Union Sq. murder arrest
Police last week arrested a 16-year-old East Harlem student for the stabbing death of a 17-year-old Brooklyn student during a melee in the Union Square Greenmarket on Wednesday afternoon Dec. 6 involving about 50 students from Washington Irving High School and the Science Skills Center High School in Brooklyn.
Francisco Baez, 16, of 405 E. 105th St., a student at Washington Irving on Irving Pl. two blocks from the Union Square Greenmarket, was charged Thursday evening Dec. 8 with second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and gang assault after two eyewitnesses picked him out of a lineup.
The victim, Taishawn Bellevue, 17, of 1354 New York Ave., Brooklyn, a student at Science Skills Center, died Wednesday night in St. Vincent’s Hospital of stab wounds in the chest. A Science Skills classmate, Glenwood Nobles, 17, was taken to St. Vincent’s with stab wounds in the back, and a Washington Irving student, Carlos Tejeda, 17, was treated at the hospital after he was hit in the head with a brick.
Baez was due to appear in court again on Wed. Dec. 13.
Students at the two schools began feuding over a perceived insult by a Washington Irving student of a girl whose friends go to Science Skills Center. Police said the confrontation was planned and that the rivalry might be gang related.
Life sentence
Criminal Court Judge Daniel Fitzgerald this week sentenced Rudy Fleming, 21, to life in prison with no chance of parole for the Jan. 27, 2005, murder of Nicole duFresne during a holdup on a Lower East Side street corner.
Fleming, found guilty in October, did not attend his trial or the sentencing on Mon. Dec. 11 but the proceedings were shown in his cell on closed-circuit television.
DuFresne, an actress who worked as a bartender on the Lower East Side, was killed with a single bullet to the chest during the holdup of herself, her boyfriend, Jeffery Spark, and another couple at Clinton and Rivington Sts.
Spark attended the sentencing wearing the bloodstained shirt he had worn the night of the murder. The victim’s parents, who attended the trial, were not at the sentencing.
‘Joey Clams’ assault trial
A Jan. 18 trial date was set for Nicholas Pisciotti, 36, on first-degree assault in connection with the Sept. 18, 2005, beating of Joseph “Joey Clams” Caruso, manager of Odea, a restaurant on Broome St. near Mulberry St. The incident, in which the victim suffered brain damage, is said to have started when Caruso admonished Pisciotti and people in his party for smoking in the restaurant. Pisciotti’s friend, Louis Ventafredda, pleaded guilty last month to the same charge and because he has no arrest record, has the option of pleading to a misdemeanor if he stays out of trouble for a year, according to reports. Pisciotti, identified in a Daily News article as a Bonnano crime family soldier, is claiming self-defense and contends that Caruso, said to be a Genovese crime family associate, started punching first. In October of last year, The Villager reported on the beating and noted that Robert Ianniello, president of the Little Italy Merchants Association, another partner in Odea, was roughed up in the incident too.
Crobar bashing
An argument among patrons at Crobar, 530 W. 28th St., the largest club in West Chelsea, on Saturday morning Dec. 9 turned violent and ended with one man in the hospital and two men charged with assault.
Police arrested John Dicrescento of Staten Island and Keith Gans of Brooklyn and charged them with assault on a 31-year-old man who was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital for stitches to close cuts to his forehead. Police said Dicrescento hit the victim over the head with a bottle.
Foxy is as foxy does
Foxy Brown, the rap artist whose real name is Inga Marchand, avoided a jail sentence on Mon. Dec. 11 when she went before Criminal Court Judge Melissa C. Jackson to face charges of probation violation. Brown had been sentenced to three years probation in October in connection with a misdemeanor guilty plea to assaulting two attendants of a Chelsea nail salon on Aug. 27, 2004.
Brown was charged with violating the terms of the probation by skipping out on a drug test appointment and failing to appear at an anger management session. Judge Jackson said she would sentence the performer to a year in jail if she violated probation again.
Albert Amateau
Albert Amateau
