Stabbed to death
A fight in front of the School for the Physical City, 55 E. 25th St., on Friday afternoon Sept. 30 between two groups of students from different schools ended in stabbings in which four teenagers were injured and a 15-year-old boy died, police said.
Police arrested four teenagers on Sun. Oct. 2 and charged them with first-degree manslaughter and first-degree assault.
Shariff Lesane, of 1140 St. Mark’s St. in Brooklyn, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with a stab wound in the abdomen and was pronounced dead on arrival. The other injured victims, not named by police, were a 16-year-old stabbed in the stomach; a 17-year-old stabbed in the back and a19-year-old stabbed in the upper chest. They were taken to Bellevue in stable condition. A 16-year-old boy was treated and released with superficial stab wounds. All the victims except the 19-year-old were said to be School for the Physical City students.
The suspects, identified as students at another unnamed high school, went to the Flatiron District school armed with knives and intending to fight with the victims, according to the charges.
Arrested were two youths from the Amsterdam Houses, Jason Procope, 17, of 232 W. 63rd St., and David McKay, 19, of 240 W. 65th St., and two youths from Upper Manhattan, Robert Jack, 16, of 2363 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd., and Javon Chavis, 17 of 2406 Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Money transfer plea
Thinh Q. Tran, 59, who owned and operated four unlicensed money-transfer operations in the Village and in Chinatown, pleaded guilty on Oct. 3 to banking law violations and attempted enterprise corruption, according to the office of District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau.
The defendant used the transfer companies, Vina U.S.A., Inc, and Vina Express Corp., both of 80 Fifth Ave., and Saigon Center, Inc., and Saigon Express Corp., both of 150 Lafayette St., to move almost $100 million to Vietnam for customers without requiring their identification or scrutinizing the transactions for suspicious activity over the past five years, according to the charges.
The investigation leading to his indictment and subsequent guilty plea revealed that Tran used agents in Hawaii, Canada and Atlanta to collect money that the agents forwarded to Tran’s New York businesses for transfer to Vietnam, the district attorney said.
Unlicensed money transfers allow the proceeds of criminal activity, including narcotics and terrorist financing, to be concealed, Morgenthau said in a prepared statement. The New York State Banking Department took part in the investigation.
Tran is liable to a prison term of up to 15 years. A sentencing date will be set in January.
Push-in robber
A resident of 37 King St. was unlocking the vestibule door to her apartment at 9:30 p.m. Fri. Sept. 30 when a robber pushed her in the door, followed and demanded, “Give me your money,” police said. The thief, described only as a black man, took the victim’s wallet and fled. He used a credit card from the wallet to buy a MetroCard, police said.
Ice-pick attack
The victim of an ice-pick stabbing at 2:30 a.m. Sun. Oct. 2 on the street at Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. reported the incident to Sixth Precinct police six hours later. There have been no arrests and the case is under investigation.
Nail salon clipped
An employee of a nail salon on W. 10th St. at Hudson St. was counting the day’s receipts shortly after 9 p.m. Sept. 26 when a man walked in, pushed her aside, opened the cash register door and fled with about $100, police said.
Greenwich Ave. robbery
A man walked into a store at 43 Greenwich Ave. at 7 p.m. Sept. 21, put an envelope on the counter and announced, “I have a gun. Put the money in the envelope,” police said. The storeowner complied and the thief fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.
Albert Amateau
