Yesterday Mayor Bloomberg vocally spoke out against a judge who released without bail Lamont Pride, the 27-year-old charged with fatally shooting Officer Peter Figoski during a robbery early Monday morning. Today Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes and a spokesman for the New York courts lashed back at hizzoner for throwing the blame around. "It's not unusual," Hynes said. "Judges have complete discretion on how they assess bail." more ›

Beyond general violence, spit is a serious job hazard of the urban transit worker—just ask the bus driver who got 60 days off after being expectorated on—so naturally something must be done to keep transit workers from facing the wet brunt of straphanger rage. In London and Boston transit workers are given DNA kits to preserve fluid samples in case unruly passengers spit on them, and now, according to the Daily News, the Brooklyn DA wants New York to follow suit. more ›

An appeals court has decided that Levi Aron, accused of killing and chopping up a young Hasidic boy, will face trial in Brooklyn, where the boy went missing and was killed, and not in Suffolk County or the Bronx, where his lawyers say he might have had a fair shot. more ›

Before 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky was abducted and killed last month the young boy wandered the streets of Borough Park alone, trying to find a way home and unsure who to turn to. And that is something the Brooklyn DA never wants to happen again. And so his office has gone and launched its new "Safe Stop" program to help businesses help those in need. At the program's launch yesterday 77 businesses in Brooklyn had signed up for the initiative. If it does well, the DA hopes the idea will spread to the other four boroughs. more ›

If you're wondering why stretch Hummers' tinted windows seem extra black today, it's because a Sheepshead Bay prostitution ring that billed clients more than $10,000 a night has been busted. The Post reports that 17 people and 5 corporations have been indicted in the sting. The service also offered cocaine with their pricey ladies, because when you're paying 10 large a night, you better be able to act as quickly as you can. more ›

Levi Aron's attorneys have alluded that they will use an insanity plea to defend him against the allegations (and his own written and video confessions) that he kidnapped, suffocated, and dismembered 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky. Yesterday, after he spent 20 minutes with the Kletzky family, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes shrugged off the defense's claims, saying, "Sometimes I wonder about what goes through defense lawyers' minds." Hynes also told the Daily News that he "wanted to make a personal commitment that every resource of this office will be used to make sure the issue is resolved in a way that is appropriate." more ›

Four Brooklyn men were indicted on charges ranging from rape to sex trafficking a woman—and the Brooklyn DA's office says the assault on the victim began when she was just 13 and then terrorized her into continuing to meet with them until she was 21. It was only after they threatened to harm a member of her family that the woman, who managed to complete high school and enter college, finally told her college professor, a former Brooklyn DA, about the attacks last year. The professor said, "It's hard to imagine something more terrible than this." more ›

Police are searching for a scam artist claiming to be a Brooklyn real estate agent. Cops say the man has struck at least eight times in Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, "showing" apartments in buildings under construction to prospective renters, making them sign a fake lease and taking their cash security deposit before disappearing (a familiar crime). But until they track him down, Brooklyn police will have their hands full with the 17 other people arrested and charged with various real estate crimes recently. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg has largely scoffed at accusations that the Sanitation Department engaged in a purposeful "slowdown" during the Blizzaggedon, as retaliation for budget cuts in the department. But after one of the blizzard blame hearings in Manhattan Beach on Wednesday, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes ripped into Bloomberg for "blowing off" the public hearing. more ›

Back in September, 10 people filed a $50 million lawsuit against the city, accusing the NYPD of using excessive force when breaking up a Labor Day party in East Flatbush. They say cops maced guests, called in a helicopter, and left many attendees with serious injuries, like James Hill here, who's got a nasty scar on his face. Now the Daily News reports that the Brooklyn DA is investigating claims that cops roughed up the revelers without provocation. more ›

Responding to outrage from Council Member Letitia James and the friends and family of Aileen McKay-Dalton, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office has announced an investigation into the crash that killed the Vespa-driving mother of three in Fort Greene last Thursday. At least three witnesses say the driver of the SUV that killed McKay-Dalton had sped through a red light, but the NYPD decided that no criminality was involved. The NYPD's decision was particularly suspicious because the unidentified driver was reportedly a member of a federal law enforcement agency. more ›

