On Saturday, a Merrick woman and her boyfriend, a personal trainer, were charged with assaulting her 6-year-old son. Newsday reports that Nassau police knocked on their door and called, but no one answered, so "emergency services officers broke down the door and found the boy crying in a bedroom, with cuts and bruises on his leg, buttocks and groin area." It's believed he was beaten with a weight-lighting belt. Jessica Muniz, 29, is being held......

The discovery of a dead 11-year-old girl in a Brooklyn apartment led to the girl's mother to admit to killing her, according to police. WABC 7 reports that Florenzia Vazquez told police she beat daughter Alejandra "with a mop handle so hard, it broke in two." Vazquez is being held at the 75th precinct. The beating apparently took place on Thursday--according to the NY Times, it was "a thrashing so severe it left the girl......

The Brooklyn DA's office played a videotaped interview with the mother on trial of killing her abused daughter, saying the video implicated her in the death. Nixzaliz Santiago spoke to police and prosecutors after her 7-year-old daughter Nixzmary Brown was found dead in January 2006, saying that she didn't "call for help because Nixzmary"--who was brutally beaten by Santiago's husband--was "moaning, breathing." Prosecutors, who say that Santiago's inaction led to the child's death, pointed to......

Yesterday, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango stopped the Nixzmary Brown murder trial to question a juror. A letter suggested the 35-year-old male schoolteacher indicated he could not be fair during jury selection by raising his hand, but "the judge and the lawyers did not notice," according to the Daily News. However, the juror said he could be fair in the emotional trial, where Nixzaliz Santiago is accused of murdering her 7-year-old daughter. Earlier this......

Prosecutor Ama Dwimoh told jurors what 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown's final words were, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" "after being beaten, battered, broken and thrown naked onto a cold wooden floor." Brown's mother Nixzaliz Santiago is on trial for the girl's murder, as the Brooklyn DA's office contends Santiago did nothing to prevent her husband Cesar Rodriguez from delivering a fatal beating in January 2006. Dwimoh added, "She left her to die. Nixzaliz Santiago simply did not care."......

Jurors were warned by prosecutors that the trial would be "emotional" as jury selection began in for a second trial related to 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown's death. This time, the child's mother Nixzaliz Santiago faces murder charges. Nixzmary was killed in January 2006, after being beaten by her stepfather Cesar Rodriguez for apparently taking some yogurt (or pudding) without permission. She spent her final hours beaten and having her head hit against the bathtub faucet and......

After a jury found her stepfather guilty of manslaughter, the Brooklyn DA's office is readying for a second trial in the death of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown. This time, her mother Nixzaliz Santiago will be in court, and the Daily News reports reports prosecutors may suggest Santiago was "jealous because she believed her husband having sex with the 7-year-old" and therefore allowed her daughter to be tortured. A prosecutor said, "Motive is always relevant. If she......

A Queens mother is filing a $6 million suit after a school aide restrained her five-year-old daughter, a special-ed kindergartner, by binding her to a cafeteria bench with her own sweater. Marissa Chunisingh discovered the treatment that her daughter Christyn was receiving in school when the girl began tying up one of her dolls with a scarf because she was “being bad.” Someone also reported to Chunisingh that Christyn, who is in special-ed for a......

Yesterday, a funeral was held for three-year-old Kyle Smith, who died under the care and apparent abuse of family friends. Family members, friends and neighbors shed tears and voiced regrets over the child's death. Kyle's mother, Eugenia Holmes, carried a photograph of her son. Last year, while battling drug addiction, Holmes had agreed to let her friend Nymeem Cheatham take Kyle in. After his battered body was examined by the medical examiner's office two weeks......

After a 3-year-old boy died, battered and sexually abused by his caretakers, fingers have pointed at his abusers, his parents, his neighbors and the Administration of Children's Services. Now lawmakers hope to new law can stop similar tragedies. Kyle Smith had been in the care of his godmother Nymeem Cheatham and her boyfriend Lemar Martin when his mother needed help, as she battled her drug addiction. Though a court found Cheatham to be an able......

Family members mourning the death of a 3-year-old child at the hands of a family friend who was caring for him are speaking out, including the child's mother. Kyle Smith died last Friday, with extensive injuries including broken bones, cigarettes burns all over his body, and tearing from sexual abuse. His godmother Nymeem Cheatham and her boyfriend Lemar Martin admitted to beating the child and were arrested and are being held without bail. Kyle's mother......

Never mind the kids who are being murdered by violent parents or drugged to death by foster mothers, the Administration for Children's Services is busy checking up on the home environments of kids who skip gym class too many times, even though that's not technically a violation worthy of an ACS home visit. Like her son blowing off gym class, Karen Dussack skipped a meeting at Bronx Science to talk about her progeny having......

The jury deciding the fate of Cesar Rodriguez, accused of brutally killing his stepdaughter, had completed its third day of deliberations without a verdict yesterday, but this morning they have announced they have a decision. The AP reports they have found Rodriguez guilty of first-degree manslaughter; he will face up to 28 years in prison. Prosecutors had argued that 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown died at the hands of Rodriguez and her mother Nixzaliz Santiago (Santiago will......

Police say Barbara Sheehan confessed to killing her retired cop husband in their Howard Beach home, saying, "I shot him. I shot him. I think he's dead." Sheehan, charged with second-degree murder, pleaded not guilty and was held without bail. Sheehan allegedly shot her husband Raymond, who retired as a sergeant in the NYPD in 2002 and had been working at UBS in security, Monday morning using two of his guns, a Glock and .38-caliber......

