matter said they believe four of those initially arrested and released after court have since boarded a bus under aliases and were headed toward the California–Mexico border.

Federal officials said that in many cases, New York officials do not alert them when an undocumented defendant is being released from court or jail. A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said bail was not sought in part because they were still sorting out which defendants committed which acts during the assault.

An official with the New York Office of Court Administration said they were “not aware of the defendants’ whereabouts but they are obligated to return to Court on their scheduled dates”; their next court date in New York was scheduled for March 4.

Police do not track crime committed by undocumented residents, but arrest records show residents living at 30 of the city’s 200 migrant shelters have been arrested more than 1,200 times in the last year. City records show the top crimes include petit larceny, assault, grand larceny, endangering the welfare of a child and robbery.

Former NYPD Chief of Department and current NBC New York consultant Terry Monahan said that while the vast majority of migrants are coming to the U.S. to seek better lives, crime is a growing problem.

“A lot of times it shows it’s a first arrest for that individual because it’s the first time they’re here. And they’re getting sent right back out on the streets to do it again,” Monahan said.

Gov. Hochul has shared harsh words for the migrants arrested.

“Get them all — send them back,” the Democrat said Thursday. “You don’t touch our police officers, you don’t touch anyone.”

The lack of consequences for the suspects has sparked police pushback.

“Why aren’t they in jail right now? They brutally attacked a police officer and a lieutenant. Our criminal justice system is upside down,” said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry.

Details of the Times Square attack

Authorities say the caught-on-camera brawl erupted as cops tried to break up a group of migrants in front of a shelter on 42nd Street, steps from the New Amsterdam Theatre. Police officials said Thursday that it is believed at least 13 people were involved in the attack on the officers.

Multiple law enforcement sources said it all started when a couple of people walked up to the officers and said there was a group being disorderly, causing issues.

Police went to check it out, and the situation escalated quickly. Video obtained by NBC New York shows the moments before the beatdown, as a police officer and a lieutenant were talking to the group. They put their hands on one person and suddenly, the cops are surrounded. They stumble down 42nd Street, where the officers fall to the ground, before being kicked, stomped and punched in the face and head. 

One lieutenant suffered a cut to his face. The other officer has injuries to the side of his body.

“I’m appalled at this. The city, we have had enough,” said Chell. “The shame of this is they’re trying to keep this city safe, and they get attacked by eight cowards who are kicking them in the face, taking cheap shots.”

Those arrested have been accused of assault or attempted assault on a police officer and gang assault. Several are charged additionally with obstructing governmental administration.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have not commented on whether they will attempt to detain the defendants in this case. Camille Joseph Varlack, the chief of staff for Mayor Adams, said NYC’s sanctuary city status does not prevent police from coordinating with ICE.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Violence at migrant shelters has been a burgeoning problem as of late, prompting demands for fresh quality of life initiatives in certain neighborhoods. The city’s largest shelter is on Randall’s Island, where a deadly fight broke out earlier this month. Three people were arraigned Tuesday in that case.

Last October, Mayor Eric Adams announced he’d hired ElevenLabs, a London artificial intelligence start-up, to create a series of robocalls that made it seem like Adams could speak several foreign languages. The idea, the mayor said, was to enable him to speak directly to people in their native languages about city services and opportunities.

“People stop me on the street all the time, and say, ‘I didn’t know you speak Mandarin,’” Adams said at the time.

Three months later, ElevenLabs is in the news again — this time, for an alleged connection to a political dirty trick.

Jan 29

AI companies will need to start reporting their safety tests to the US government

Eric Adams Oct 17, 2023

Can Mayor Adams speak Mandarin? No, but AI can help him robocall in different languages

Researchers at a rival artificial intelligence firm say they’ve all but confirmed the ElevenLabs AI platform was used by someone earlier this month to create the now infamous deepfake robocall designed to trick New Hampshire citizens into thinking President Biden wanted them to stay home instead of voting in the state’s primary election.

According to Pindrop, a company that specializes in voice security, the firm’s “deepfake detection engine found, with a 99% likelihood, that this deepfake is created using ElevenLabs or a TTS (Text To Speech) system using similar components.”

In a blog post discussing the methodology used to investigate the Biden deepfake, Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop’s Co-Founder, said detecting synthetic speech in the realm of political messaging is going to become increasingly important so voters can stay informed. He noted that it was not ElevenLabs itself, but a user of the platform who likely created the phony Biden recording.

“Even though the attackers used ElevenLabs this time, it is likely to be a different Generative AI system in future attacks,” Balasubramaniyan wrote. “Hence it is imperative that there are enough safeguards available in these tools to prevent nefarious use.”

The I-Team reached out multiple times to ElevenLabs, but the company has not yet responded. 

On Feb. 6, the New Hampshire Attorney General announced its Election Law Unit had determined the source of the Biden deepfake robocall was a Texas company called Life Corporation and its principle, Walter Monk. Neither Monk nor a representative for Life Corporation immediately responded to the I-Team’s requests for comment.

The Attorney General’s news release did not include a conclusion about what voice cloning platform was used to create the deepfake.

“The Election Law Unit is also aware of media reports that the recorded message was likely made using software from ElevenLabs,” the statement read.  “At this time the Unit is continuing to investigate and cannot confirm whether that reporting is accurate.”

After Mayor Adams announced his use of ElevenLabs to produce those foreign language robocalls, some AI watchdogs criticized City Hall, saying the use of voice cloning by public officials should involve more oversight. Julia Stoyanovich, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at NYU who focuses on the ethics of machine learning, said AI-generated government messages should always come with bold disclosures that they are not real human voices.

“I don’t think we should be releasing – and politicians in particular, and elected officials like our Mayor – should be releasing machine generated content without an explicit statement that the content is machine generated,” Stoyanovich said. 

For two months, the I-Team has been requesting Mayor Adams provide copies of all the AI-generated robocalls featuring him speaking foreign languages.  Despite the audio having been paid for with public money, City Hall has failed to share all except the Spanish version.

Mayor Adams did not respond to specific questions about why the recordings are being withheld from the public, though City Hall argued his use of voice cloning has been fully transparent because Adams proactively mentioned the foreign language robocalls in front of journalists last October when he announced an “action plan” for responsible AI use in NYC government. The document does not take a position on whether those policies should include mandatory disclosure when government messages are produced with the help of machine learning.

That action plan calls for written policies on government use of AI to be published sometime in 2025. The document does not take a position on whether those policies should include mandatory disclosure when government messages are produced with the help of machine learning.

Several bills are pending in the New York and New Jersey state legislatures that would put guardrails on the use of AI, including one in Albany that would amend the election law to require disclosure when “synthetic media” is used in political communication.  Another bill in Trenton would extend the crime of identity theft to fraudulent impersonation using AI or deepfake technology.

Some, including many entrepreneurs inside the artificial intelligence industry, say increased oversight and regulation needs to come soon in order to preserve trust in the authenticity of mediated messages.

“We do need to act with regulation and some sort of governance,” said Zohaib Ahmed, the founder of Resemble AI, a Canadian company that specializes in voice cloning.

Ahmed said his firm has introduced an “invisible watermark” that can be embedded in audio files so it can always be traced back to the source.  He predicted watermarking and deepfake detection will quickly become industry standards, so people can trust what they’re hearing has been authorized by the person whose voice is being replicated.

“We understand the implications of our technology and we want to make it a point that we’re deploying it safely,” Ahmed said.

Correction (Feb. 1, 2024, 9:48 a.m.): An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Julia Stoyanovich.

Eight Fernandez brothers and sisters were part of the clandestine exodus from communist Cuba in 1960 that became known as Operation Pedro Pan. The Catholic Church organized an airlift of 14,000 unaccompanied children to Florida and then to other states, including New Jersey.

In Nov. 2023, several of the siblings sat down with the NBC New York I-Team in New Jersey — the same state where they all eventually were re-united with their parents decades earlier. They described the toll of separation and uncertainty, emotions they had never shared as a family.

“Our mother always told us to look forward, not back,” Bea Hernandez said at the time.

The children, ages 4 to 16, were sent out of the country in separate groups so as not to arouse government suspicion.

They talked about their determination to find each other again, no matter the challenges. Maria was too mentally fragile at the time to participate in the interview, but when she saw her siblings share their stories of love and strength, she decided she wanted to let her voice be heard.

