Brooklyn resident Dwight McPherson has been identified as the employee at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center responsible for the extraction of tens of thousands of patients' ID information. McPherson said he was approached by an Atlanta-based ID-theft ring and sold his first batch of 1,000 names, phone numbers, and social security numbers for $750. The hassle of having one's credit ruined and identity stolen apparently has a street value of 75 cents.
Results tagged “newyorkpresbyterian”
- Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Amboy Rd. in Staten Island, another bank robbery on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a scaffolding collapse on Grand Concourse and 149th St. in the Bronx.
- A building slated for destruction on Governors Island will become a lab for the FDNY to examine the dynamics of high-rise fires and how best to defeat them. Fire crews from cities around the country will be on hand to observe.
- Someone crunched the numbers and found that The New York Times Fashion Magazine is almost as white as the arctic in February, pre-global warming. The 55% of New Yorkers who aren't white are probably not the targeted demographic the Times Fashion Mag is looking for anyway.
- A New York Presbyterian Hospital official in charge of the Women, Infants, and Children program--which was designed to provide food for impoverished women and children--is accused of siphoning off a few hundred thousand dollars for vacations and comfortable living.
- City Councilman Eric Gioia is running a "carbon neutral" campaign for public advocate, that involves the use of more emails than flyers, the purchase of carbon offsets, and the use of hybrid vehicles.
- The International House of Pancakes downtown Brooklyn location is doing so well that plans are in the works for locations in Bed-Stuy, East New York, and Williamsburg.
- The family of a 25-year-old, who allegedly had his jaw broken by an EMT, is suing the city for $2 million. They accuse the EMT of punching the young man in the face after the patient accidentally drooled on him as he was giving him oxygen.
- Summertime probably seems far off today, but the organizers of the Movies With a View program are looking for submissions of short films to be shown before features in July and August amidst the moonlit shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge.
A doctor who practices in NJ with admitting privileges at New York Presbyterian Hospital. His 94-year-old mother. Her $832,453 savings. And a wall collapse in Upper Manhattan. In a case Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau called "a mini-Astor case," Dr. Robin Motz was accused of stealing his mother's savings since 2003.
2005 Wall Collapse Clued Her In"
A 38-year-old construction worker from Brooklyn is suing New York Presbyterian Hospital for giving him more medical attention than he cared for, and then having him arrested. Brian Persaud went to the ER at NY Presbyterian after a plank hit him on the head at a work site, causing a head laceration that required eight stitches. Although Persaud walked into the ER and was fully mobile, doctors told him that he should get an anal exam to check for a spinal injury (apparently this is not unheard of).
Last month, scaffolding holding two window cleaners outside a 47-floor building on East 66th Street collapsed, leaving one of the cleaners dead and the other, his brother, with massive injuries. Now, the survivor's doctors and wife are talking about his "miraculous" recovery, as he's alert and talking - and may even be able to walk in a year.
Possibly the most haunting thing we've seen is coverage of the Staten Island woman who had a coat hook pierce her face - and how a plastic surgeon who helped save her face. Fifty-three year-old Geri Rivero was at a co-worker's party last month when she slipped in the bathroom. According to the Daily News, she grabbed the metal coatrack, but "somehow, the hook pierced the bone under her right eye, plowing through muscle and...
A taxi driver was fatally run over by another driver at Madison and East 65th Street shortly after midnight. Police believe that the taxi got into an accident with a black Nissan Altima, and then two drivers got into an argument. After the taxi driver got out of the cab, the Nissan's driver hit him. The Nissan's driver and passenger, a man and a woman, fled the scene, and witnesses say the taxi driver was...
Iin yet another story of a con artist duping an elderly person, an 81 year old astronomer was bilked by a 31 year old scammer out of over $200,000. The fact that Joseph Gossner is a prominent city philanthropist lands him on the cover of the Daily News - he was taken in by Janet Costello, who told him she suffered from breast cancer and needed money to pay the bills, but actually used the money to buy a Hummer among other things.
While responding to a firearm dispute in an East 93rd Street apartment at 1AM on Sunday, a police sergeant shot a 15 year old boy. The boy, Luke Timothy Saintel, says he was unarmed and his back was turned to the police officer, setting off anger from Saintel's mother and a police department investigation into what happened. Police say that six officers responded to a call that there was a fight at a three bedroom apartment at 419 East 93rd Street. Fifty people were at the apartment and claim there weren't any incidents. There are two stories about what happened after the police came: "A sergeant who saw the shooting said he observed the teenager reach into his waistband and turn his back, as if drawing a gun" and it was also "possible the police gun was fired unintentionally," according to the AP.
As the biggest city in the country, different New York City hospitals are claiming babies born in their respective maternity wards are the the 300 millionth American. The NY Post had a graphic of three babies - all coming in at 7:46AM yesterday. There's baby Emanuel Plata born in Elmhurst Hospital. Then there's baby Zoe Emile Hudson at New York Presbyterian Cornell. And teeny Joana Palaguachi, born in Flushing Hospital. Newsday also offers a fourth baby into the mix: Mystique Alyzha Agueda, born at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn. All hospitals are bragging, but Newsday found out some sobering news: Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner says, "These are not actual counts, which makes it impossible to actually identify a 300 milllionth American." Well, all of these babies are number 300 million in our book.
Eager to show New York - and the nation - that he can still get up around, Governor Pataki "crashed" a press conference that his doctors held today at New York Presbyterian Hospital uptown. The 2008 presidential hopeful said, "Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated." Oh, darn... wait, did we say that aloud? A big reason why Pataki appeared on TV was to allay his mother's fears who has probably been reading between the lines of recent articles that essentially said Pataki might be dying, he might have cancer, blah blah. Anyway, Pataki also said, "I've seen the press reports and heard the concerns of New Yorkers. Everyday I'm feeling a little bit better." Uh oh - the Gothamist conspiracy think tank wonders if the governor deliberately tried to get life-threatening infections post-surgery in order to gain our sympathies... well, just because Gothamist is fascinated with GI mishaps, we're not budging from hating your unhelpful ways, Geroge. Pataki says he's eager to have a beer and some pizza. Hmm, do we smell a press op at Lombardi's? Or should we call some pizza orders to the hospital?
Yesterday we mentioned that Governor Pataki was having, er, difficulties after his appendectomy last week. We just wanted to share with the Governor's staff a new study from the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in California. Apparently chewing gum after intestinal surgery can help get one's bowels moving and can get them home from the hospital sooner. After any abdominal surgery, especially one in which the bowels are disturbed, the intestines can slow down or simply stop moving, a condition known as paralytic ileus. The study, published in the Archives of Surgery, shows that chewing gum three times a day could stimulate nerves and release hormones that can get the pipes moving again. Maybe the Governor can get some gum and then get back to work.

Gersh Kuntzman and Marc Dinkin, Creators of SUV: The Musical!
This is a big day for swank hotel news: Some Colombian cocaine traffickers were arrested in a bust by the Feds. They had been living at the Plaza, but the $18 million in drugs were in a storage facility in Maspeth.