The producer of Pan's Labyrinth, the Oscar-winning film that partially delves into the world of abuse, may in fact have done some abusing of her own. A lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court yesterday against Frida Torresblanco. Her nanny, Angelica Hernandez, claims she was treated like a virtual slave. Hernandez (who was hired in February 2007) worked up to 150 hours a week for seven months in the producer's Tribeca apartment and brought home......

Remember that cruel(la) couple from Long Island that enslaved two Indonesian women who worked in their mansion? After their million dollar bail plan was announced back in June we hadn't heard much about these two. Today, however, silence was broken after Varsha Mahender Sabhnani and her hubby Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani's trial has ended...and the latest is not good news for them! The terrible two-some "were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment......

It’s not Tracy Letts’s fault that his play, August: Osage County, has been breathlessly overhyped by the critics, from the Times’s Charles Isherwood on down. It’s also not his fault that compared to many other Broadway spectacles the play stands out as a polestar of humor and intelligence. Still, it’s difficult to disassociate the play from the deafening buzz; August: Osage County is being heralded as an Important Theatrical Event, when it’s really just a......

The morning started with rumors of names mentioned in Senator George Mitchell's report to Major League Baseball, but not until this afternoon were any rumors substantiated. Stating in his report that “there is much about the illegal use of performance enhancing substances in baseball that I did not learn,” Mitchell proceeded to lay waste to the careers of many notable players, perhaps none more so than Roger Clemens. In the report Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens’......

A middle-aged man held several workers hostage at Sen. Clinton's New Hampshire campaign office in the town of Rochester yesterday, before surrendering to police. The alleged bomb he had taped to his chest turned out to be simply a number of road flares. Leeland Eisenberg's motivation for seizing Clinton's field office is unclear, but he appears to be a disturbed individual. The New York Times declined to speculate on Eisenberg's purpose ("[Police] would not discuss......

Barack may have Oprah, but the stagehands' and writers' union have John Edwards! The former senator, currently in third place after Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the hunt for the Democratic presidential nomination, voiced his support of Local One, the Broadway stagehands union that has been on strike since November 9 over a new contract. Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said, "To interfere with the power of the Broadway community is not......

Dare we say that Brooke Astor is rolling in her grave? Yesterday, it was reported that her son Anthony Marshall and his former lawyer Francis Morrissey would be indicted for criminal activity over the handling of her will. And this morning, Marshall turned himself in at the Manhattan DA's offices, to face charges of fraud, forgery and grand larceny. Or, as DA Robert Morgenthau said, "The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of......

Last year, there was a very sad report about a 14-year-old boy who committed suicide by jumping into the frigid waters of the East River, and his mother suggested it was because of school bullying. Now the Daily News reports that the Administration for Children's Services had been investigating a charge that the boy's mother had choked him and beat his brother with a belt. Last March, Sidney Hatchett and his 6-year-old sister were walking......

New York magazine has an extraordinary cover story on the life of Brooke Astor, months after the "doyenne" of the city's social scene passed away. It is a sordid tale of jealousy, greed, enmity, conflicting agendas, and familial conflict worthy of the most outlandish soap opera. Her son Tony is now under i investigation by a grand jury and control of her estate has passed to Astor's friend Annette de la Renta. The litany of......

Yesterday, the police arrested the personal assistant to "broker to the stars" Linda Stein in connection with Stein's October 30 murder. Stein, who had also managed the Ramones and later parlayed her connections to sell real estate to celebrities, had been found bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment by her daughter. The police revealed that assistant Natavia Lowery confessed to them that Stein's abuse pushed her over the edge. Police Commissioner Ray......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg met with Joseph Zadroga, whose son James was a NYPD detective and worked hours of rescue and recovery after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. James Zadroga's death has been controversial, as the NYC medical examiner's office ruled that his death was not due to exposure to toxic WTC dust but prescription drug abuse, findings that contradicted the expert opinion of two other doctors. Bloomberg entered the fray when he said that......

Were the police surveillance photographs of Shawn Kovell's apartment what set her landlord off? Or was it the fact that she and boyfriend Robert Chambers had been arrested by undercover cops for allegedly selling drugs out of the East 57th Street apartment? Apparently it was something more simple. The couple wasn't able to make the rent. Chambers, infamous to New Yorkers as the Preppy Killer after he admitted to the 1986 strangling Jennifer Levin in......

Probably realizing that talking smack about a dead former NYPD detective who spent hours at the World Trade Center site working rescue and recovery isn't smart Mayoring, Mayor Bloomberg amended his comments about the late James Zadroga. Though he had said Zadroga "was not a hero" according to science at an event days earlier, the Mayor acknowledged Zadroga's record and told reporters yesterday, "This was a great NYPD officer who dedicated himself, put his life......

Last week, it was revealed that the NYC medical examiner Dr. Charles Hirsch did not believe WTC dust ultimately killed NYPD Detective Charles Zadroga. Zadroga, who worked rescue and recovery in the World Trade Center debris after September 11, died after a long, protracted battle of a respiratory disease in 2006. Now it turns out that Hirsch thinks Zadroga's death was caused by prescription drug abuse. Zadroga had been taking a number of pills, and......

More than a year and a half after the death of Nixzmary Brown, the Administration for Children's Services has hired 20 retired NYPD detectives to work as trained investigators consulting with ACS caseworkers. The ACS plans on eventually fielding 120 such investigators. The need for a bolder approach to protecting children being monitored by the ACS follows the beating death of Brown in January 2006 and a number of other deaths of children under ACS......

It's been a couple of days since we checked in on rap mogul and late night rabble rouser Sean Combs, who allegedly punched Steven Acevedo this past Sunday at an after hours club in SoHo. Currently The Daily News is reporting that Acevedo's lawyer stated his client doesn't want Combs to go to jail, however there are other reports stating Combs "is naive if he believes he can escape his latest accusations of assault with......