Maria, originally placed in a reformatory on Staten Island with two of her brothers, said she was later abused in a foster home, an agonizing admission the siblings always suspected.

Maria said talking about her trauma helped heal the suffering she’d kept inside for 60 years and lift her burden.

“I know now I am not the only one who suffered,” she said.

“We have our sister back,” said youngest brother Juan, who was born in the United States. “We thought we’d lost her. Now she’s truly free.”

Shortly after announcing the intention to open some 57 beds to asylum seekers, Saint John’s Episcopal Church on Staten Island said it will stand down.

“At Saint John’s Church, our mission is rooted in compassion. But while we were working to fulfill our duty to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and welcome the stranger, I received disturbing threats from anti-immigrant groups, who were sadly encouraged by several of our officials,” Rev. Hank Tuell said in a statement this week.

“We will continue to embody the principles of love, understanding, and service that define our spiritual journey — including forgiving those who attacked our community for trying to care for our new neighbors.”

The church had said it hoped to use the first floor of a senior residence facility next to the church on Bay Street. Almost immediately, elected officials representing the area of Staten Island pushed back against the proposal, citing zoning concerns and a need “to protect our seniors’ spaces.”

migrant crisis Sep 27, 2023

‘Status quo is not working:' Adams keeps pushing to change NYC right to shelter rules

Staten Island Sep 13, 2023

Loudspeaker message outside NYC migrant shelter warns new arrivals are ‘not safe here'

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, Borough President Vito Fossella, District Attorney Michael McMahon, State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo, and Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks drafted a letter on Jan. 19 urging Tuell and the church to reverse course.

“The proposed plan to house over 50 migrants between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five is a slap in the face to your senior residents and the community which is entitled to a shared elderly daycare center that is open to all residents,” the letter concludes.

“We will use all legal measures at our disposal to ensure that you uphold the contractual agreement and moral obligation made to these seniors and to our community.”

Attempts to erect migrant shelters on Staten Island have continually faced opposition from neighbors and politicians. Last fall, hundreds of protesters repeatedly rallied outside a former Catholic high school.

A former prisoner in the Rose M. Singer women’s jail on Rikers Island is suing New York City, alleging jail staff ignored her warnings in 2022 that a transgender woman housed among females was actually a man pretending to be a woman in order to prey on the opposite sex behind bars.

“His introduction was, ‘I’m not transgender. I’m straight. I like women,’” said the plaintiff, who is identified only as “Rose Doe” in the lawsuit.

According to the civil suit, Rose Doe not only believed the alleged perpetrator was lying about their gender identity but that the prisoner was purposely “instructed to claim that he was transgender by DOC staff so that he could stay in the female dorm where he would have access to female inmates.”

Investigative records obtained by Doe’s attorneys and provided to the I-Team, show shortly after the alleged perpetrator arrived in the female dorm, Doe complained to correctional staff, claiming the new detainee sexually propositioned her on April 4th and then groped her in the bathroom on April 6th. After reviewing those complaints, the Acting Warden of the Rose M. Singer Center (RMSC), Floyd Phipps, sent an email saying, “I feel that individual is not a suitable fit for RMSC. . . . [Rose Doe] does not want to remain in the unit due to feeling unsafe.”

Even after those warnings and complaints, Doe says correction officers failed to remove the alleged perpetrator from female housing. According to Doe’s lawsuit, early on the morning of April 7th, “while Plaintiff was sleeping in her bed, the Perpetrator, took the opportunity to sexually assault Plaintiff again. . . .pull[ing] down her pants while she was sleeping and begin[ing] to rape her.”

“I’ll be scarred for the rest of my life,” Doe told the I-Team.

Nicholas Liakas, the attorney representing Rose Doe said he fears the failure of corrections staff to promptly remove an imposter also endangers actual transgender inmates who have fought for years to have access to housing which aligns with their gender identities.

“When someone is claiming to be something they’re not it’s to the detriment of the entire community now, because it will cause concern,” Liakas said. “Gender aside, when you have a clear danger it has to be removed and this is something where there were so many opportunities to step in and prevent a rape.”

A spokesperson for the NYC Department of Correction declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the fact that it is an active case. In a letter to Rose Doe, dated June 26, 2022, jail investigators said there was “insufficient evidence to make a final determination as to whether or not the event occurred.”

The I-Team is not naming the alleged rapist because the prisoner has not been criminally charged. Though Doe says she reported the rape, her lawsuit claims DOC staff “covered up Plaintiff’s sexual assaults by failing to provide her with adequate medical and mental health services, failing to collect, document, and review evidence.”

The legal action, claiming a heterosexual man posed as a transgender woman in order to gain access to female detainees, comes one year after advocates for trans prisoners implored New York City Council and the Department of Correction to make it easier for inmates to get housing that aligns with their gender identities.

In a hearing last January on gender equity in jail, Dr. Rachel Golden, a psychologist who specializes in gender-affirming care for Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Non-Binary, and Intersex people (TGNCNBI), told lawmakers it would be a mistake to think it is common for men to pose as trans females behind bars.

“Fearmongering that one bad actor will pretend to be transgender and therefore create an unsafe environment results in the continued disproportionate targeting of TGNCNBI individuals for harassment and violence,” Golden testified.

She added that trans women are far more likely to be the victims of sexual violence when they are housed in male facilities.

“There is little to no incentive to pretend to be transgender let alone to put in the work to sustain that ruse over time,” Golden said. “There is absolutely no evidence that people pretending to be transgender is a common occurrence whereas there is ample evidence supporting the risk of violence and assault to transgender women being housed in a male facility.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, transgender prisoners are far more likely to face sexual violence than the general population behind bars. A 2011-12 national survey of incarcerated individuals found nearly 16% of transgender inmates in local jails reported being sexually victimized. That compares with just 3% of the entire jail population.

In August of last year, the prisoner accused of raping Rose Doe was transferred to a maximum security prison for men after pleading guilty to the felony assault charges which originally landed him in Rikers.

Reached by phone, the father of the accused prisoner told the I-Team his son was “a troubled inmate” who “had a girlfriend when he went in,” but he did not believe his son was capable of raping someone.

Prior to the alleged rape, Rose Doe’s attorneys say there was ample evidence that introducing the new detainee to a female dorm might be dangerous, including jail disciplinary records showing the accused perpetrator had five open complaints recorded under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a 2003 law that standardized the process for filing complaints about alleged sexual misconduct behind bars.

Liakas said the existence of those complaints should have prompted action – regardless of the inmate’s gender identity.

“Whether or not this person was truly or not transgender ignores the fact that you had a history of complaints of predatory behavior,” Liakas said. “This individual had documented complaints of harassment. It culminated with a rape after being ignored.”

The investigative record shared with the I-Team also includes transcripts of recorded jail phone calls in which an inmate professes to be a heterosexual who manipulated his way into the women’s dorm and is in seek of sexual rendezvous with female prisoners.

“I’m not gay…I don’t want no penis,” reads one of the transcripts. “Send me some workers over here, like a whole swap of workers, heterosexuals.”

The name of the jail phone caller is redacted in the transcripts, but Doe’s lawyers say it is likely the same prisoner who assaulted their client.

Rose Doe told the I-Team she agrees that transgender women can be safely housed among females. But she believes jail staff have a responsibility to act quickly when inmates raise concerns about potential imposters.

“They just took my complaint and said they’d do something about it and they never did,” Doe said.

Last January, former Corrections Commissioner Louis Molina told City Council that Rikers Island housed about 50 people who self-identified as transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary, or intersex. Of those, 38 were housed in their requested gender facilities. The department did not specify the reasons why the other dozen or so individuals were denied housing that aligned with their gender identities.

The DOC says, as much as possible, it seeks to accommodate an individual’s desired housing placement in accordance with their gender identity.

The killing of Imam Hassan Sharif as he prepared to open the Masjid Muhammad-Newark mosque on Jan. 3 has generated an intense law enforcement dragnet. Authorities have said they had no evidence that religious hate motivated the imam’s slaying, but vowed to protect people of faith amid soaring reports of bias attacks across the U.S.

One law enforcement source says there is video from the scene of Sharif’s killing that shows a man riding away on a bicycle. The sources say they are looking into whether that individual is a relative of Sharif.