Jabbar Collins was freed yesterday after 15 years in prison. A day earlier, a judge had overturned his 1995 murder conviction after evidence that the Brooklyn DA's office never turned over crucial information to the defense. Information like how one of three witnesses was allegedly threatened by the lead prosecutor to testify against Collins and how another witness testified after getting a deal from the DA's office in another case. Collins said outside his mother's Queens home with his family, "I can't even describe how good I feel right now. I'm dream-walking. ... I'm just happy to be home." more ›

Brooklyn residents Ariel and Joyce Soudry were found to be among 32 welfare cheaters in a recent crackdown, allegedly claiming benefits while holding up to $2 million in seven different bank accounts. The couple was arraigned yesterday on charges of welfare fraud and grand larceny, and appeared remorseless on their way into court—according to the Daily News, Ariel Soudry barked at the paparazzi: "Lowlifes—get a real job!" more ›

The slow wheels of justice, in action: The Post reports, "The Brooklyn DA lost a child-endangerment case against an allegedly sadistic bus matron before it even got started -- sitting on the charges so long that a judge yesterday tossed the matter altogether." Back in 2006, "Connie Clark, had been charged with allowing P.J. Rossi, a mute, 8-year-old autistic boy from Staten Island, to repeatedly smash his head against a bus window as she taunted him and cracked jokes with the driver." Rossi's mother had put a tape recorder in his backpack, and Clark was recorded saying, as the boy whimpered, "Owwww, shut up, shut up, shut up, you little dog." Rossi's father is furious and regrets, "Instead of going off like a psycho, I did the right thing. I brought it to the Brooklyn DA's Office. And from the day I left there, it was mishandled." Even Clark's own lawyer said, "This case was blown by the DA's Office." more ›

Bored, itinerant law interns are the latest side effect of the recession. The NY Times takes a look today inside the summer internship programs at Brooklyn's district attorney's office and finds packs of unpaid law students roaming the hallways, struggling to find desks, chairs, and jobs. As an anonymous intern tells the Times, "It’s much harder for them to find stuff for us to do...Definitely some people feel they haven’t done anything." At least they're getting a chance to brush up on their puzzle skills, though, as the Times notes "other interns pass the hours doing crossword puzzles or playing games on the computer." (To be fair, that happens with interns regardless of the economic climate.) What's causing this epidemic of lawyerly lassitude? The reduction in summer hires by private firms, which has shifted swarms of students into a public sector that can barely absorb them. As a result, competition increases for everything from assignments to eventual job offers to even intramurals—in the one of the few bright spots to a down economy, the Brooklyn DA office softball league now has plenty of intern talent to pick from. more ›

The Brooklyn DA's office charged a Staten Island doctor with illegally providing steroids to bodybuilders and weightlifters. Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes says that Dr. Richard Lucente, who has a clinic on S.I.,"wrote prescriptions to patients who had no medical need for them, then steered them to a pharmacy in return for $30,000 in kickbacks." That pharmacy is Lowen's in Bay Ridge; its pharmacist Joseph Rossi killed himself last year during the probe. Lucente ultimately made $500,000 from 220 clients. The Staten Island Advance notes that the death of bodybuilder Joseph Baglio is at the center of the case. Baglio was also heart transplant recipient and his heart gave out during a competition; "Prosecutors charge Lucente began prescribing Baglio steroids and human growth hormone in 2005, and continued to do so after Baglio's heart transplant in late 2006." more ›

Detectives from the Brooklyn DA's office must have felt like they were in an episode of Cribs when they went through the belongings of an MTA supervisor suspected of taking kickbacks. When they arrived at the Flatlands home of Jacqueline Jackson, the agency's director of legal support, they found five flat screen televisions, five fur coats and a Mercedes parked in the driveway (for when her Lincoln Navigator is in the shop). In case she ever got bored in the tub, one of those flat screens was in the bathroom. Jackson, whose annual salary is $83,000, is suspended as the DA and the MTA inspector general look into whether she inflated bills submitted by a Brooklyn company and made off with the difference. Her lawyer told the News, "Time will prove her vindication," while a neighbor offered, "She's living large." more ›

