Results tagged “fit”

The two Fashion Institute of Technology students who were busted last December for coke dealing (to undercover cops, no less) were given probation for their felony cocaine possession raps. However, Mackenzie Dippenworth was unhappy with being branded a felon, saying, "It's the ugliest, most disgusting word in the entire language," adding, "I look in here, and I don't see a felon. I don't. I see a girl who made a mistake."

Earlier this year a reader spotted a tourist group coming off the Bedford Avenue L in Williamsburg. So it shouldn't come as too much of a shock that there's now a course at FIT called "Williamsburg, The New Style Frontier." Or at least, there was on October 24th.

The two young women who were busted for scoring cocaine at Chelsea nightclubs and accused of reselling it throughout their FIT dorms look like they might have run into some good fortune due to some admitted sloppiness by the DA's office. Mickenzie Dippenworth and Christine Scafa turned down plea bargains of six months in jail for last November's coke bust. The Post reveals that investigators have admitted that they are missing $200 in "buy" money, transcripts of the contents of more than 15 text messages between the two women and the undercover cops who nailed them, and expense reports detailing how much buy money the undercovers put in their pockets. The pair have said that the cocaine sale was just the natural next step when meeting two undercover cops at the hotspot Home who claimed to be ultimate fighters and bragged about their penis sizes. The trial is set to begin this week.

The 23-year-old FIT student found dead in her family's Queens home on Sunday night was asphyxiated and the police are investigating her death as a murder. The Post suggests that a recent Facebook message might suggest "a potential stalker": Carmen Saldana had written, "Ain't that a shame. The guy that does like me I don't like but won't leave me alone and the guy that I do like has no clue I like him lol. I think I'll survive lol."

Last night, the body of a 23-year-old woman was found in her family's Queens home on 30th Avenue. WABC 7 reports, "Authorities say the lock on the front door was broken, and that it appears someone broke in" and "there were brusies all over the body" of Carmen Saldana, a student at FIT. Saldana's mother apparently made the discovery after coming home from cleaning homes in the Hamptons. A cousin told WCBS 2, "Her mother came in and saw the lights on in her room. She called her. She went into her room and touched her feet and they were cold." The cousin also suggested that she was sexually assaulted. And according to the Daily News, "Saldana grew up in the quiet neighborhood and recently moved back in with her mother after breaking up with her boyfriend."

     

"We have to make bicycling fun and elegant, which it is not yet in New York!" declares Renaud Dutreil, a big shot at luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. Dutreil rides a bike to his office on East 57th Street almost every day, and he thinks more people would do likewise if there was only a fashion alternative to the dominant DIY style of ripped jeans, tattoos, and Bushwick-bound butt cleavage.

Today's New York Post did not take the bait and offer up its whole cover to the swine flu outbreak (though their headline writers did rename it "pig flu," as is their duty). That's because they had to leave some room to promote today's feature on the city's "hottest" college students. The spread is to help promote a new magazine launching called The College Gossip Chronicles, whose publisher says, "We wanted to photograph interesting, hot people that make going to school in New York City so awesome." The Post says that the hot co-eds they discovered turned up some surprises such as "multiple, sultry shots from buttoned-up Catholic university Fordham." And if ogling over a set of barely legals stripped down in their dorm rooms gives you reason to pause, one FIT student photographed assures us, "New York college students are more mature. When you're a student here, you're automatically an adult."

The undercover cops who set up the bust of two FIT students for selling them cocaine apparently knew the quickest way to the young women's hearts—they complimented their cleavage. That was one of several details offered by accused dealers Mickenzie Dippenworth and Christine Scafa in their defense that the sting was set up by a month-long seduction by the undercover officers "Chris" and "Jack" (they all met at a Chelsea club). The women also say that the cops bragged about being Ultimate Fighters and boasted of their penis size. On the night of the actual bust, the Post reports Dippenworth's lawyer's claim that: "at 1:30 a.m., one of the undercovers 'initiated a request for cocaine.' When Dippenworth gave him the little left of her stash, the undercover 'literally pushed $100 to the defendant and insisted that she take the money.'" The two young women are due back in court in a little under a month for the charges of selling a total of 11 grams of cocaine for $1,280.