The family declined comment to News 4 Friday on the matter. Police and prosecutors said the investigation was active and ongoing, and that no arrests had been made by the middle of Friday afternoon. Law enforcement declined to comment further.

Sharif’s shooting comes amid intensifying bias incidents against Muslims and Jews since Hamas committed terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, provoking a punishing war in the Gaza Strip.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, recorded more than 2,000 bias incidents against U.S. Muslims in the first two months since the Mideast attacks began, up from nearly 800 in the same period last year.

A $35,000 combined reward is being offered for information in the case.

For nearly two decades, Sharif also worked as a transportation security officer for the Transportation Security Administration at Newark Liberty International Airport, said TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of his passing and send our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues,” she said in an emailed statement shortly after his death.

In a video statement posted on its website, the mosque offered prayers and said the community would focus on delivering Sharif his last rights and burial. The statement described Sharif as a brother, friend, father and husband and called on the community to be mindful of the family’s grief.

Sharif’s death follows other recent killings of religious leaders or at houses of worship that officials said weren’t tied to bias.

In Detroit, authorities said there wasn’t a “shred of evidence” that the killing of a synagogue leader in her home in October was motivated by antisemitism. In Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, authorities said the death of a man outside a mosque was the result of a carjacking.

Get more from NBC News here.

Trevor Bickford was indicted a year ago on terror charges including attempted murder, assault and aggravated assault on a police officer, according to the Manhattan DA. He pleaded guilty to five counts involving those charges, which stem from the Dec. 31, 2023, attack on three cops he approached on Eighth Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets.

Bickford told the judge he was under psychiatric treatment for schizoaffective disorder.

Then, in a separate statement to the court, he said, “On Dec. 31, 2022, I attempted to kill 3 uniformed NYPD officers in an attack with a knife while they were working. I know what I did was wrong and I’m sorry.”

All three officers were treated for their injuries and released from the hospital a day after the incident.

Bickford’s family was in the courtroom Thursday for the plea change, including his mother, stepfather and two aunts, who had tears in their eyes. Bickford faces up to 120 years in prison when he is sentenced.

Had the case gone to trial, among the government’s evidence were the 12-inch machete used in the attack, a journal found at the scene with Trevor’s “last Will and Testament” and officers’ bodycamera video that shows the attack.

It also would include statements made by Bickford when he was arrested, including, “I walked around Times Square trying to figure out the right time to kill” and “I intended to die in the attack and achieve martyrdom.

Bickford is set to be sentenced on April 11.

Senior law enforcement officials had described him as a “homegrown violent extremist” who tried to carry out the assault with a large knife on a night when midtown streets were jam-packed. Bickford was shot in the shoulder amid the chaos that ensued. He allegedly made statements to detectives implicating himself once in custody.

“A year and one day ago today, this Office charged Trevor Bickford with attempting to murder three NYPD officers while they were on duty protecting the thousands of civilians who flocked to Times Square just over a year ago to celebrate the New Year with friends and family,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement Thursday. “Bickford targeted the iconic yearly celebration to carry out brazen acts of violence and hatred in the name of jihad.  Bickford, as with countless others who have carried out acts of terrorism in support of misguided ideologies, is now going to spend lengthy time exactly where he deserves – in federal prison.”

Meanwhile, James Smith, the assistant director in charge of the New York field office of the FBI, shared similar sentiments. In a statement, Smith said that Bickford “deliberately plotted to bring terror to the streets of New York by targeting law enforcement officers purely carrying out their oath to protect and serve.” Smith also went on to describe Bickford’s guilty plea as “a stark reminder of the threat terrorists, and those they inspire, pose to our country.”

Investigators looked into whether Jenkins had tried to conceal violations, first reported by the News 4 I-Team on July 20, 2022, involving migrant families with children left overnight at the City’s homeless intake office instead of being placed in proper shelter. 

But former Commissioner Gary Jenkins declared he had been “cleared of any wrongdoing” and that he “communicated transparently to City Hall.”

DOI’s Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber disputed this in an interview Wednesday with the the News 4 I-Team.

“The facts that we found were that he was not fully transparent. So to the extent that his statement suggested that we found him to be fully transparent? That’s not accurate,” Strauber said.

Family after family told the I-Team they had been left to sleep for days on benches and floors of the Bronx building known as PATH, without enough food, after completing traumatic and arduous journeys through the jungle. Some described 60-80 families at a time living on the waiting room floor “like dogs.”

City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, have insisted the violations impacted only four or five families and that no families ever spent multiple days there. 

According to the DOI report released Tuesday, Commissioner Jenkins “appeared to minimize, if not misrepresent the circumstances” at the intake office, leaving senior officials at City Hall without an understanding of the violations and their implications until they were reported publicly by the I-Team.  

The DOI opened its investigation in August 2022, after the I-Team reported Jenkins fired his chief spokeswoman Julia Savel. Savel had informed City Hall about the violations and claimed Jenkins was trying to cover them up. 

Text messages obtained by the I-Team showed Savel telling one of Mayor Adams’ press aides, “Gary was trying to not tell City Hall we broke the law. I got yelled at for telling you.” The City Hall aide wrote back “Oy.”

Jenkins has insisted that Savel’s complaints about him were not why he fired her, though he declined to elaborate.

After her termination, Savel told the I-Team that before the migrant influx had become public, she had urged Jenkins and other officials to come clean about the violations due to an overwhelmed system, but was met with what she described as “an intentional cover up.” Savel said that in response to our questions, she was ordered to draft an untrue statement saying the city was “meeting its legal mandate.”

In retrospect, City insiders agree with the sudden surge of 2,700 migrants into the shelter system in the summer of 2022, some New Yorkers might have been willing to forgive violations of this sort. But homeless advocates and past city officials agree leaving children and families overnight at this intake office has long been considered a no-no. 

In decades past, after notorious pile-ups of families here, the court has held city officials in contempt.

Families who arrive at PATH by 10 p.m. are supposed to be placed in shelter by 4 a.m., under Section 21-313 of the City’s administrative code, a longstanding policy known as the 10-4 rule designed to protect children in shelter. 

DOI concluded that City officials underreported the number of 10-4 violations and that the full scope cannot be known, because of the poor quality of available evidence. In its report, the DOI says it was able to verify at least 11 violations.

The report recommends changes to the city’s recordkeeping at PATH, citing software systems taken out of service, false data reports and even surveillance tape that was inexplicably missing for key dates and times.

“That kind of insufficient recordkeeping raises a significant risk that the information that’s made public and that’s disclosed will be inaccurate,” Strauber said. “There was a period of time when there was inaccurate information in the public about how many people had spent the night at PATH.”

DOI investigators say they requested security video from the PATH intake center, which would have helped assess the conditions, the number of families, and the times when families arrived and departed.

According to the report, DOI was told that a failed backup server had resulted in missing video. The report says both City shelter officials and vendors were unable to provide any proof that their server failed, adding that “the vendors told DOI they could not definitively rule out tampering.”

In 2022, when the arrival of migrants started impacting operations at the shelter system entrypoint, no violation of this rule had been alleged for at least a decade prior, and the practice of leaving families in this office had previously been the subject of contentious, protracted litigation brought by the Legal Aid Society on behalf of the homeless.

According to the report, “Jenkins decided to delay notifying the Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless, the court-appointed monitor for the City’s shelter system,” a decision DOI describes as “a departure from longstanding practice.” The report says that while the delay was brief, roughly 24 hours, “Jenkins could not provide DOI with a sufficient explanation for it.”

On July 21, 2022, one day after the I-Team’s first report, Mayor Adams announced the City had violated the 10-4 policy just four times (he later amended the number to five.) Adams said he had just learned of the violations, and defended Commissioner Jenkins, who claimed he was unaware the City’s actions had violated the law.

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According to the DOI report, Jenkins had been informed about the violations three days earlier, on July 18. That morning, he sent a text message to Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom in City Hall, saying “It’s getting rough. I just learned we had some families past the 4am assignment at Path this morning.”

DOI concludes that Jenkins’ text message did not convey the full factual or legal context and left the deputy mayor with the sense that this was “a small operational issue.”

“Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom informed DOI that in retrospect she was frustrated that Jenkins did not provide additional context before July 20, when the City found itself ill-prepared to respond to public allegations concerning families’ experiences at PATH,” according to DOI.

