Police are investigating the suspected robbery of a 26-year-old man who was found naked and badly burned in the lobby of a Polo Grounds building at 8th Ave. and 155th St. in Manhattan. Trevor Lyons' clothes were found on the 16th floor of the building, where it appears he was attacked at about 8 a.m. Saturday morning. Lyons was attending what the Daily News described as a "drug-fueled party" in the building. He is not......

Saturday night, after putting out a car fire near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, firefighters found two bodies in the trunk. The ME's office says they were victims of "homicidal violence, including blunt-force trauma of the head," before being burned. The owner of the now-burnt Porsche SUV and one of the victims was father of two Siaka Kone, the Daily News reports. Kone, a businessman from the Ivory Coast who lived in Harlem, owned a......

Last October, a fire was started outside the Engine 34/Ladder 21 firehouse on West 38th Street. The fire was put out, but upon investigation, it turned out the ones who set it were firefighters from different firehouses! A surveillance cameras actually captured Michael Izzo and Richard Capece purchasing the gasoline at a gas station and later splashing the stationhouse's garage door and igniting it, setting off what was described as a fireball. The pair were......

In the past few days, some young teenagers have been arrested for some alarming crimes. Yesterday afternoon, a 13-year-old girl allegedly set fire to some papers in a classroom, causing a fire that injured six people. And a few days before that, a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old were arrested for killing an 18-year-old! The fire at Brooklyn's I.S. 228 was called in around 5:30PM. Investigators say the girl had been "playing with a cigarette lighter"......

Peter Braunstein really loves the New York Post. The fashion industry reporter-turned-prison inmate, after being recently convicted of the kidnapping, sex assault, armed robbery and burglary of a former co-worker on Halloween in 2005, gives his first interview since being locked up this past summer to the tabloid. He gives a number of choice quotes to the Post, who calls him "still-crazy." And how! Not only does he regret not killing his ex-girlfriend Jane......

This is not good timing for the Fire Department. Yesterday, two police officers noticed a fire in a West Farms house and saved its seven residents. Then, noticing that the house next door was on fire, the two cops evacuated five more people. One of the officers, Chris Scott, said that the the FDNY showed up during the second fire, and the residents lauded their efforts. Judy Ramdeen said, "They rushed into a burning building......

A couple trapped in their burning apartment at the Bronxdale houses was rescued by firefighters. And it turns out the husband was the one who started the fire. Fifty-two-year-old Abraham Serrano confessed that he and his wife had gotten into a fight, so he lit a piece of paper on fire and then set many other objects in a bedroom on fire. Neighbors called 911, and firefighters responded. Seven people, including Serrano's wife, were injured;......

An argument escalated into arson and then a murder-suicide, all in front of a small child, in Borough Park early yesterday morning. After setting their apartment on fire, police say that Christopher Flynn shot his girlfriend Christina Scarabaggio and then turned the gun on himself. Scarabaggio's 4-year-old daughter Bianca Perez was found crying over her mother's body outside. Flynn, who had a history of drug arrests, and Scarabaggio, a nursing student, had been dating for......

An investigation into a fire at a seniors housing complex in Yonkers revealed a case or arson and then murder. WNBC reports that the Westchester County medical examiner's office announced that 78-year-old Louise Paciarello was strangled to death before her residence at the Kristensen Homes was set on fire Wednesday. Investigators initially thought the fire was suspicious because they found two points of origin for the blaze. Paciarello had lived at the seniors housing complex......

Peter Braunstein, the journalist who disguised himself as a firefighter and then sexually assaulted a colleague while holding her captive for 12 hours, gives his first post-conviction, post-sentencing interview to WABC 7's Bill Ritter for Friday night's 20/20. WABC 7 offered this excerpt, which seems to have Braunstein explaining that he didn't intend to do anything criminal:Peter Braunstein: "I didn't really do anything in rape or murder her ... even the lowest form of criminal......

After scaring residents of two boroughs when a woman discovered a pipe bomb on her Jeep Cherokee, police arrested Baudelio Rodriguez for making a pipe bomb and placing it on a car. What makes the story more strange is that it was Rodriguez's daughter who discovered the bomb - the Jeep belongs to his daughter and his wife! He was reportedly angry at his wife for leaving their Brooklyn home and staying with their daughter......

Some more details about the stink bomb incident at the Shepard Fairey show Thursday night. Twenty-four-year-old Alan Cooper of Bushwick was arrested for attempted arson, after he tried to set off a stink bomb in a DUMBO gallery. Cooper was acting with an accomplice, who got away. From the Daily News:Cops later led Cooper away in cuffs, but not before the artist, Shepard Fairey, confronted him. "I put a lot of time and energy......

At around 11pm we got a text message from a friend at the Shepard Fairey opening in DUMBO, saying that the "Splasher got caught at the show tonight". So far the information we're hearing is that two guys attempted to set off a stink bomb at the show, but were stopped by security. It remains to be seen if the stink-bombers are the same guys who set off a stink bomb at the Faile......

When we last left our anti-hero Tommy Gavin he was drugged and out cold burning in a house on Long Island thanks to Sheila, the wife of his dead cousin who was quite angry after Tommy decided not to retire. In tonight's return, Tommy is accused of arson and insurance fraud, may or may not be the father of the baby of his estranged wife who he is living with and has to face the......

After the verdict finding Peter Braunstein guilty on 14 of 15 counts related to his 13-hour attack on a woman in her Chelsea apartment, some of the jurors spoke to the media. The jurors took less than four hours to come to their decision and revealed they never bought into the defense claim that Braunstein, a former journalist who was undergoing some personal and professional crises at the time of the Halloween 2005 attack, was......

