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. McPherson's lawyer......

Museum Guard, by Atomische at flickrToday 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......

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. Motz, who pleaded not guilty to grand larceny and money laundering, assumed power of attorney for his mother, Minnie Motz, a retired librarian. According to......

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......

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. Here's a list of what Alcides Moreno has been through, per the Daily News:- Fell 47......

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......

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......

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......

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......

Well, that's just our working theory as Governor Pataki is sulking in his hospital room for yet another day. Doctors say that they are just monitoring his condition, to be sure an abscess doesn't form, but Gothamist's conspiracy think tank believes that New York Presbyterian Hospital is working with people who believe Albany and the governor have been shortchanging New Yorkers (in education, for starters). The NY Times suggests that NYPH hasn't been issuing as......

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......

Gersh Kuntzman and Marc Dinkin, Creators of SUV: The Musical!...

A widow in a wheelchair is suing the Waldorf Towers, the residential part of the Waldorf-Astoria, for discrimination, claiming the WT did not accomodate her disability. Rose Gutmacher is suing for $8 million, with the thinking going that $37,500 a month should bring a little more service than what was offered, but the WT, perhaps fed up with her requests, raised rent to $63,500. What Gothamist found interesting is that the Post mentioned old school......