As for Jenkins’ termination of Savel, DOI says it conducted only a limited inquiry into the reasons for Savel’s firing and was unable to reach a conclusion on this issue. 

According to the report, investigators “found some evidence supporting Julia Savel’s claim that her termination resulted principally from her conversations with City Hall.”

But the report says investigators also saw evidence suggesting Jenkins’ claim that Savel’s termination was due to “documented instances where she was reportedly unprofessional.” In its report, however, DOI does not list any examples of the behavior Jenkins allegedly found unprofessional.

In 2022, Savel told the I-Team, “My performance was never in question.”

In a statement Tuesday, Jenkins said, “I’m pleased to be cleared of any wrongdoing. I communicated transparently to City Hall and proudly stand by my tenure, especially given the unprecedented, unpredictable nature of the migrant crisis.”

Jenkins stepped down as commissioner of the NYC Department of Social Services in February 2023, after just one year in the job. He has since joined Oaktree Solutions, a firm founded by Mayor Adams’ chief campaign fundraiser and former Chief of Staff Frank Carone.

Savel, meanwhile, is ineligible for whistleblower protection, according to the report, because she took her complaints about Jenkins’ alleged cover up to City Hall instead of to DOI. 

“Obviously her claims did bring certain issues to light that we followed up on,” Commissioner Strauber said.

The DOI is an independent investigative agency whose commissioner is appointed by the mayor and must be confirmed by the City Council.

Strauber says City Hall did not interfere in this investigation and that she does not know why Jenkins left his position.

Prosecutors say Nasr was taken to the U.S. Thursday and the charging documents were unsealed Friday. He’s expected to appear in federal court later in the afternoon.

According to the complaint, Nasr flew from Egypt to Kenya on December 14 to try and join the terrorist organization, charging documents say.

Nasr was allegedly communicating with an FBI confidential source in which he said the number one enemy was “evil America” and in social media posts in November he allegedly posted on X “jihad on your home turf. Coming soon to a US location near you” followed by plane, bomb and fire emojis.

In a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, prosecutors say Nasr, “expressed his intent to join al Shabaab to receive military training and engage in jihad, that he was prepared to kill and be killed, and that he specifically aspired to be a martyr for the jihadist cause.”

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement, “Nasr was prepared to kill and be killed to support the jihadist cause, and in his own words, he described America as ‘evil’ and the ‘head of the snake.’”

The head of the FBI’s New York office, James Smith, said, “Karrem Nasr traveled across the globe in an alleged attempt to join the ranks of a foreign terrorist organization – an organization that has repeatedly expressed its desire to harm Americans around the world.”

Nasr faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Information on an attorney for him wasn’t immediately available.

Khamidjon Murodov, 46, of Bay Terrace, was arrested inside the 68th Precinct on December 12th, nearly a month and a half after the November 1st altercation – and just days after the video went public.

Court records show Murodov pleaded not guilty. No one answered his door when the I-Team visited seeking comment.

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Kisha Jones, the passenger who was attacked, applauded the arrest, but her attorney, Nicholas Liakas said the investigation shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, blaming the MTA which administers the Access-A-Ride program.

“This is someone who assaulted a woman in broad daylight, and it was a dead end until the I-Team got involved,” Liakas said. “Not everyone has their story told on the news and it seems up until that point this was just going to go away for Access-A-Ride.”

Jones has filed notice she intends to sue the MTA for failure to ensure her Access-A-Ride driver was safe and properly vetted.

The MTA declined to comment on Jones’s legal filing, citing the pending nature of the claim. But prior to that filing, Chris Pangilinan, the MTA’s Vice President of Paratransit, condemned the driver’s conduct and confirmed the transit agency ordered its contracted dispatcher to terminate his Access-A-Ride eligibility.

“I was horrified by what I saw. That is not customer service, that is the opposite of customer service,” Pangilinan said.

Though Pangilinan said Kisha Jones could reach out to the MTA in order to obtain her driver’s identity and vehicle information, Jones says she was still waiting for those details when she learned the driver had been arrested.

“No one ever got back to me,” Jones said. “Access-A-Ride clearly didn’t try to help us.”

The NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, which licenses Paratransit drivers, said it has also taken action against Murodov.

“As soon as we learned about this disturbing incident, we worked to identify the driver and suspend him, and we are now seeking revocation of his TLC license,” said David Do, the TLC Commissioner. “Safety is our fundamental tenet, and violence against passengers or drivers is illegal and totally unacceptable.”

Veteran Bloomfield firefighter Patrick Thomas hasn’t worn his uniform since Nov.  16. He’s still processing what he says was the the trauma of what happened during rope and rappelling training when a fellow firefighter approached him.

“One of my co-workers tied a noose and gave it to me,” he told the I-Team in an exclusive interview. “He was laughing and he was like, ‘I want you to figure out what kind of knot this is.’ So my reply was, ‘I know exactly what this is. This is a noose.’ I said, ‘This is what people used to hang my ancestors from trees.’

Thomas said he asked the other firefighter if he thought it was funny — to which the other man laughed.

I asked, do you think this was funny? And he proceeded to laugh.”

”I didn’t know how to feel. And I felt anger. Still very angry,” Thomas told NBC New York.

The 42-year-old Thomas said there were plenty of witnesses at the firehouse at the time.

“My Captain and another one of the firefighters came to check on me. And I could tell by the look in their faces they were in shock,” Thomas said.

He also said it wasn’t the first incident involving the other firefighter, Walter Coffee. The first one took place before another training class the week before.

“The same guy came up to me while I was standing outside and said, ‘Hey Thomas, there’s a noose upstairs on the table,’ said Thomas. ”I said, why would I want to see a noose? He looked at me, he laughed. He was like, ‘I am just telling you.’”

Thomas has hired attorneys who obtained a temporary restraining order against Coffee, who has since been suspended without pay. But they’ve also put the fire department on legal notice.

“I am looking into evidence that there was previous knowledge with respect to what Mr. Coffee was going to do and whether by virtue of their silence, they turned a blind eye to his racist actions,” said attorney Thomas Ashley.

The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office has since charged Coffee with “harassment with a purpose to intimidate” because of race or color. The charging documents note that the incident was captured on video from the firehouse.

”I think that presenting a noose to an African American is no different than writing a swastika on a piece of paper and giving it to a person of the Jewish faith. It communicates not only hate but it communicates the actual threat of violence,” said Ashley, noting that he believes it “absolutely” was a hate crime.

Attempts by NBC New York to reach Coffee were unsuccessful.

Thomas, who said he loves his job, now isn’t sure who really has his back.

“You have to be able to put your life in the person to the right or the left of you at any given moment,” said Thomas. “I don’t know how he feels about me or other African Americans and just isn’t saying anything.”

A spokesperson for the township emphasized that officials are outraged and disappointed, calling the alleged actions unacceptable and that they are exploring all disciplinary options. Thomas is expected in court Tuesday, seeking a permanent restraining order against Coffee, who is expected to appear during the court battle.

NBC New York got an inside look at three of the biggest rip-offs spreading across the five boroughs during the holiday season, as the NYPD pulled back the curtain on the teams looking to sour the season.

One of the quickest one involves digital pickpockets masquerading as charity fundraisers, mainly in Manhattan parks, according to police.

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The crooks will say they’re collecting donations for jerseys or for a basketball trip or just to support their team, said Sgt. Matt Doherty, of the NYPD’s Financial Crimes Task Force. They will also claim they only accept Venmo, Zelle, CashApp or other similar money apps.

“Out of the kindness of their heart, the unsuspecting victim will give over an unlocked phone,” Doherty said.

In the blink of an eye, they can swipe a fortune. Doherty said they can get anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 in the quick con job.

On the street, other criminals use even more money – but this time as bait.

“They approach a victim on the street under the guise of the subject just won a $1 million lotto,” said Doherty.

The lottery scammers claim they don’t understand English and need help to get their cash, according to Doherty. They’ll offer to split the prize – but not before their target gives them good-faith down payment, in order to make sure the target doesn’t steal the “winning” ticket.

Once the cash is handed over, the scammers will swap out the bags and be on their way, with the victim given a bag of “Monopoly money,” Doherty said.

Then there’s a scam that has come as a surprise even to police, who have captured footage of it going down on a busy Queens street corner. Doherty said the department is “seeing it daily almost.”

