Seaport murder
Police on Wednesday were still seeking the gunman in the Aug. 22 incident in the South Street Seaport where one man was killed in the parking lot at Pier 17 and scores of guests who were leaving a party aboard a 145-ft. yacht fled in panic.
The victim. Omar Trent, 31, of Brooklyn, had been involved in a fight with another partygoer aboard the crowded yacht Atlantica, according to news reports. Trent’s rival left the yacht but returned with a gun, found the victim in the parking lot and shot him in the head and drove off, police said. An Emergency Medical Service team pronounced the victim dead at the scene.
The event was celebrating a birthday for a party promoter and attracted 1,000 people at $50 per person to the yacht with a capacity for 400 people, according to reports. The victim previously was convicted of drug possession and sale, larceny and criminal trespassing, according to a Daily News article.
Not guilty plea
Joseph Pabon, the elevator operator at 2 Rector St. charged with the July 7 murder of Eridania Rodriquez, a cleaner in the building, pleaded not guilty Mon., Aug. 24 at his State Supreme Court arraignment on charges of first degree murder and kidnapping.
Pabon, 25, of Staten Island, was remanded without bail pending a Sept. 16 court appearance.
The victim was reported missing on July 8 and her body was found July 11 in a 12th floor air duct of the Rector St. office building. Police said Pabon’s D.N.A. was found under the victim’s fingernails and his and the victim’s D.N.A. were found on work gloves discovered at the scene.
Pabon’s lawyer, Mario Gallucci, said on Monday that the evidence was circumstantial and that most of the DNA under the victim’s fingernails was from a woman.
Off-duty rescue
An off-duty firefighter from Engine 10 on Liberty St. across from the World Trade Center site was in the Union Sq. subway station coming home from a party at about 10 p.m. Fri., Aug. 21 when he spotted a man lying on the tracks across from his platform. The firefighter, Adam Rivera, 30, jumped down, ran across the track and pulled the victim to the platform where two bystanders helped lift him to safety as a train was pulling in. The victim, Marco Delemo, 45, was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital with serious head injuries, according to a Daily News article.
Pleads guilty to fraud
Michael Horowitz, a chiropractor whose Wall St. Chiropractic was located at 80 Wall St., pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court on Fri., Aug. 21 to defrauding various insurance companies of more than $750,000 by billing for medical services that were not performed.
Horowitz had joined another chiropractor, Christopher Green, in February 2002 at the Wall St. location and from 2003 to Dec. 2006 they billed insurance companies including Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, AETNA and CIGNA for providing treatments that were in fact not provided. Green pleaded guilty previously to the charges, according to the office of Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.
Horowitz is subject to a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, a fine of twice the amount he realized from the offense and forfeiture of all proceeds from the crime. He is to be sentenced Dec. 3.
— Albert Amateau
