Chelsea shooting
The president of The Source, a hip-hop magazine, and the marketing director for the publication were arrested in connection with a shooting in front of Limerick House, a pub at 69 W. 23rd St. during the early hours of Sat. July 23 in which three people were injured, two of them critically.
The magazine executive, Leroy Peeples, known as Bump, and the marketing director, Alvin Childs, were arrested while fleeing the scene by police who found two handguns, a 9-mm. handgun and a .40-caliber Glock, hidden under cars parked nearby. One of the victims later identified the suspects from a photo lineup, an assistant district attorney said.
Both suspects pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on Sunday and bails were set at $25,000. Peeples was freed on Mon. July 25 and Childs was freed on Tues. July 26.
The victims, Orlando Oregeno, 26, an aspiring rap performer, his cousin, Alex Colon, 30, and Greg Palmer, a busboy at Limerick House, were shot after an argument spilled outside the pub, police said. Oregeno was hit in the head and was in critical but stable condition at St. Vincent’s Hospital; Colon, hit in the arm and the leg, was taken to Bellevue in stable condition; and Palmer, with three chest wounds, was in critical but stable condition in St. Vincent’s.
The argument over whether to play Oregeno’s hip-hop CD on the Limerick jukebox started inside the bar and continued out on the sidewalk according to witnesses in the pub who said they heard four shots ring out.
Mel Sachs, the defense attorney retained by The Source, issued a statement that any charges against the two magazine executives of wrongdoing were “unfounded.” Earlier this year, after a shooting involving the entourages of two rappers, 50 Cent and The Game, in front of 395 Hudson St. where Hot 97 radio has studios, The Source ran an editorial calling for a 90-day ban on broadcasting the work of any hip-hop performer who engaged in violence. The magazine, located across the street from Limerick House, was founded 16 years ago and has a circulation of 370,000
Villager photo by Jefferson Siegel
Burned pizza, dead pets
A fire that started in a wall of Pizzeria Uno, 391 Sixth Ave., a single-story brick building, at 1:28 p.m. Fri. July 22 brought 12 pieces of apparatus and 60 firefighters to the scene, according to a Fire Department spokesperson. No one was injured but eight animals from Petland next door at 389 Sixth Ave. died of smoke inhalation.
“I was just coming to work when I saw the manager coming out with bird cages,” said Nadeem Tariq, a full-time employee at Petland. “We got them all out on the sidewalk, but six dwarf hamsters, a European finch and an albino corn snake died later from the smoke they inhaled,” Tariq said.
The fire in the building located between Waverly Pl. and Greenwich Ave. was under control by 4:31 p.m. after firefighters cut away part of the roof. Cause of the fire is under investigation.
Sex sting
Alan Schaefer, 43, a music teacher in a Queens middle school, was arrested in the Village on Wed. July 20 during an encounter with what he believed was a 13-year-old girl he had exchanged sexually explicit messages on an Internet chat room, police said.
Schaefer’s date proved to be a young-looking policewoman who took part in the sting that resulted in his arrest on charges of attempting to provide pornography to a minor, attempted sexual abuse and, because he was carrying his 14-month-old son at the time of the arrest, endangering the welfare of a child.
Police took charge of the baby and delivered him to relatives of Schaeffer, a resident of Flushing and a music teacher at M.S. 67 in Little Neck for 18 years. Schaeffer has been reassigned to school administrative duties, according to a Department of Education spokesperson.
Laser treatment death
A grand jury indicted Dean Faiello, 44, for second-degree murder on Mon. July 25 in connection with the death of a woman to whom he administered laser treatments in 2003 in a Chelsea apartment.
Faiello, who had been convicted twice of practicing medicine without a license, is charged with causing the death of Maria Cruz, who had been taking laser treatments from the defendant for a growth on her tongue in an apartment at 151 W. 16th St.
The victim was never seen alive after April 13, 2003, and after an investigation into her disappearance, her decomposed body was found in February 2004 in a suitcase under a layer of concrete in the garage of a Newark, N.J., house that Faiello had sold in May 2003, according to the indictment. Cruz’s body was identified through dental records. The day before the closing on the house sale, a man who had been living with Faiello had seen the defendant laying the concrete slab, according to the indictment.
The investigation also revealed that Faiello had made an anxious phone call in mid-April 2003 to a licensed physician for advice about a woman in convulsions after receiving an anesthesia injection. The advice to take her immediately to the nearest hospital emergency room was apparently ignored, the indictment says.