The target, says Doherty, has been people who have just withdrawn cash from banks. Videos obtained by NBC New York show, in detail, how it happens.

It always begins with a crook watching a victim take out lots of cash, waiting for someone to take out large sums like $20,000-$50,000, Doherty said.

In one case, a suspect follows the victim to a store, where a partner-in-crime drops coins at the door — serving as a distraction that stops the victim from exiting. Video shows the thief then reach into the victim’s backpack and steal the cash.

An alternate bank-follow scam is even more sophisticated, involving tacks, flat tires and once again, distraction. After a target is seen withdrawing money, the crooks again work in teams: As the target is looking to leave the bank, one person walks slowly in front of their vehicle, as another person places tacks on the ground to puncture a rear tire.

The target drives over the sharp objects and the tire goes flat as they drive away. The alleged thieves, who have been following their target, then approach the victim, trying to appear as good Samaritans.

One of the scammers pretends to fall and offers to help fix the tire, video shows, but it doesn’t work. Moments later, a woman can be seen trying to lure the victim away from her SUV, saying she can find help around the corner. Finally, they are able to distract the victim while they inspect the flat tire — and as that’s going on, another man sneaks up, quietly opens the driver’s door, and steals the bag filled with cash.

“We see these teams they are well dressed they use disguises. They’ll wear wigs. They’ll wear hats, masks, they’ll change their appearance. They’ll switch out cars,” said Doherty. “It’s nothing short of a professional operation.”

A doctor who appeared on a hit Bravo reality show and his wife pleaded not guilty on Long Island Thursday to stealing the identities of show cast members in an alleged scheme to obtain prescription drugs, according to officials.

Dr. Francis Martinis — a urologist in Fort Salonga — and his wife, Jessica, who both appeared in the hit Bravo reality show franchise “Below Deck,” are accused of allegedly using the personal information of other cast members to write bogus prescriptions for oxycodone. They are both charged in an eight-count indictment with multiple felony counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance by a practitioner and falsifying business records.

The Martinis were released on their own recognizance after Thursday’s hearing, with their lawyer avowing their innocence.

“Evidence will show the charges are bogus and cannot be substantiated,” Peter Crusco, the couple’s attorney said.

Investigators said the scheme started to unfold earlier this year, when Jessica went to a pharmacy in Kings Park in an attempt to fill a bogus oxycodone prescription in January. According to those officials, the handwritten prescription raised concerns, prompting a pharmacist to call police.

A subsequent investigation revealed that the doctor had sent dozens of prescriptions for oxycodone to Suffolk County pharmacies over a two-year period, law enforcement officials said. Many of these prescriptions were allegedly fake — written under the names of two “Below Deck” cast members.

Investigators said that Jessica would pick up the prescriptions and pay in cash as part of the alleged plot.

“Doctors are supposed to be trusted members of the community and with that trust comes a tremendous amount of personal and professional responsibility,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney. “Physicians are held to a high standard, as they take an oath to uphold a number of professional ethical standards when they begin their careers. The conduct Dr. Martinis allegedly engaged in with his wife not only violated this oath, but it also violated the law.”

The duo was arrested in May and charged with eight counts of criminal sale of controlled substance and falsifying business records, law enforcement officials tell NBC New York.

Investigators did not reveal if they believed the couple were using, reselling the drugs or both.

In court Thursday, prosecutors say Jessica told arresting officers, “It was all for us!” and both she and Francis allegedly reported having substance abuse problems. He has no criminal history and has practiced urology the last 25 years.

Former New York Homeland Security Director Michael Balboni explained the allegations are serious, especially amid an ongoing national addiction and overdose crisis.

Balboni said, “He abused the celebrity position that he had on that ship to take the identities of his crew members — if that is proven — and then use that to buy drugs, that is a common scheme for a common criminal.”

The pair were among the guests who chartered Sirocco, a luxury yacht that set sail on the French Riviera in 2019 and had part of their trip documented for “Below Deck Mediterranean.” The doctor was also a guest once again the following year, this time on another Below Deck spin-off, “Below Deck Sailing Yacht.” The series featured life on a 180-foot sailboat that cruised the Ionian Sea.

Following their appearances in the franchise, the doctor and wife duo attended promotional events with other crew members.

“The DEA is rooted in an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to save lives from illegal drug misuse and abuse through enforcement, education, and prevention,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino. “We identified two individuals who brazenly diverted controlled substances intended for medicinal purposes to the illegal drug market.  These arrests are a reminder that a doctor’s illicit drug diversion can lead to irreparable harm like the drug overdoses and poisonings currently plaguing our nation.”

Bravo did not respond to NBC New York’s request for comment.

Balboni said, “Prosecutors will want to send a message to all other physicians — you have special access to these drugs, you know how they work and if you do this you will be prosecuted.”

Bravo is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC New York and Telemundo 47.

In a 43 to 3 vote Wednesday, lawmakers agreed to cap payouts to citizens that issue noise violations. Previously, they could earn 25%-50% of fines collected. In the case of a third offense, a citizen enforcer stood to earn more than $1,000. Under the new law, citizen complainants will receive just $5 or $10 per summons, no matter how many they issue to a single business.

The reform was applauded by bar and restaurant owners who reached out to the I-Team in June, complaining of a citizen ticket blitz that threatened to cost them tens of thousands of dollars in fines. Many of the businesses said they received multiple noise complaints from a single citizen before they even knew about the first one.

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“It was definitely a cash grab,” said Sharon Treanor, who owns BarDough and several other bars and restaurants in and around Times Square. She said her group of businesses had been the target of more than fifty citizen noise complaints.

“For someone to walk down the street and issue you tickets for thousands and thousands of dollars. It didn’t sit right, it wasn’t fair,” said Theresa Sigler manager of the Pig and Whistle on West 48th Street.

The new law not only caps payouts for future citizen-issued noise violations. It also places a retro-active $50 cap on payouts for summonses previously written by civilians.

Dietmar Detering, a Queens resident who has issued hundreds of citizen noise violations, sharply criticized the new law and insisted it would make the city a louder, less hospitable place.

“What’s being presented as a common sense bill is actually an amnesty bill benefiting already caught noise polluters,” Detering said. “It also, certainly intentional, eliminates both citizen enforcement effects of the last 18 months and the corresponding fair and reasonable compensation.”

Though Detering has declined to say how much money he’s netted by issuing citizen noise violations, Council Member James Gennaro, who sponsored the reform legislation, said citizen enforcers have walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars by writing rapid-fire violations in neighborhoods far from where they actually live.

It was a scam,” Gennaro said. “It was people taking advantage of the system and that’s not what people ought to be doing.”

For Gennaro’s bill to become law, NYC Mayor Eric Adams must still sign it.

Even before the legislation went to a vote, Detering filed a lawsuit, alleging New York City’s administrative law judges have too often reduced the fines for businesses tagged with citizen noise violations. That case is still pending.

“I responded to the clear letter of the law, doing something the city refused to do, causing all this noise to go out of control,” Detering said.

The assault unfolded on the afternoon of Nov. 1, as Kisha Jones got out of a vehicle which was dispatched by CTG, a private company contracted by the MTA to transport disabled New Yorkers under the agency’s Access-A-Ride program. In the video, provided by Jones’ attorney, you can see the driver following Jones as she exits the van, and then he backs her into a parked truck and begins to kick her and grapple with her.

“I saw the devil in that man. Once he got started he couldn’t stop,” Jones said. “This man plundered me. Kicking me like a dog.”

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The disabled passenger’s attorney, Nicholas Liakas, has now filed notice Jones intends to sue both the MTA and CTG, claiming the transportation agency and its private contractor didn’t do enough to supervise, monitor, and track broker drivers — who now account for more than two thirds of all Access-A-Ride trips in the Paratransit program.

“The problem is, if it’s being outsourced to these companies and there is really no oversight, it’s just basically a blank check,” Liakas said. “Things like this are going to happen and they’re going to happen more frequently.”

In an interview with the I-Team that took place before the notice of claim was filed, Chris Pangilinan, the MTA’s Vice President of Paratransit, said the agency ordered its contractor to terminate the driver after becoming aware of the incident.

“I was horrified by what I saw. That is not customer service. That is the opposite of customer service,” Pangilinan said.

But Pangilinan took issue with the notion private broker drivers make Access-A-Ride trips less safe. He cited recent surveys that show 73 percent of Access-A-Ride passengers are satisfied with the service.