The two FIT students arrested last month for dealing cocaine say that they were just hooking friends up, not really dealing the drug. Seniors Mickenzie Dippenworth and Christine Scafa pleaded not guilty in court yesterday to drug-sale charges. They were arrested after allegedly selling coke to two undercover cops they met at the Chelsea nightclub Home near their FIT dorms. But a statement in court yesterday fro Scafa stated, "The only time that she supplied cocaine to anyone else is her friends. She did not turn a profit and only did it to 'hook up' her friends." Scafa claims that she began using cocaine as a freshman with DIppenworth. As for Dippenworth, her alibi was "that she made $80 once from selling drugs and that was her first time." Cops say the pair sold them a little under $1300 in cocaine. If convicted, they could face up to 25 years. The two young women—along with their accused supplier Raymond Alameda—will be back in court in March.

The father of one of the two FIT students busted for dealing cocaine says that she's getting a bum rap. Mickenzie Dippenworth's father Charles tells the Post, "OK, yes, she did something wrong. Does that merit what has taken place? That's what my taxpayer dollars are going to? I really don't understand. There's a hell of a lot more problems." Dippenworth stands by his daughter who "has sworn to him ten times" that she only dealt to the undercover cop who led to her arrest and not to anyone else. His daughter had previously been on probation after police in her Maryland hometown responded to the fourth noise complaint made by neighbors and discovered a party with around 50 juveniles and young adults drinking while Dippenworth's parents were upstairs sleeping.

The FIT students who were giggly after being busted for running a coke ring in their dorm room were serious after appearing in court. The NY Post reports that Christine Scafa and Mickenzie DIppenworth "sulked out" of the courthouse. The DA's office said after initially selling coke to an undercover cop at the W. 27th Street club Home, the students (along with alleged dealer Raymond Alameda) "hawk[ed] 'zips,' or ounces, and 'eight balls,' or one-eighth ounces, of blow for up to $400" out of the women's dorm room, until "Scafa became suspicious of a new buyer, actually an undercover cop, and refused to give him the product, even though he forked over $100." A fellow student told the Daily News, "It's sad to hear people are selling coke here. I've had too many friends who've gone down because of it with ruined lives and squandered potential." Flashback: NYU's Pot Princess, who did eventually release a single.

As two young women were led out of FIT student housing in handcuffs last night after getting busted for running a coke ring, the only emotions revealed from their faces came from having a case of the giggles. When they spotted reporters out front of their West 31st Street dorms following the arrests of the two as well as their supplier on multiple counts of cocaine possession and sale, 22-year-old Christine Scafa laughed and said, "Oh my God, are you guys serious? We're not Plaxico Burress!" This triggered her 21-year-old partner in crime Mickenzie Dippenworth to zing back, "Well, I'm a Plaxico Burress fan." Like her fallen idol, Dippenworth was no stranger to the city club scene, where she originally sold cocaine to an undercover cop at nearby hotspot Home. That led to a series of undercover purchases as police gathered evidence of the two dealing to a number of fellow FIT students. The Post says that both were from "very good backgrounds:" Scafa ran in this year's NYC Marathon and Dippenworth was once a girl scout. UPDATE: FIT's president sent an email to the school community: "this situation appears to be an isolated incident and involves no others on campus."

A Manhattan gym is now charging $110 for personal training sessions that incorporate video games into the workout. According to the Post, trainers like Dorothy Evans at Gravity Fitness have started using Nintendo Wii Sport games like boxing, tennis, golf and dodge ball. Evans swears it can provide a full body workout: "You'd be surprised. It may have little to do with the real sports, but we get people's heart rates up to 140 to 150 beats per minute – although some of that may just be the excitement of the game."