Results tagged “mercedesbenz”

Perhaps it's the high cost of fuel or the difficulty to find parking, but the arrival of the Smart car has some New Yorkers very excited. The compact car first made its debut in New York at the MoMA, but should be in showrooms in late January. Mercedes Benz parent company Daimler says that over 30,000 people have paid the $99 to reserve one of the $15,000 cars and The Post says many of the Smart cars are coming to NYC. One city resident even put the deposit down without driving the car, "I haven't even driven one, yet I am putting in a reservation. It's all somewhat irrational, but I had to have it."

Tenzing Bhutia, a 21-year-old Baruch College student, is being held on $75,000 bail after fatally driving into a young woman crossing Bowery near East 4th Street in Lower Manhattan. Bhutia did not stop after hitting Julia Thomson early Sunday morning, and when police found him - and his father's damaged Mercedes Benz in Queens - hours later, his blood alcohol was 0.087, above the 0.08 legal limit.

When David Clarke of Queens received information from a bank about a $180,000 second mortgage on his Rosedale house - a mortgage he never applied for - he decided to contact the police. And Queens authorities found a Brooklyn couple who had been using Clarke's identity to buy a home in Long Island. Yesterday, the Queens D.A.'s office charged Emerick and Donna Martin with identity theft, second-degree grand larceny, first-degree scheme to defraud and much more for scams that totaled $1 million. Here are the crazy details from the Queens D.A.'s press release:

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the charges, the defendants took out two mortgages, totaling $1,123,000, on a residence located at 266 Pine Acres Boulevard in Dix Hills, Long Island, using the name and social security number of the victim, David Clarke. Thereafter, on December 19, 2006, it is charged, the defendants, posing as David Clarke and Donna Clarke, and a third unapprehended individual, went to a Westbury, Long Island, mortgage broker and requested a second mortgage of $180,000 on the real Mr. Clarke’s Rosedale property. At the mortgage closing on January 11, 2007, the defendants allegedly presented a forged driver’s license in the name of David Clarke and completed the paperwork by supplying the actual loan number, job information, telephone number and addresses of the real Mr. Clarke.

Now, not that thieves are smart, but didn't they realize they might be discovered since the real Clarke could easily be contacted? Or were they betting on the general bureaucracy of banks to shield them.