At first it looked like Russian emigre Eugene Perchikov committed the perfect murder, twice. Right out of an old school playbook, Perchikov would, allegedly, seduce women into getting multiple life insurance policies with him as the beneficiary and then kill them using a poison, norepinephrine, that wouldn't show up in tissue tests (he had medical training). It worked as planned, until a pesky lawyer for the estate of his first victim, Larysa Vasserman, noticed that Perchikov's playbook was actually cribbed from a story he had written himself in a self-published volume under the penname Eugene Pepperou. more ›

A South Asian immigrant on his way home in Bensonhurst was beaten to death around 5:30 p.m. yesterday. The victim, whose name was "Jayanth" according to his roommate, was taken to Coney Island Hospital after the attack, but died from the injuries. Though the Daily News says he was walking home from his job, his roommate tells WPIX he lost his job at KFC two months ago. The victim had been in the country for about six months, and his roommate said, "I don't know who would do this. We're in shock." Police do not believe the killing was a hate crime. more ›

After one Mexican immigrant was attacked with a baseball bat in Port Richmond a few weeks ago, NY1 reports that two other Mexican men were attacked in the same way this past month, one on Clove Road on April 10th and the other on Castleton Avenue this past Sunday. Project Hospitality spokesman Terry Troia said, "You ask the question, why this level of violence? Why are Mexicans being targeted? Is this anti-immigrant, is this bias against Mexicans?...it's instilled fear in the community." Police don't believe the attacks are connected, and are only calling the attack against Rodolfo Olmedo a hate crime since racial slurs were not used in the other two attacks. more ›

Save Ellis Island started up in 1999, partnering with the Parks Service to fix up the site's historic architecture. In 2007 preservationists completed work on the Art Deco style Ferry Building and they've more than half finished the Laundry/Hopital Outbuilding, where immigrants' sheets were washed. To renovate the island's other 27 buildings will cost an additional $350 million. more ›

A Richmond Hill man is accused of pretending to be an immigration officer so he could pull off $1.75 million of green card and real estate scams that exploited 19 West Indian immigrants. Shane Ramsundar, 50, allegedly dressed like an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer—armed with an air gun and a fake badge—and convinced immigrants he could help them buy property or become legal residents. more ›

And now, your daily reminder to be careful when Internet dating: Long Island resident Samina Khan has annulled her marriage with Farrukh Khan, a Pakistani immigrant who had been in need of a green card, after allegedly finding out he was gay, reports the Post. She met her husband on a Muslim dating site, where he claimed to be a "network engineer" earning $100k a year. However, Khan said, "The day after the [marriage] paperwork was in, he just ignored me." more ›

Days after Governor Paterson pardoned him for crimes he committed as a youth, Qing Hong Wu was released from a NJ immigration facility—without being told about the pardon. The NY Times reports that since Wu had no cash or a cellphone, he walked from the Port Authority to his cousin's apartment on Spring Street, "It was a great hour. Even though I was tired, I was so happy. I thought immigration made a mistake, so I figured I’d enjoy it before they come and get me." more ›

A Jackson Heights woman has been ordered to pay $3 million in penalties and restitution for convincing illegal immigrants to give her money in exchange for helping them become citizens, then doing nothing on their behalf. The State Supreme Court ruling comes after Attorney General, and still undeclared gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against Miriam Mercedes Hernandez for swindling undocumented immigrants out of up to $15,000 each in Green Card and citizenship scams. more ›

A Moroccan immigrant claims he has been barred from becoming a police officer because he's a Muslim and because he was not born in America. After passing the police exam in 2006 with a score of 85.6—"well above the passing grade"—Said Hajem's application "has been suspended in bureaucratic limbo," the Times reports. According to Hajem, that's because an officer reviewing his paperwork sabotaged his application because he didn't want people from "other countries" joining the NYPD. more ›

The push to shut down a little-known immigrant jail in the West Village has been complicated due to the poor health of detainees—some of whom allege their medical problems have been overlooked by jail officials. Though Friday marks "the official end of detention operations" at the Varick Federal Detention Facility with the scheduled transfer of the remaining 300 detainees to New Jersey, authorities have struggled to find new places to hold non-citizens with illnesses and mental problems, the Times reports. And more detainees are arriving every day. more ›

A Queens man is accused of ripping out a woman's heart and lungs after she turned down his romantic advances and didn't find him a job, according to investigators. After harassing 46-year-old victim Qian Wu for years, 47-year-old suspect Huang Chen is accused of bludgeoning and stabbing her to death and removing her organs, which have not been recovered. more ›

A storefront pastor has been sentenced to two to six years in prison after swindling more than 100 immigrants with promises of U.S. visas and green cards. Gregorio Gonzalez, 57, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to collecting more than $840,000, mainly from Ecuadorian immigrants who visited him at the Iglesia Pentecostal Roca de Salvacion Eterna in Corona, according to 1010WINS. "He took our money," 27-year-old office cleaner Viviana Ordonez told the Daily News. "He took our trust in him. We right now have nothing. We don't have hope. We want justice." After Gonzalez gets out of prison, he will face deportation proceedings. more ›

