Lil’ Kim perjury
A Manhattan federal jury found Lil’ Kim, the rap star, guilty on three counts of perjury and one count of conspiring to commit perjury, but acquitted her of obstruction of justice last week in connection with her grand jury testimony regarding a 2001 shooting outside of 395 Hudson St., the home of the hip-hop radio station Hot 97.
Lil’ Kim (Kimberly Jones), 30, facing a maximum prison term of 20 years, is to be sentenced June 24. But her attorney, Mel Sachs, said he this week intended to appeal the verdict. Kim’s co-defendant, Mo Betta (Monique Dopwell), was found guilty of two perjury counts and one count of conspiring to commit perjury.
Kim had told a grand jury that she did not know two suspects in the 2001 shooting, Suif Jackson and Damion Butler, who both subsequently pleaded guilty and are serving prison terms. The trial jury of five women and seven men deliberated 13 hours over three days before finding on March 17 that Kim had lied 29 times during three appearances before the grand jury.
Grand St. death
A woman, 82, apparently leaped to her death from her 11th-floor apartment at 417 Grand St. at about 6 a.m. Sat., March 19, police said. There was no suicide note.
Infant dies in bed
A man who checked on his 2-month-old daughter in her bed in the family apartment on Avenue D during the early hours of Sun., March 20, found that she was not breathing and phoned 911, police said. The infant was taken to Bellevue Hospital where she was pronounced dead. There were no signs of trauma on the body, police said. According to police, there is no evidence of any criminality involved in the baby’s death.
Report on 1990 homicide
Steven Cohen, attorney for two men who are serving time for the November 1990 shooting death of a bouncer at the Palladium, the former E. 14th St. disco, made public last week a February 2004 report by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services saying the two convicted men “might not be involved in the killing.”
The lawyer received the report after filing a Freedom of Information Law application. David Lamus and Olmeda Hidalgo were convicted of shooting to death the bouncer, Marcus Peterson, in front of the club, which has since been converted into a New York University residence hall.
A spokesperson for District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said last week that the report does not represent the legal opinion of the office because it was written as a report on the use of a state grant for investigating cases in which defendants may have been convicted unjustly. An Appeals Court panel has already refused to vacate the convictions.
But Cohen said he intends to present evidence at an April 7 hearing before State Supreme Court Justice Robert Hayes that the killing was the work of a notorious Bronx drug gang.
