Explosive accusations are being leveled against two NYPD cops, one active and one retired, who allegedly participated in at least 100 robberies of drug dealers, netting more than 100 kilos of coke. The duo are part of a crew that's been named in federal indictments in Brooklyn. The Daily News reports that the cops would change the collar brass on their uniforms to disguise their precincts when they kidnapped drug dealers and took them to......

Today, a judge sentenced Robert Williams to life in prison for the brutal rape and torture of a Columbia graduate student. Williams was convicted last month, with a jury finding him guilty of 44 counts, including attempted murder, kidnapping, arson, burglary, robbery, assault, rape and sodomy. The attack occurred in April 2007, after Williams had gained access to the victim's Hamilton Heights apartment building, followed her to her floor and forced his way into her......

Yesterday, a jury of eight men and four women found Robert Williams guilty of 44 counts, including, per the Post, "attempted murder, kidnapping, arson, burglary, robbery, 10 assault charges, five separate rapes and 11 incidents of sodomy," related to his 19-hour rape and torture of a Columbia University graduate student in her Hamilton Heights apartment a year ago. According to his lawyer, Williams, who has rarely been in court during the trial, responded to the......

A 24-year-old woman took the stand and began to relive a terrifying ordeal as she described how she was raped, tortured, and held captive in her own Hamilton Heights apartment in April 2007. The victim, now 24, was a month away from graduating from Columbia Journalism School and had stayed late at campus to work on her resume (a job fair was the next day). At 9:30 p.m. on April 13, a Friday, she took......

In April 2007, a Columbia graduate student was raped and tortured for 19 hours in her Hamilton Terrace apartment. More than a year later, her suspected rapist is now in court, facing 71 criminal charges including attempted murder, arson, rape and sodomy. Assistant District Attorney Ann Prunty describe the harrowing ordeal in her opening statement. From the NY Times:Over many torturous hours, [the victim] had been repeatedly raped, sodomized and forced to perform oral sex,......

Errol Morris in a conversation with Anthony Swofford after the screening of Standard Operating Procedure at the Tribeca Film Festival. Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris was on hand last night for a Tribeca Film Festival screening of his new documentary Standard Operating Procedure, a nuanced exploration of the detainee abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Those familiar with Morris’s innovative oeuvre won’t be surprised to hear that, far from a tendentious indictment of......

Maybe you've received a flier to see a show at Radio City Music Hall called Chinese New Year Splendor, which is promoted as a holiday celebration of China’s diverse cultural riches. But mixed within the traditional Mongolian dancing, orchestral music and Buddhist parables are dramatizations of the Chinese government’s oppression of Falun Gong, a qigong-based spiritual practice that is banned in China. And the show’s political content is prompting audiences to walk out by......

The defense lawyer for Robert Williams used a sartorial defense in court yesterday. Williams, accused of raping and torturing a Columbia graduate student last April, appeared wearing his "jeans and polo shirt inside out," prompting his lawyer to say, "This is symptomatic of mental illness...The best I can do right now, given my relationship with my client, is that I’d like the court to observe my client’s shirt and jeans are both inside out." However,......

The great-grandson of one of an early owner of Macy's is being accused by a 52-year-old jewelry designer of imprisoning the woman and torturing her with, of all things, a lobster trap. Bette Marchek claims that William Straus kept her captive on his Westchester estate, starved her, beat her, and eventually attacked her with a lobster trap while the pair were on City Island in the Bronx. That was the figurative straw that broke the......