A federal judge has issued a $6.8 million judgment against a Russian immigrant suspected of murdering two lonely NY women for their insurance money. In both cases he may have killed them using an undetectable fatal drug, a technique he described in a self-published work of fiction. more ›

There are very few statues of women in New York City, but one on Ellis Island is of Annie Moore — believed to be the first immigrant to set foot there on January 1st, 1892. Little was known about Moore, and what happened to her after she came New York; until now it was believed she died in a car accident after moving Texas. more ›

In an attempt to punish day laborers and those who employ them, the town of Oyster Bay had implemented a controversial law that immigrant rights activists say makes it illegal to "Wave While Latino." The new legislation imposes fines of $250 on people who solicit employment, which "includes, but is not limited to, shouting at cars, waving arms or signs, making hand signals, approaching motor vehicles or standing in public roads facing in the direction of oncoming traffic," according to the Times. more ›

Life in a notoriously squalid Chinatown boarding house only got worse after the city tried to bring the building at 81 Bowery up to code, the Village Voice reports. For years, poor immigrant tenants have paid around $100 a month for tiny cubicles on the kitchen-less fourth floor of the lodging house, where they share two shower stalls, a urinal, and four toilets. But after the city evacuated tenants last year because of fire code violations, the landlord tore down the tenants' handmade partitions, which blocked the sprinklers but had given residents a slight sense of privacy. more ›

A Mexican day laborer is hospitalized with brain damage after being attacked somewhere in Williamsburg or Bushwick by three black men shouting "wetback." Mario Vera was riding his bike back home to Bushwick with groceries from a lower Manhattan food pantry when the young men hit him in the back of his head "with something hard" while yelling anti-immigrant slurs. The assault happened on September 23rd, but wasn't reported until last Friday, because Vera is an undocumented immigrant afraid to go to the police. (NYPD policy prohibits officers from sharing law-abiding immigrants' status with the Feds, but it has been known to happen.) more ›

The NY Times looks at recent census data that suggests an interesting trend in Chinese, Korean and Indian families in America: "If the first child was a girl, it was more likely that a second child would be a boy... If the first two children were girls, it was even more likely that a third child would be male. Demographers say the statistical deviation among Asian-American families is significant, and they believe it reflects not only a preference for male children, but a growing tendency for these families to embrace sex-selection techniques, like in vitro fertilization and sperm sorting, or abortion." CUNY's Joyce Moy says even younger immigrants have held onto the idea that "Families depend on the male child for support," while Dr. Norbert Gleicher, director of a "fertility and sex-selection clinic in New York and Chicago, said that from his experience, people were more inclined to want female children, except for Asians and Middle Easterners." more ›

Now that U.S. Court of Appeals judge—and Bronx native—Sonia Sotomayor has been nominated to the Supreme Court, her fellow New Yorkers are rejoicing. Mayor Bloomberg issued a statement noting that he had told President Obama that "Sonia Sotomayor would be an outstanding choice for the Supreme Court, and people whose legal opinions I greatly respect speak very highly of her," and also said, "She has been an incredibly good federal judge, and having risen from humble beginnings in the Bronx, she brings a perspective that will serve the Court - and our nation - very well. Her story is a perfect example of the kind of opportunity that is available in this City - and this country - to those who devote themselves to their dreams. Judge Sotomayor was first recommended to the federal bench by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan - and of all his great legacies, she may prove to be one of the most important.” more ›

Sorry, poor elderly, disabled and/or blind legal residents of New York State; the Court of Appeals has ruled that you're still limited to $352 a month in public aid, about half of what lower courts ruled you should get. Of course, since many of you have died since lawyers filed the class action lawsuit in 2004, Tuesday's decision might not matter much. But thousands of poor legal immigrants desperate for public assistance are shattered by the 5-2 ruling, which held that the state had no duty to fill in for a federal program that ended benefits to most disabled legal immigrants in 1996. Since the early '50s, legal NY residents who fell on hard times were entitled to a higher level of aid if they were elderly, blind or disabled, but when D.C. took over the program in the '70s, the state supplemented the benefit to reach the higher level it had set earlier. That's over now. The NY Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance applauded the ruling, saying it could save the state and local governments $100-270 million. But in a strongly worded dissent, two judges wrote that "the majority today has turned its back on the history of New York’s commitment to protect its most fragile and vulnerable populations." more ›

Yesterday, friends, family, and others gathered for the funeral of 49-year-old Esmin Green, whose death in a Kings County Hospital emergency room was captured on surveillance video. Green, who had been waiting for almost 24 hours for medical attention, had collapsed onto the floor; though many staffers saw her on the floor, nothing was done until a nurse (who kicked her gently) realized she was unconscious an hour later. more ›