It's one thing to give out holiday cards with donations to a fake charity, and it's an entirely other thing to fake your own daughter's death. A former city school employee has been accused of perpetrating just such an elaborate ruse in order to extend her Costa Rican vacation in March 2010—and she allegedly had her daughters help with the plot.
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Results tagged “costarica”
Report: City School Employee FAKED Daughter's Death For Vacation Time
Feed Your Mind: Banana Edition
Just how well do you know your morning snack? [Cue ominous music] Find out tonight at KGB Bar when Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, reads from his book. Koeppel’s dedication to unpeeling the history of the fruit (turns out it’s actually a berry) admirably resists puns like the one found at the beginning of this sentence, and what seems at first to be another “single item history” nonfiction food book (Potato, Salt, Beans, Caviar, Vanilla) at times brims with manic, even evangelical writing, but Koeppel has good reason: It turns out the modern banana crop is the lynchpin for more than a half dozen topical issues, everything from terrorism (including state-sponsored terrorism) to the locavore movement.
Fake Doctor Finally Pleads Guilty in Patient's Death
Over three years after Maria Cruz's death, Dean Faiello finally pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in her death. Faiello had posed as a doctor and was removing a growth from Cruz's tongue in April 2003. It's hard to decide what's more reprehensible: That Faiello was on cocaine while performing surgery or that after he realized Cruz had a reaction to lidocaine, he deliberately didn't take her to the hospital because he was already being investigated for practicing medicine without a license. Faiello had even called a doctor friend who said he should take Cruz to the hospital. Cruz died, and Faiello buried her body in the concrete floor basement of his basement in Newark.
Doug Stanhope, Comedian
My childhood is vague snapshots of memories that cannot be trusted. I remember trying to repeat some Bill Cosby bits back to my dad that I didn't even understand. I remember him laughing though, just at the fact that I had memorized them. He probably didn't get them either, now that I think of it. But I was always a big fan of stand-up until I started doing it and realized that most of it was a trick.
The World Cup Draw
It is the most watched sporting event in the world and while the US has participated the last four times, they are still viewed as novices in the sport the everyone else refers to as football.
Iraq, Argentina Leads the Way, Portugal Disappoints
Gothamist doesn't want to get in trouble here (one of us is marrying a Portuguese woman in October), but Portugal has done nothing but choke in big events in the last two years. First it was a disappointing run in the 2002 World Cup, losing to the U.S. on the way to an early departure. Then in this year's European Cup (hosted in Portugal) they lose to Greece in the finals and now they lose to Iraq in the Olympics. Now they have dug themselves into a huge hole. The way it stands right now, the best Portugal can hope for is a match in the first elimination round against Argentina.
Choice NY Post Pictures
In the more sensational case of the phony cosmetic surgeon suspected in the murder of a Manhattan woman whose body was found buried in concrete, two NYPD detectives were set to fly to Costa Rica to find the quack (above, right). The Post caught Detectives Brian Ford and Joe Buffolino, and while Gothamist salutes the job you do, the stereotype of NYPD officers being unmistakable does seem to fit. Suspect Dean Faiello was apprehended at a resort yesterday, and will be extradited shortly.
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There's Something in The Air
Last weekend, an American Airlines pilot used the PA system to discuss Christianity, namely, asking Christians on the LA-NY flight to raise their hands and suggesting that non-Christians aboard could ask them about their faith. This monologue, given right before takeoff, caused many passengers to call their families in fear and flight attendants had to reassure passengers that ground control knew what was said. An American spokesperson said, "It falls along the lines of a personal level of sharing that may not be appropriate for one of our employees to do while on the job." May not be appropriate? Yes, it's a pretty safe best that it's not appropriate to ask passengers to single out their religious beliefs on the plane. Hell, Gothamist just wants to throw a blanket over our heads and sleep most of the time. How about pilots just stick to jokes about the weather, giving us sports scores, and reassuring us while we passengers will try to behave?
The Advocate has an interview with the pilot, identified as Roger Findiesen. Findiesen explains that a braking problem that had been causing the crew some trouble prior to takeoff suddenly "disappeared," which then fueled his need to tell people about Christianity (he had also just come back from a mission in Costa Rica). Advocate's editor in chief, Bruce C. Steele, was on the flight and spoke to Findiesen after the flight; the Advocate stresses that Findiesen did not say anything about homosexuality or anything antigay, but notes that the in-flight movie was Under the Tuscan Sun, "with Diane Lane and Sandra Oh as Lane's lesbian best friend." [Thanks to reader M for telling about the interview]more ›
The Advocate has an interview with the pilot, identified as Roger Findiesen. Findiesen explains that a braking problem that had been causing the crew some trouble prior to takeoff suddenly "disappeared," which then fueled his need to tell people about Christianity (he had also just come back from a mission in Costa Rica). Advocate's editor in chief, Bruce C. Steele, was on the flight and spoke to Findiesen after the flight; the Advocate stresses that Findiesen did not say anything about homosexuality or anything antigay, but notes that the in-flight movie was Under the Tuscan Sun, "with Diane Lane and Sandra Oh as Lane's lesbian best friend." [Thanks to reader M for telling about the interview]
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