Whether or not a jury finds NYPD officer Richard Kern guilty of sodomizing tattoo artist Michael Mineo with a baton after he resisted arrest in the Prospect Park subway station in October, the incident could cost tax payers as much as $200 million. Aside from the criminal case being prosecuted against Kern and two other officers, Mineo is pursuing compensation for his injuries in civil court, where his lawyers have filed a notice of claim seeking $200 million in damages from the city, the NYPD, and the officers involved. In an exclusive, NY1 reports that officials are currently evaluating the legal papers... and wondering how they're going to come up with that kind of money. more ›

Here's a lede you don't see every day, courtesy the NY Times: "A New York City patrolman used his baton to sodomize a man in a subway station, and two complicit colleagues helped him cover it up, the Brooklyn district attorney charged on Tuesday as he unsealed indictments against three police officers. Using graphic detail, the district attorney described an attack that he said left the man, Michael Mineo, with a gashed anus and blood on his hands." (We'll miss you when you're gone, paper of record.) more ›

Early this morning, the three police officers facing charges related to allegations that they beat and sodomized a man on a subway platform turned themselves in to the Brooklyn DA's office. The three will be arraigned this afternoon. DA Charles Hynes detailed the indictments against the cops: Police Officer Richard Kern was indicted on charges including "aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and hindering an investigation" while "Andrew Morales and Alex Cruz were also charged with hindering the investigation." more ›

Last week, Doreen Giuliano revealed that, after transforming herself from 46-year-old Brooklyn mother to a sexy and single 30-something transplant from California, she recorded conversations with a juror who helped convict her son John Giuca of murder--and that the juror implied he should never have been on the case! Now those conversations are the basis for a motion to overturn the verdict filed by Giuca's lawyer yesterday. The NY Times reports that the motion says juror Jason "Allo failed to reveal to the court that he knew members of the so-called Ghetto Mafia, a gang that figured prominently in the trial...The court papers also accuse Mr. Allo of reading newspaper accounts during the trial, and of being 'the first one on the jury' to vote guilty, because of information he had gathered outside the courtroom." Allo has denied the claims and the Brooklyn DA's office, whose prosecution Giuliano and even the murder victim's family have criticized, says it "will carefully review the papers and will have nothing to say until that process is completed.” more ›

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 how one moment she's crying, the next she's composed, suggesting Santiago was acting when she eventually called 911. The jury may start deliberating next week. more ›

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 week, the AP looked at how the trial " raised the question of whether mothers should be held to a higher standard than fathers at a time when traditional gender roles in the home are changing." The Brooklyn DA's point is that Santiago left Nixzmary to die after her husband administered a brutal beating. more ›

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." more ›

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. more ›

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 believed her husband was doing that ... whether the allegations are true or not, it goes to her state of mind." Stepfather Cesar Rodriguez's defense had been that Santiago directly caused the child's death. more ›

Court papers obtained by the NY Post reveal that two Brooklyn Legal Aid defense attorneys were involved in a physical altercation outside Boat Bar in Cobble Hill after one of them urinated on the floor inside the bar. The incident occurred earlier this summer after Legal Aids Brendan Relyea and Michael Pate went outside the bar after Relyea relieved himself on the floor rather than wait on a long bathroom line. When they were encouraged to leave by former prosecutor Matthew Knouff, their response was to punch Knouff out and fling him into a roll-down gate. Knouff is no stranger to drunken mischief himself, having been suspended since 2006 after he threw a brick through a car windshield following the DA's office Christmas party. Pate and Relyea were charged with assault, menacing and harassment and Relyea with public urination. more ›

On Saturday, the NYPD collected illegal, working guns at six Brooklyn churches in hopes of making the streets safer. The Brooklyn DA's office was offering a $200 cash card per weapon (limit of three), and DA Charles Hynes said, "I think we're going to run out of money today, that's my hope. And if we do, then I'm going to ask the police commissioner to do it again." NY1 reported they took in nearly 700 weapons, including 12 assault weapons. Though some people reported complained about how long the exchange took (cops had to check the weapons), the NY Times says "most praised the program." more ›

In an extremely embarrassing incident for the Brooklyn DA's office, an audio technician taped over a statement made by a cop killer while in custody. The DA's office will now have to rely on a detective's notes taken during that statement and the videotape recorded during a follow-up interview with suspect Robert Ellis. more ›

If a bank teller told you had an unknown bank account with $5.8 million in it and the bank insisted it's yours, wouldn't you spend it? That's what Brooklyn resident Benjamin Lovell did - and now he's paying. more ›