Delancey St. death
A car struck an 82-year-old Lower East Side woman as she was crossing Delancey St. at Allen St. at 11 p.m. Wed., Jan. 30, police said. She was pronounced dead a short time later at Beth Israel Hospital.
Josephine Laplaca, who lived at 53 Delancey St. near Eldridge St., apparently walked into the path of a westbound S.U.V., police said. The driver stopped after the accident and was not charged, police said. The victim had been a resident of the neighborhood since her family moved there when she was 11 years old, according to a Daily News article.
Mugged in Soho
Peggy Kerry, a longtime Village resident and the sister of Senator John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate, was set upon and robbed by an unknown mugger as she was leaving the Manhattan Ensemble Theater at 55 Mercer St. near Broome St. at 10:30 p.m. Wed., Jan. 30, police said. The thief came at her from behind, knocked her to the ground, took her handbag with $60 and credit cards and fled. Kerry was treated for a cut scalp, according to a New York Post article.
Sales tax evasion
A Manhattan grand jury indicted the owner of a Chinatown restaurant last week on a second-degree grand larceny charge for stealing $763,650 in state and city sales tax over a seven-year period ending Dec. 20, 2007.
The defendant, Kwok Ming Chan, 57, owner of Cantoon Garden, 22 Elizabeth St., and partner in New Pearl River, the predecessor restaurant at the same address, hired people to create fake records showing sales records to back up underreported sales tax returns, according to District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Bail was set at $250,000 pending a Feb. 20 court date. If convicted, Chan faces a prison term of up to 15 years.
Christmas burglary
Police arrested Terrance Jones, 43, on Jan. 22 and charged him with breaking into the Village View apartment of his former companion and their 2-year-old daughter five days before Christmas and stealing the Christmas tree, a television set and several presents, according to the D.A.’s Office.
Jones, who formerly lived in the apartment at 80 First Ave. between Fourth and Fifth Sts., drilled through a lock on the door on Dec. 20 to break into the place when the woman and child were gone, police said.
He was charged with burglary and grand larceny on Jan. 23 when bail was sent at $5,000 pending a May 5 court appearance.
Sues feds
The mother of Imette St. Guillen, the John Jay College student murdered two years ago after leaving a Soho bar, is suing the U.S. Probation Service for negligence for failing to supervise Darryl Littlejohn, charged with killing St. Guillen, while he was on probation.
Maureen St. Guillen is seeking $200 million damages, charging that the federal service did not monitor Littlejohn after his release from a state prison where he had been serving concurrent state and federal sentences for bank robbery. Littlejohn was working, in violation of his probation, as a bouncer at The Falls, the former Lafayette St. bar where Imette was last seen alive.
Charged as groper
Aries Spears, a comedian who has appeared on “MADtv” and other television programs, was arrested at about 1 a.m. Sat., Feb. 2, after he finished his two sets at Comix, the club at 353 W. 14th St., when a woman patron accused him of fondling her, according to the office of D.A. Morgenthau. Spears, 32, was freed on his own recognizance pending a March 4 court appearance to answer the charge of forcibly touching the complainant.
Ready to sue
David Lemus, 39, freed in 2005 after 14 years in prison when his conviction for the 1990 murder of the bouncer at the Palladium dance club on E. 14th St. was thrown out, filed a notice of claim that he will file a damage suit in federal court in Manhattan. His conviction was overturned when his attorneys found that Thomas “Spanky” Morales had fatally shot the bouncer, Marcus Peterson. A Criminal Court judge, however, threw out the 2005 indictment of Morales, saying the 15-year delay was inexcusable. Olmado Hidalgo, who was convicted with Lemus, was also freed in 2005 and was deported to the Dominican Republic because of an unrelated gun charge.
Bags gone
A visitor from California who was at Central Vinoteca restaurant on Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. S. on Sat., Feb 2, discovered at 1:45 a.m. that her cell phone had been stolen, police said. The following day she discovered several unauthorized calls had been made. A woman patron of 49 Grove St., the bar at that address, discovered that her bag was missing at 3 a.m. Sun., Jan. 27, police said. A woman who put her bag on the floor next to her chair at the Red Lion, 151 Bleecker St., at 3 a.m. Sun., Jan. 17, found it was stolen an hour later.
A woman who checked her bag at Cielo, the dance club at 18 Little W. 12th St., at 2:30 a.m. Fri., Jan. 25, learned that someone else had taken it when she left at 5 a.m., police said. She learned that four unauthorized calls had been made on her cell phone, and she stopped payment on personal checks that were in the bag; but the club said it was not responsible for lost or stolen items. A woman who left her bag at the table when she went to the ladies’ room at Buddha Bar, the club at 25 Little W. 12th St., at 2 a.m. Sat., Jan. 19, discovered it was stolen an hour later.
‘Fare beater’
A woman who lives on Avenue C at E. Third St. told the Taxi and Limousine Commission that a cab driver who dropped her off at her apartment on Tuesday evening Jan. 29 told her he didn’t know how to use the credit card device in his cab when she gave him her card to pay for a $10 ride. She told the driver that was his problem, and he punched her in the face. The commission acknowledged the complaint and said it was under investigation.
–Albert Amateau