Meanwhile, Faiello left the country shortly after he sold the house and returned to his native Costa Rica. Faiello was arrested in Costa Rica at the end of 2004 in connection with the Cruz murder, and was extradited to New York in May of this year.
Faiello is being held without bail pending a Sept. 7 court appearance.
Lil’ Kim litigates
Lil’ Kim, the hip-hop performer sentenced to a year and a day in prison on July 6 for perjury before a federal grand jury, filed a $6 million civil lawsuit last week charging one of the men who testified against her with preparing to market a DVD that uses her name without authorization.
Kim, 30, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, is suing James Lloyd, known as Lil’ Cease, in federal court in connection with his issuing “The Chronicles of Junior M.A.F.I.A. Part II: Reloaded,” a DVD that she says improperly uses her name and image. Lloyd gave damaging testimony against Kim at the perjury trial in connection with the 2003 grand jury probe of the February 2001 shootout between rival hip-hop groups in front of HOT 97 radio at 395 Hudson St.
The civil suit filed Mon. July 18 says Lloyd has publicly announced that the DVD would include interviews with him and other members of Junior M.A.F.I.A. explaining their involvement in Kim’s perjury trial.
Jail for Kim’s ex-manager
Damion Butler, Lil’ Kim’s former manager, received a 3 1/2-year prison sentence from a federal court judge on Mon. July 25 after a plea of guilty to charges of illegal possession of a weapon arising from the February 2001 shootout in front of 395 Hudson St. Butler also pleaded guilty to illegally transporting a weapon across state lines and to passport fraud.
East River Park DOA
Police found the body of a man on a bench on the east side of F.D.R. Drive along East River Park across from the Baruch Houses at 7 a.m. Thurs. July 21. The medical examiner’s office is investigating the cause of death of the man, identified only as white and 44 years old, pending notification of his family.
Subway rob/stab
An unknown assailant robbed and stabbed a woman, 53, who was waiting for a J train at the Bowery and Delancey St. subway station at 1:45 p.m. Sat. July 23, police said. The robber, described as a black man between 5’9” and 6’, slim build and with a mustache, came up behind the victim, covered her mouth and eyes with his hand and grabbed her bag. When she screamed after he took his hand from her mouth, he stabbed her several times in the upper body and fled, police said. The victim was taken to Beth Israel Hospital in serious condition.
Night out vs. crime
The East Village will celebrate its version of the National Night Out Against Crime with a block party from 2-8 p.m. Tues. Aug 2 on E. Eighth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D. The event, sponsored by the Ninth Precinct and the P.S.A. 4 Housing Division, will feature live entertainment, clowns, rides, snacks and free giveaways, with information booths for community organizations. For more information, phone Detective Jaime Hernandez, 212-477-7826, or the P.S.A. 4, 212-375-9370. The Lower East Side’s Seventh Precinct’s National Night Out event will be on Aug. 2 on Pitt St. between Delancey and Stanton Sts. from 4-8:30 p.m. There will be 1,200 hot dogs, 40-50 cases of soda and Entenmann’s cake. Joel Kaplan of the United Jewish Council will sing the national anthem and Rabbi Blank will give the Pledge of Allegiance.
DA says vacate murder
District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau on July 22 recommended overturning the murder conviction of Olmado Hidalgo, in prison for the past 13 years in connection with the November 1990 murder of Marcus Peterson, a bouncer at The Palladium, the former disco on E. 14th St. But Morgenthau asked the court to deny a motion to overturn the murder conviction of Hidalgo’s co-defendant, David Lemus.
The recommendation reverses Morgenthau’s previous refusal to accept new evidence by David Horowitz, Hidalgo’s attorney. Gordon Mehler, who represents Lemus, said on Friday that he hoped the D.A. would acknowledge that the Lemus conviction was also in error.
The shooting involved a confrontation between Palladium security staff and four or five adversaries, three of who opened fire outside the club. Peterson fell dead and another bouncer, Jeffrey Craig, survived. Witnesses identified Lemus and Hidalgo as the shooters and a jury found them guilty in 1992. The convictions were upheld on appeals in both state and federal courts, but after new evidence was presented, a third defendant, Thomas Morales, was indicted in the murder last March. His case is still pending.
Hidalgo and Lemus allege in the most recent proceedings in State Supreme Court that they were not involved in the murder, which they allege was done by Morales and Joey Pillot, two members of a Bronx drug gang.
Leslie Crocker Snyder, who is waging a primary campaign for district attorney against Morgenthau, has charged the D.A. with mishandling the case and has urged that both Hidalgo and Lemus be freed.
Albert Amateau
