Rape suspect indicted
A Manhattan grand jury on Oct. 22 indicted Vincent Heyward, 21, for a series of rapes, sexual assaults and robberies of women in Hamilton Heights and Soho between Aug. 1 and Sept 7, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The offenses include four counts of first degree rape, several counts of sexual assault, burglary and robbery that occurred on Aug. l, 10, 18, 23 and Sept. 7.
The Aug. 23 attack was an attempt on a woman as she entered her Broome St. apartment, but two witnesses turned up and the suspect fled.
Heyward was arrested on Sept. 15 when a DNA sample was taken and matched with DNA at a crime scene, according to prosecutors. At a Sept. 21 court appearance he punched a court officer and an Emergency Medical Service worker.
ID theft charge
A Brooklyn man who worked as a computer technician at Bank of New York Mellon headquarters, 1 Wall St., was indicted Wednesday for stealing the identities of more than 150 fellow employees and using the information to steal more than $1.1 million from them and from various charities and other institutions.
Adeniyi Adeyemi, 27, is charged with committing the crimes over a seven-and-a-half-year period from Nov. 1, 2001 to April 30, 2009, according to the 149-count indictment handed up on Wednesday by District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Arrested on April 30 during the execution of a search warrant of his Prospect Heights home, Adeyemi has been in jail ever since.
He is charged with stealing the personal identifying information of employees and using the information to open more than 30 bank and brokerage accounts with financial institutions including E*Trade, Fidelity, Citibank, Wachovia and Washington Mutual. The accounts served as dummies to receive money that Adeyemi is charged with stealing via the internet from charitable and non-profit foundations including Goodwill Industries, The Sudanese American Community Development Organization, the Jacksonville Humane Society and the International Association of Women Judges, the indictment says.
Adeyemi took control of the accounts of Bank of New York employees and stole more than $128,000 from them in wire transfers of less than $10,000 to avoid mandated transaction reporting, according to the indictment. He used much of the money to ship goods oversees, primarily to Nigeria, the indictment says.
If convicted, Adeyemi is subject to up to 25 years in prison.
New bias lawsuit
Another race discrimination lawsuit looms for Greenhouse, the club at 150 Varick St. between Spring and Vandam Sts.
Raqiyah Mays, 30, a radio talk host, said last week that she and three others were denied entrance to the club because they are black, according to newspaper reports. Invited to a Sept. 25 film party, they said the only other black people who were admitted to the party were in the company of white guests.
But Barry Mullineaux, owner of Greenhouse, said the bias allegation was unfounded. Mullineaux, who is white, and Johnny Nunez, the black star of the film, “Shooting Stars,” said that an organizing mix-up, not racism, was the problem. Mays and her friends made their bias protests after the organizer of the event with a guest list failed to show up and they were asked to get on the queue for regular patrons, Mullineaux said.
Greenhouse and Mullineaux are the subject of another bias lawsuit filed by two black plaintiffs who said they were denied entrance to an Aug. 6 private party for the writer Teri Woods, because they are black. Mullineaux’s lawyer, John L. Sampson, denied allegations about the Aug. 6 event and said the club caters to an inclusive range of patrons regardless of race, religion and sexual orientation.
— Albert Amateau
