Out of bounds
Police made a drug arrest in Sara D. Roosevelt Park near E. Houston St. on Saturday as basketball players looked on.
Plea in Village murder
Michael Cordero, 23, charged with the Aug. 5 murder of his girlfriend, Boitumelo (Tumi) McCallum, 20, in her mother’s Washington Square Village apartment, entered a not-guilty plea on Sept. 10. At the same time, police submitted a videotaped interview in which Cordero admitted confronting the victim in the apartment on Aug. 5, arguing with her about not being invited to a party there the previous night, and choking her to death.
Woman, 95, mugged
A 95-year-old female resident of 457 F.D.R. Dr. at Canal St. in the East River Houses was mugged in the 17th-floor hallway in front of her apartment at about 2:15 p.m. Sat., Sept. 8, police said. The suspect, described as a bald Hispanic man about 40 years old, 5 feet 7 inches and weighing about 150 pounds, knocked the victim to the ground, kicked her, grabbed $20 from her and fled. The victim was taken to New York Downtown Hospital where she was treated for a broken rib.
Sex-sting charge
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York on Sept. 6 charged Joseph Giancaspro with using the Internet to entice someone he believed to be a 14-year-old Village girl to have sex with him.
Giancaspro, 42, a Norwalk, Conn., resident, was arrested by city police on April 25 last year and was freed on his own recognizance pending trial, but because federal offenses were involved, he was charged in Manhattan federal court last week. He was being held pending posting of $500,000 bond secured by his house and business, compliance with an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew, electronic monitoring and home detention and travel restricted to the Southern District of New York (Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and Westchester) and Connecticut.
Giancaspro was charged with initiating an instant-messaging conversation with “Mary,” a New York Police Department detective purporting to be a 14-year-old student living with her parents in the Village, according to the federal complaint.
On April 25, the defendant agreed to meet “Mary” under the arch in Washington Square Park, according to the complaint. The young female undercover officer who met him there said, “My mom’s not home,” and invited him to the residential building at 143 Waverly Pl., where other police officers arrested him in the lobby. He was also charged with possession of child pornography.
Attacked in lobby
A woman, 20, was attacked by a mugger in the lobby of her building on Mott St. near Broome St. Sunday morning Sept. 9, police said. The suspect, about 25, punched the victim in the face, grabbed her bag and fled, police said. The victim refused medical attention.
Hudson Square burglary
Burglars made their way into Sway, a club at 305 Spring St. near Renwick St., sometime between 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Mon., Sept. 3, when the manager arrived to discover a hole had been cut in the side of the safe and about $10,000 in cash was gone, police said. There was no sign of forced entry and the office where the safe was located was not locked. About 300 purchase receipts and two cell phones were also stolen.
HOWLing theft
Several artists who contributed to the HOWL! Festival’s Art Around the Park last week reported they discovered their paintings had been stolen from their locations around Tompkins Square Park on Sun., Sept. 9.
The event involved artists creating their work on 8-foot-by-6-foot vinyl sheets at specified locations around the park. One painter, Derrick Little, said he discovered the theft about 7:30 p.m. Sunday when he went to the E. Seventh St. side of the park to take down his work at the end of the event. A HOWL! producer told him that a woman who said she had been painting next to Little the previous day said she would take Little’s painting for “safekeeping.” The name the woman gave, Mary Zaroda, was not registered as one of the painters and could not be traced, Little said.
Another painter, Sean Bono, discovered that his memorial painting of Carlucci, a fellow painter who died in his sleep in his Lower East Side home at age 38 a week earlier, was stolen from its location on E. 10th St. on the north side of the park sometime early Saturday morning.
“We lost six pieces on the north side of the square,” said Josh Boyd, who organized the event for Gallery Bar at 120 Orchard St. “My brother was one of the painters who lost one. The thieves must have snuck past security around 4 o’clock in the morning,” Boyd said.
Arrested on Charlton St.
Police arrested two men for smoking marijuana on Charlton St. at Varick St. at 2:30 p.m. Mon., Sept. 3. The suspects, Alonzo Simpson and Craig Williams, both 39, were also found to be carrying stolen tools and were charged with possession of stolen property, as well as possession of a controlled substance.
Shoplift gets rough
Police arrested Amado Diaz, 34, for robbery and assault at 4 p.m. Mon., Sept. 3, in front of 300 Canal St. across from Mercer St. Diaz was charged with punching and knocking out two teeth of a Canal St. merchant who tried to recover items that the suspect had stuffed into a shopping bag and walked out without paying for, police said.
Robbed on W. Broadway
A 16-year-old from Farmingdale, L.I., told police he was walking on W. Broadway at Lispenard St. at 12:30 p.m. Mon., Aug. 20, when a stranger offered to sell him a fake ID for $100. When the teenager declined, the stranger indicated he had a knife and ordered him to empty his pockets. The thief took $160 in cash and the victim’s cell phone and fled, police said.
Lost in clubs and shop
A woman patron of The Plumm, 246 W. 14th St., left her bag on a sofa at 4:30 a.m. Mon., Sept. 3, and found it was gone a few minutes later.
A patron of Level V at 675 Hudson St. discovered his wallet missing from his pants pocket at 2:30 a.m. on Sat., Sept. 8. He found the wallet on the floor but his credit card and cash were gone.
A woman shopping at Filene’s Basement on Union Square S. at about 2 p.m. Wed., Sept. 5, discovered that her bag was stolen from the pouch on her child’s stroller.
Subway pickpocket
A man waiting for a train on a crowded platform in the W. Fourth St. subway station at 2:49 p.m. Wed., Sept. 5, was bumped by a stranger and discovered his wallet gone from his back pocket.
Drunk driving
Police at a checkpoint on W. 13th and Washington Sts. in the Gansevoort Market District stopped a driver at 12:30 a.m. Sun., Sept. 2, smelled alcohol as soon as he opened the door and found his alcohol level registered .09, slightly above the legal limit. He was charged with driving while intoxicated.
Albert Amateau