“The brokers are a tremendous benefit,” Pangilinan said. “They are smaller vehicles. They blend in with the rest of the vehicles so it doesn’t look like a big bus dropping you off. Other features people like about the broker service, which has enabled them to use Access-A-Ride more and have Access-A-Ride meet their needs better.”

The MTA declined to comment on the lawsuit Kisha Jones intends to file.

Representatives from CTG did not return the I-Team’s request for comment.

Although the driver had been terminated from Access-A-Ride, neither the MTA nor the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission could say whether the driver has retained his TLC license which allows drivers to accept ride share trips from the general population.

Jones, who said she is a former Access-A-Ride driver who was fired after a vehicle accident, says one of her biggest frustrations is that she has so far been unable to identify the driver who assaulted her – even though the attack was captured on surveillance video.

After reporting the incident to the NYPD, Jones said she was unable to pick the driver out of a police lineup. But she had hoped there would be proof of his identity in the trip history on the Access-A-Ride cellphone app.

The MTA said information like driver names, vehicle license plates, and GPS data are not kept in trip histories accessible on user phones. But the transportation agency said customers, including Jones, could simply contact the MTA and the transportation agency would provide the driver’s identity.

As this article was published, the MTA had yet to provide that information to Jones or her attorney. The NYPD says the case is still under investigation.

“I was blacklisted. I knew I was blacklisted,” said Anthony Barberan, a former Eastchester police officer.

Barberan said he felt déjà vu when he saw the documentary “Crime + Punishment,” highlighting I-Team interview with minority NYPD cops who claimed they were pressured to meet illegal ticket quotas.

“I think I was fired because I was blowing the whistle on what was going on there,” Barberan told News 4. “I was always bringing up ticket quotas.”

Eastchester, along with New York City, denies quotas have ever existed. But Barberan, a Hispanic officer in a largely white police force, is now embroiled in a contentious federal discrimination lawsuit against the town and says he has documented proof of the quota pressure.

“You were expected to come up with at least 15-20 tickets per months.”

Barberan shared text message where he complained about meeting “numbers.” he said he was sent for remedial training but maintains the scrutiny didn’t let up, even after he filed an EEOC complaint. He was accused of misconduct during an arrest and after an internal disciplinary hearing, he was fired.

“I felt like I was retaliated against, like there was an agenda to get me out.”

The county attorney said Barberan was not targeted or terminated for being Hispanic, than an independent hearing examiner recommended termination after finding that “his lies were manufactured to cover up his incompetence, unprofessionalism, and most importantly, his unconstitutional actions.”

Barberan countered by providing internal police reports where he claims his signature was forged and said the town’s vendetta went beyond him.

”They’ll retaliate not only against you, but your family. They’ll make your life, you know, a living hell,” Barberan said.

His stepfather, Kenneth Simonides, a longtime veteran Eastchester firefighter, spoke out in public meetings after Barberan’s firing, claiming a police witch hunt.

“I don’t play games and I don’t cause any trouble. But this is something effecting my family life,” Simonides said at the meeting.

Documents obtained by the I-Team show the then-police chief requested an investigation into Simonides by the fire department for possible abuse of sick time. The town spent $23,000 of taxpayer money for a private investigator who followed Simonides — even taking surveillance pictures of his wife and her daughter.

“That’s just outright disgraceful. It’s absolutely disgraceful,” Simonides said.

He said the case never resulted in charges. He retired in August.

“They need to be held accountable. You can’t be making false accusations against people,” Simonides said.

Barberan is also not going quietly. Inspired by NYPD Lt. Edwin Raymond, who recently retired early to work on nationwide police reform, they believe outside oversight is needed to protect whistleblower officers.

“All over the county, NYC, all I’m seeing officers speaking out how they are being targeted in different ways,” Barberan said.

Several dispositions have already taken place of current and former police officers in connections to Barberan’s lawsuit. The town is expected to seek to have it dismissed. Barberan wants the case to go to trial.

At least four gold bars tied to the FBI search of Sen. Robert Menendez’s home had been directly linked to a New Jersey businessman now accused of bribing the state’s senior senator, Bergen County prosecutor records from a 2013 robbery case show.

The businessman, Fred Daibes, reported to police he was the victim of an armed robbery in 2013, and he asked police to recover the gold bars stolen from him. In the 2013 robbery, Daibes reported $500,000 in cash and 22 gold bars were stolen, Edgewater police records show. Police later caught four suspects with the stolen goods.

To get his property back, Daibes signed “property release forms” certifying the gold bars belonged to him, the records show.

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“Each gold bar has its own serial number,” Daibes said to investigators in a 2014 transcript made by prosecutors and police who recovered — and returned to Daibes — the stolen valuables. “They’re all stamped…you’ll never see two stamped the same way.”

A decade later, the FBI said four of the gold bars with unique serial numbers had come into the possession of Sen. Menendez and his wife, Nadine. Two bars were found during the FBI’s search of their Englewood Cliffs home, while an indictment stated that Nadine Menendez gave the other two other gold bars to a jeweler to sell, but photos of those two bars were recovered.

In the 2023 bribery indictment against the Democratic senator and Daibes, prosecutors included photos of some of the alleged bribes found in Menendez’s home, including four gold bars. The serial numbers of the four gold bars in the bribery indictment appear to be an exact match to four of the gold bars Daibes certified as stolen and returned to him in the 2013 robbery case.

For example, a Swiss Bank Corporation gold bar with serial number 590005 that the FBI said it seized from the senator’s home in a 2023 search was also reported stolen by Daibes — and returned to him — a decade earlier. Daibes’ signature and initials appear on the evidence log which included each specific gold bars with corresponding serial number.

“All of this spells bad news for Senator Menendez because the chain of custody – it appears – is going to be really easy to prove up,” said NBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos.

It was November 2013 when Daibes told police he was the victim of a gunpoint robbery in his penthouse apartment in Edgewater. The millionaire developer said he was tied to a chair as the thieves made off with cash, gold and jewelry.

The four suspects were quickly caught and later pleaded guilty. Daibes attended court proceedings as the victim. On Dec. 13, 2013, Daibes signed documents to get his property back including the gold bars.

Cevallos said if Daibes in fact gave gold bars to Robert and Nadine Menendez, that alone does not prove the crime of bribery.

“Was there a quid pro quo? Was it in exchange for the senator’s official acts – or promises of the same,” Cevallos said.

The FBI said the quid pro quo between Menendez and Daibes included efforts by the senator to influence the New Jersey US Attorney’s office which in 2018 was investigating Daibes for a separate crime of bank fraud.

Daibes and Menendez along with other co-defendants Nadine Menendez, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe all deny any wrongdoing and have  pleaded not guilty.

“The allegations against me are just that – allegations,” Menendez said at a news conference after the bribery indictment was unsealed. In a statement regarding the gold bars found at his home being tied to the decade-old robbery, counsel for Menendez said he “will not be commenting on anonymous media leaks designed to prejudice his right to a fair trial. He looks forward to addressing the government’s claims in court, based on a complete record of the evidence.”

Menendez himself addressed the claims a day later, calling the I-Team’s report “factually inaccurate and we look forward to proving it in trial.”

The Democrat has denied taking payoffs from Daibes even though prosecutors allege testing shows Daibes’ fingerprints and DNA are on some of the tens of thousands in cash found Menendez’s home.

“For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands in cash from my personal savings account which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba,” the senator said.

Menendez and his wife are also accused of taking payoffs from businessman Wael Hana, the FBI said. In exchange, investigators said the senator allegedly used his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help Hana win an exclusive Halal meat inspection contract with the Egyptian government. They also said in exchange for bribes, the senator tried to assist the government of Egypt with arms sales.

Prosecutors said Menendez also accepted a Mercedes and other payoffs from Jose Uribe. In exchange, prosecutors said Menendez offered to try to help Uribe with an ongoing State Attorney General investigation.

As for Daibes’ separate bank fraud case, a New Jersey federal judge threw out a plea deal where Daibes pleaded guilty to one count and faced a sentence of probation after the new bribery charges came to light.