PM Update: The jury has found Braunstein guilty of 14 of the 15 charges. He was acquitted of the arson charge (the fire he started in order to convince the victim to open up her apartment door as he posed as a firefighter). Earlier: Yesterday, the prosecution and defense gave closing statements in the Peter Braunstein trial. The Daily News succinctly sums it up as: "Is he fiend or nut job?" Lawyers for Braunstein do......

“Another thought about the ongoing hysterical reaction in N.Y.C. that speaks to why I committed the crime(s) in the first place: the colossal sense of entitlement that only New Yorkers have. It’s not just that the crime clearly violated every Gotham taboo and pushed every conceivable button." - From the diary of Peter Braunstein The trial of Peter Braunstein, the journalist who sexually assaulted a colleague for 13 hours in 2005 and then went on......

A year ago, the Fire Department was trying to put out the massive ten-alarm blaze at the Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse. It took a day and a half for the FDNY to control the fire. A homeless man, Leszek Kuczera, apparently started the blaze while trying to burn insulation off copper wire, only for him to get off with a plea agreement. Of course, the convenience of Kuczera as a fall guy who didn't even......

While boldly trying to rob an apartment in Hollis, Queens on Thursday, Robert Williams was arrested after a scuffle with residents. And when police brought him to the station, a sergeant realized he was the prime suspect in the Hamilton Heights rape case, where a 23-year-old Columbia graduate student was raped and tortured for 19 hours last weekend. Williams was charged with kidnapping, arson, attempted murder, rape, robbery and sex abuse. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly......

A crazy confrontation occurred yesterday morning at the Lillian Wald Houses in the East Village. Eighty-two (or 84) -year-old Rosa Rodriguez opened her apartment door to a 60-year-old neighbor, Martha Lugo. Lugo asked for change for $10, and then things went downhill from there. According to Rodriguez's niece Margarita DeLeon, Lugo borrowed money from Rodriguez many times, all without paying, which had started an argument between the two. Lugo said, "Lady, I'm going to kill......

A fire that raged through a Bronx building and claimed a 2-year-old's life was actually arson. Amanda Adgivon had been sleeping yesterday morning when her downstairs neighbor, Sharon Scott, decided to set her boyfriend on fire. Scott poured nail-polish remover on the bed and lit it while James Hicks was sleeping. Hicks woke up and was able to leave the apartment with Scott, but the fire shot towards the ceiling and the Adgivon apartment. Komi......

Yesterday, authorities arrested a 26 year old man for causing 18 rubbish fires in Queens. Kareem Walters was spotted in a crowd of people watching a Rego Park fire around 1:20AM yesterday. The Daily News reports that Captain John Abbruzzese "recognized him from other blazes in nearby Maspeth," so fire marshals questioned Walters. Walters then admitted to the arson, saying he enjoyed watching cars and buildings on fire and how the fire department responded to......

Some new details about why an angry Kennedy Fried Chicken owner burned down his neighbor-turned-competitor's store in the Bronx. The owner-arsonist, Kabeer Ahmad, says he was drunk. Shocking! The court documents have Ahmad stating, "I went out drinking last night [New Year's Eve] and after I got drunk I went to the store at 870 Hunts Point Avenue about 3 a.m. and told the customers and employees that the store was closing and that everyone......

When you hear that a restaurant is burning, you think grease fire. But in the case of a Bronx establishment, it was actually arson - by way of a next-door neighbor/business rival! A Kennedy Fried Chicken owner decided enough was enough when his neighbor, a Twin Donut owner, started to sell cheaper fried chicken. So the Kennedy Fried Chicken owner Kabeer Ahmad "hammered a hole in the wall between the two stores, sprayed in some......

Before the trial was supposed to begin, it was announced that the two men on trial for the murder of three students during a massive dorm fire had accepted a plea deal yesterday. In exchange for prosecutors dropping the murder charges, Joseph T. LePore and Sean Michael Ryan pleaded guilty to arson and witness tampering (which have five year sentences) in the January 19, 2000 Seton Hall fire case. The fire at Boland Hall......

It has been almost a year since tabloid-it-boy Peter Braunstein allegedly dressed as a fireman in order to break into the apartment of, and sexually abuse for 13 hours, a former co-worker on Halloween. So it would seem to be about time for some new news on the perp, and the Associated Press delivers. Yesterday Braunstein was given a one-year sentence yesterday after he pled guilty to skipping out on his three-year probation while......

Back in July, a suspicious fire claimed two lives after it had spread from one home in Jamaica Queens to four others. The owner of the building where the fire originated had been having a dispute with tenants who had stopped paying their apartment's rent after two months. He eventually evicted them, but police suspected the tenants were involved with the fire. Now, the Queens DA's office has charged the friend of the tenants with......

In June, it was determined the massive Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse fire in May had been set by homeless men looking for copper wire to sell, and Polish immigrant Leszek Kuczera was charged with arson. Though there had been some questions about whether Kuczera was involved, his case is being heard in court. The NY Times reports that deals have been discussed and, more unusually, the judge in the case took time to speak with the......

The city is mourning the deaths of two firefighters who helped fight a Bronx building fire on Sunday. Following Sunday's death of probie firefighter Michael Reilly, 20-year FDNY veteran Lieutenant Howard Carpluk Jr. died yesterday after being hospitalized for his injuries. Investigators are now examining the three-alarm fire, which the NY Times describes as a routine call that turned into disaster. At first, it was thought that a heavy rooftop air-conditioning unit fell through the......

If They Come For You In The Morning: A Benefit Art Show for Daniel McGowan, will be held tonight at ABC No Rio (who now own their building!). The show will raise money for the legal defense of local activist Daniel McGowan, who was arrested last December during Operation Backfire, a multi-state sweep of environmental activists who have now been charged with virtually every unsolved earth and animal liberation case in the Northwest. He is......