Two dead in East Village
Two women, both 18, were found unconscious in the Lillian Wald Houses apartment of an acquaintance on Friday evening, Aug. 12, and died later at Bellevue Hospital of apparent drug overdoses, police said.
The victims, Mellie Nichols Carballo, a Hunter College student from the Upper East Side, and her friend Marta Pesantez, of Queens, a student at New York University, were with Alfredo Morales, 33, a resident of the ninth-floor apartment on E. Houston St. and Avenue D, and his friend, Roberto Martinez, 41, an East Village resident.
Police said Martinez, who has a record of arrests for drug-related offenses, acknowledged that the two couples had been using cocaine, but both men later told reporters that no drugs had been involved in the evening during which they played cards and the women drank malt liquor.
Carballo had previously become acquainted with Martinez at the Dark Room, a Ludlow St. bar, according to reports. She and Pesantez were at the Dark Room together on Friday afternoon and phoned Martinez, who invited them to his friend’s apartment.
At one point, the men left the apartment when the women became tired and lay down to take a nap. When the men returned they found the women unconscious and called 911. Neither of the men was charged in connection with the incident. Carballo was declared dead at Bellevue at 6:22 p.m. Friday and Pesantez died at the hospital on Aug. 14, authorities said.
Dies at home in fire
Firefighters found the body of Nicholas DeCurtis, 94, who had been confined to his fifth-floor walkup apartment for several months because of a hip injury, when they responded to a 2 a.m. Saturday fire at 78 Christopher St. It was not known whether the victim died of fire-related injuries or of a heat attack. The Aug. 13 fire was apparently caused accidentally by a lit candle, a Fire Department spokesperson said. Sixty firefighters responded to the blaze, which was declared under control at 2:40 a.m.
Sullivan stabbing
Two men who got into an argument at the Lion’s Den, 214 Sullivan St., at about 3 a.m. Sun. Aug. 14 were ejected by a bouncer but continued their dispute on the sidewalk when one of them pulled a knife, slashed his adversary’s neck, stabbed him once in the back and fled, police said. The victim was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in stable condition.
Probation for priest
Albert Liberatore, 41, a Catholic priest from Scranton, Pa., was sentenced to 10 years probation on Wed. Aug. 10 for attempting to have oral sex with a 17-year-old former altar boy from his Scranton parish in 2001 when both were at the Washington Square Hotel. The sentence requires the defendant to register as a sex offender and to have no unsupervised contact with minors.
Dead on F.D.R. Dr.
A motorcyclist traveling south on the F.D.R. Drive at 25th St. at about 10:40 p.m. Wed. Aug. 10 struck a man, 74, trying to cross the highway, police said. The victim, who was not identified, was declared dead at Bellevue at 10:57 p.m. The driver of the motorcycle remained at the accident scene and was not charged, police said.
Big bag haul
A woman from New Jersey had her bag and its contents, valued at a total of $4,800, stolen while she was eating lunch at a Soho restaurant on Tues. Aug.9, police said. The victim, 28, told police her Louis Vuitton bag which she had hung over the back of her chair at Boom, 152 Spring St., between W. Broadway and Wooster Sts., was snatched by a thief who fled with it. The bag was valued at $1,500. Her designer wallet valued at $200 with $1,300 in cash, a camera and a cell phone were gone with it.
Soho burglary
A man threw a brick through the widow of a Gant shop at 77 Wooster St. at about 5 a.m. Thurs. Aug. 4, stepped in and made off with a bag of merchandise, police said. A witness described the burglar as a white man about 5’ 11” tall, police said.
Wooster car break-in
A man who parked his car at the curb on the east side of Wooster St. between Prince and Spring Sts. on Sunday morning July 17 returned at 4:30 p.m. to find the rear window smashed and a computer, a printer, a cell phone and a CD player, with a total value of $3,950, gone, police said.
Albert Amateau