An attorney for Daibes said he is confident his client “will be exonerated when all the evidence is heard.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that all four bars linked to the Daibes robbery had been found in Menendez’s Clifton home during an FBI search. The home is in Englewood Cliffs. Two of the bars were found in the search, and photos of the two other bars were also found. Nadine Menendez gave the other two gold bars to a jeweler to sell, according to the indictment. As reported, all four bars with their serial numbers are linked to the initial 2013 Daibes robbery.

The program, which became known as Operation Pedro Pan, was orchestrated by Catholic Charities of Miami, sanctioned by the U.S. State Department.

Among the 14,000-plus secreted children covertly moved in a two-year-period were eight members of the Fernandez family, who eventually settled in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The children were flown out of Havana in separate groups so as not to arouse suspicion in the gestapo-like state. A ninth child was later born in the U.S.

“Every once in awhile I cry. And everybody does that when they have trauma, right?” said Patricia Fernandez in an exclusive interview with the NBC New York I-Team.

The siblings had never spoken to each other about their trauma until News 4 asked them to come together for an emotional I-Team interview. They asked for several breaks so they could compose themselves.

“The fact that we couldn’t leave together, Cuba, it was very emotional. It was horrible because we didn’t know if we were going to meet again,” said the oldest brother, Jose.

Before their parents sent them away, the siblings described a fear of constantly being watched by government operatives.

“You know the fact that even in your own neighborhood, you couldn’t speak because you were afraid and my dad would warn me, ‘Don’t speak to anyone, you can’t trust anybody,’” said Bill Fernandez.

Three of the siblings ended up in a now-closed orphanage and reformatory on Staten Island.

“It was horrible,” said Ed Fernandez. “I felt it was my fault. Like I did something wrong.”

The father eventually found an apartment in Elizabeth for seven of the children. Daughter Beatrice, at age 9, was the last to leave Cuba. Her mom, a Spanish citizen, came later.

“I had no idea what was going on and all I remember is my mom saying don’t speak to anyone. I had no idea I was going to an airport or where I was going,” said Beatrice.

Brother Juan, born in the United States, says the family never talked about their years of being split apart. Some lived in Florida in camps before rejoining the others in New Jersey.

“We were extremely close. We’ve always been close, we’ve always taken care of each other. But we never had a sense of sharing pain or anguish that everyone experienced here. This was years of therapy in one interview,” Juan recounted.

They now understand their parents’ excruciating decision: sending them away in hopes of setting them free.

“I never realized the sacrifices my parents made for us. At the time I was a 7-year-old. I thought I was abandoned,” said Bill Fernandez. “But looking back now, I really regret that I really never had a chance to say to my father, thank you for the sacrifice they made. And it was a sacrifice — eight kids — to send them off and never knowing you’re going to see them again.”

They have a new appreciation for what family means after being separated, and by sheer will, finding each other in a foreign land. They will be together this holiday season, as always. But now, for the first time, they will share their history with children and grandchildren — a true gift.

The majority of the more than 14,000 children were re-united with family in the U.S. There are thousands of Pedro Panners all around the country who are now connecting through social media, with so many more chapters to write in their incredible journeys.

In an exclusive interview with the NBC New York I-Team, yet another alleged victim of Dr. Zhi Alan Cheng says she believes the Queens gastroenterologist used hospital-grade sedatives to put her to sleep — before raping her and recording video of the sex crime in progress.

The woman, now the fourth accuser to speak with the I-Team, knew Cheng socially. She was not his patient, but she believes lax controls over hospital anesthesia could have given the doctor the means to render women unconscious for long periods of time.

“It’s not an over-the-counter product, the things he had in his apartment. You would only get them if you were working in health care,” she said. “I’d say I was sedated for a good twelve to sixteen hours.”

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The alleged victim told the I-Team she initially believed she fell asleep due to the effects of alcohol and MDMA, a drug commonly known as “molly.” She only became suspicious about being drugged with more potent hospital-grade anesthesia when a friend alerted her to news coverage of the 50-count indictment that accuses Dr. Cheng of raping or sexually abusing more than 13 other women, including a 19-year-old who was sexually abused on cell phone video inside a hospital exam room.

After hearing about the case against Cheng, the woman called prosecutors at the Queens District Attorney’s Office.

“They showed me a screenshot of one of the videos he had that seemed like it was linked to me,” she said. “They asked me to identify myself and I did.”

Cheng has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. When contacted by the I-Team, his attorney declined to comment.

New York Presbyterian Hospital Queens, which terminated Cheng’s employment after being made aware of the investigation, issued a statement saying the hospital is looking into whether Cheng obtained powerful sedatives while at work.

“The crimes committed by this individual are appalling, and we are deeply saddened by what these victims and their families have endured,” the statement read. “We are fully cooperating with all relevant authorities and independent investigators to confirm that no anesthesia drugs were stolen from the hospital.

Nicholas Liakas, an attorney who represents several of Dr. Cheng’s alleged victims, says he wants to know whether other hospital staff helped Cheng access sedatives or looked the other way as he preyed on patients.

“We’re investigating the involvement of potentially other doctors who worked with him and were close to him,” Liakas said. “These drugs are highly, highly regulated. You need to have a bar code. You need to have a method of accounting.”

Since firing Cheng, New York-Presbyterian says the hospital has installed new mandatory training on policies relating to internal reports of misconduct and the right to have “medical chaperones” so patients aren’t alone during exams, treatments, or procedures.

“We have also reached out to every patient who we have identified as a victim,” the hospital statement said.

The hospital did not specify how many patients have been determined to be victims of Dr. Cheng or whether a blanket notification to all of his patients should be made.

Liakas has suggested New York-Presbyterian may be trying to delay broader notification of the patient population because the deadline to file lawsuits under New York’s Adult Survivors Act is just days away. After Thanksgiving, many future claims against the hospital could be prohibited by the civil statute of limitations. Meanwhile, the Queens District Attorney’s Office has indicated there are still videos seized from Dr. Cheng, in which alleged sex crime victims have yet to be identified.

“They’re going to benefit from the clock running out. If these victims don’t get identified,” Liakas said. If we don’t know necessarily if there are other doctors involved or not involved, after November 23rd, these doctors may not be held accountable.”

“I would say the Fire Department in my decade there has always done what is safe for New Yorkers and I have never seen otherwise,” Kavanagh said in a brief interview with News 4 Friday.

Kavanagh’s comments come two days after allegations that jobs were threatened over the desire to green-light the Turkish Consulate, a project for which Eric Adams advocated shortly before winning the mayor’s race.

Several FDNY employees including Chief Joseph Jardin, who headed the Bureau of Fire Prevention, told the FBI about the alleged pressure in April, according to Jardin’s attorney Jim Walden. Sources familiar with the FBI’s investigation say they are exploring whether the Adams campaign coordinated improper contributions from Turkish officials and whether he may have traded favors in return. Adams insists he has done nothing improper and was just conducting the normal government business he likes to call “getting stuff done.”

During the interview with News 4, Commissioner Kavanagh also confirmed that in the de Blasio and Adams administrations, City Hall has circulated a list of projects to be fast-tracked. But she denied the list was reserved for powerful developers or politicians.

“That list has always been shared widely with a large number of people and has always been about city interests. What does the city need opened?” Kavanagh said.

The existence of the list was first reported by News 4 after Walden said Chief Jardin and others had told the FBI about it.

“What my client and others have said to the FBI is that this problem of City Hall reaching into the Fire Department to do favors for other people is a longstanding problem. The FBI was told to the point that a list started circulating internally about projects that City Hall wanted to be expedited.”

Jardin’s complaints about this list — which he calls “the DMO list,” a reference to the Deputy Mayor for Operations – are included in an age discrimination lawsuit he and other chiefs have filed against the City and Kavanaugh, who demoted them. The suit alleges “the DMO list became a mechanism to force FDNY to permit politically connected developers to cut the inspection line.”

An FDNY spokesman says the fact that Jardin is suing Kavanagh raises questions about the veracity of his allegations related to threats and the Turkish consulate, stating that Jardin has “a financial interest in smearing Kavanagh’s good name.”

Kavanagh said the list rightfully includes big economic development projects that bring jobs, but also public projects like schools and hospitals.

“Over two administrations, we have had a system for dealing with all of these incoming requests. Sometimes we’re dealing with a backlog. A major backlog,” she said.

There was a backlog in 2021, during the advocacy for the Turkish consulate, according to FDNY officials and the Real Estate Board of New York, which acknowledges they regularly tried to assist developers and construction companies.

Emails obtained by News 4 show there was a sense of urgency to the consulate because Turkish officials were arriving within weeks to attend the UN General Assembly and wanted access to their new building. The emails were obtained from a source cooperating with the investigation and confirmed by others on the email chain.

The emails show that Laura Kavanagh, who served as first deputy fire commissioner at the time, was enlisted to help expedite approval by then Buildings Commissioner Melanie LaRocca and agreed to look into it. The emails do not show Kavanagh applying pressure.

Kavanagh does forward the matter to her intergovernmental staffer who asks Chief Jardin in a subsequent email, “Is it possible to get inspectors on site sooner?” adding, “please tell us what is realistic and we’ll update Laura.”

Asked whether she believes anyone at the FDNY pressured chiefs to get the consulate done, Kavanagh said, “I was not fire commissioner at the time so I can’t speak to their conversations. That was two years ago. But I would say that we get these constituent requests all the time.”

Kavanagh added that she does not believe the ultimate approval of the consulate happened because of intervention by Eric Adams. She says Adams did not contact her about the consulate.

The FBI has interviewed former Commissioner Daniel Nigro twice as a witness, not as a target of their investigation, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Nigro declined to discuss the investigation at this time.

Kavanagh said she has not been contacted by the FBI.

“My client was pressured to do something unsafe,” said attorney Jim Walden, who represents Joseph Jardin, the former FDNY Chief of Fire Prevention.

Walden says Chief Jardin is one of several current and former FDNY officials approached and questioned by the FBI in the spring about a campaign to expedite the Turkish building.

“It was abundantly clear to my client and is now abundantly clear to the FBI that the people responsible (for the approval) felt as though if they didn’t do it they were going to be fired,” Walden said. 

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But he declined to say who specifically threatened the chiefs’ jobs, citing his desire not to impede an ongoing investigation. Walden says he has spoken with several witnesses who told investigators that pressure to perform political favors has been a problem at the FDNY since the de Blasio administration. 

“The FBI was told it was to the point that a list started circulating internally about projects that City Hall wanted to be expedited,” Walden said.

The round of FBI interviews in the spring came months before the news broke about a probe into Turkish campaign donations to Mayor Eric Adams, and his advocacy related to that building in the months before he became mayor.   Adams acknowledges that he texted former FDNY Commissioner Dan Nigro for help getting an FDNY letter that would enable the Buildings Department to issue a temporary certificate of occupancy. 

Two sources who have seen the text exchange say Adams explained that the DOB would approve of the temporary certificate if the fire department approved it first. Commissioner Nigro agreed to check into the situation.

Adams’ request came on September 5, 2021. Just one month earlier, the consulate’s fire protection plan had been disapproved. Emails obtained by NBC New York and confirmed by several people on the chain show the Turkish government had contractors, city officials and real estate industry representatives from the Real Estate Board of NY (REBNY) scrambling to get FDNY approval, with Turkish officials headed to town in the near future. Inspectors were not planning to return to the site until November, but Turkish diplomats were on a tight schedule. 

“Guys, we will have an international incident if we don’t get FDNY there next week,” said one of the contractors.  “UN General Assembly is in 3 weeks and Turkish President wants his building. Can you help?”

The emails show that then Borough President Eric Adams was hardly the only person asking about an expedited approval process for the consulate.

On Aug. 31, several days before Eric Adams texted Nigro, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Buildings Commissioner Melanie Larocca emailed Adams’ future FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh,  who was serving as first deputy commissioner at the time. Larocca wrote: “Hey Laura, Hope you are well! FYI — you might want to intervene here — this is a property owned by the government of Turkey and is their future embassy. Looks like then [sic] need FD action.”

Kavanagh responded two hours later “we will look into it,” looping in her intergovernmental aide Jason Shelly.

In a subsequent email, Shelly messaged Jardin and Assistant Chief Kevin Brennan to say “Laura asked me to see if you are able to help with this request that she received from the DOB commissioner.”  Shelly asked “Is it possible to get inspectors on site sooner? They are asking for next week… Please tell us what is realistic and we’ll update Laura.”

Walden says FDNY insiders believed there was no way the system could have been brought to code in the short month since it had failed inspection.

Fire officials acknowledge the sprinkler and fire alarm systems were not yet ready and that this was why no temporary certificate of occupancy had been issued. 

“It seems, based on what I know, they weren’t really looking for an actual inspection, they were looking for a rubber stamp,” Walden said. “That if they pulled the right strings, a new set of inspections would occur and there would magically be a determination that the [fire] system worked.”

Walden suggested that Kavanagh and her team were involved in the alleged pressure campaign, but one city official briefed on the matter said they could not immediately say whether other high ranking fire officials might have applied pressure.

The emails obtained by NBC New York do not reflect the type of pressure Walden is describing. One source familiar with the text exchange said Nigro replied to Adams at one point indicating there were conflicting opinions internally about whether the Turkish consulate could be expedited.

In a statement, the FDNY’s chief spokesman Jim Long said “Internal emails make clear that commissioner Kavanagh had no meaningful involvement in how the FDNY handled this request and there is nothing to suggest the FDNY was pressured to do anything improper.”

Chief Jardin is currently one of several plaintiffs in an ongoing age discrimination lawsuit against Commissioner Kavanagh. Jim Walden is also the lawyer on that case.

An amended copy of the complaint challenges Kavanagh on several other issues, claiming she opposed Jardin’s desire to publicly support a ban on lithium ion batteries in NYCHA housing in the past and sidelined experts by putting her civilian staff largely in charge of replacing firefighter breathing gear.

After Kavanaugh demoted several senior FDNY chiefs earlier this year, others asked to be demoted in protest of Kavanagh’s leadership. Walden says the allegations of pressure over the Turkish consulate would have been included in their suit, but for the fact that the FBI wished for the matter to remain confidential while under investigation.

But Long dismissed the criticism from Walden and Jardin as being from critics with an axe to grind.

“This simply seems like an attempt by someone who is unsuccessfully suing the FDNY and Commissioner Kavanagh, and who has a financial interest in undermining the fire commissioner and smearing her good name,” said Long.

Adams told NBC New York Tuesday that Nigro was the only FDNY employee he contacted about the consulate. Fire officials said Adams did not contact Kavanagh at the time, but they say someone in de Blasio’s administration did check in on the status of the building.

Even so, fire officials said they field dozens of similar requests every week.  

Calls to former DOB Commissioner LaRocca, former Mayor de Blasio and the contractors on the consulate were not returned.

REBNY, which assisted with the consulate issue, noted that during 2021 COVID had contributed to a slower FDNY inspection process.

 “At that time it was widely understood that the FDNY had a very lengthy response time for processing plans and inspecting buildings which made such requests especially common at various buildings throughout the city,” said REBNY spokesman Sam Spokony.

Ultimately, Turkey got what it wanted. On September, 10 2021, five days after Adams’ initial text message, Jardin signed a conditional letter of no objection which essentially punted the power to approve the temporary occupancy to the Buildings Department, but only if DOB conducted a successful test of the fire alarm and suppression systems.

Walden says that conditional letter was Jardin’s way of expressing his displeasure with the situation. But one insider questioned: If Jardin was so concerned about safety, why did he sign it?

NBC New York’s Courtney Copenhagen, Chris Glorioso and Hilary Weissman contributed to this report.

Two sources familiar with the matter identified the member of the administration as Rana Abbasova, the Director of Protocol for International Affairs. According to her bio on the city website, Abbasova’s role was to “foster closer relationships between the City of New York and the broader diplomatic community.” She previously worked in the Brooklyn borough president’s office.

Abbasova did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Abbasova has not been charged in any investigation and no official has said she acted illegally. Additionally, none of the statements specifically state why the mayor’s office believes Abbasova acted inappropriately. 

News of Abbasova’s alleged misconduct was first reported when a lawyer confirmed Mayor Adams’ cell phone and iPad were seized by the FBI. A campaign attorney said last week that “after learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly.”

The attorney did not detail Abbasova’s specific conduct, but said “in the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators.”

City Hall spokesperson Fabien Levy described Abbasova as a “junior staffer” who was put on leave right away, and remained on leave as of Wednesday night.

“While we continue to cooperate with investigators, the most important thing to remember is that the mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing,” Levy wrote.