Lawyers for Natavia Lowery, the personal assistant accused of killing Linda Stein, are arguing in the press that a recently released forensics report practically exonerates their client from the crime. Police and the DA's office said that they'll wait until the trial to address the evidence, but that it was not as significant as Ron Kuby and David Pressman were describing. The forensic evidence was detailed in a report from the Office of the Chief......

In an extremely embarrassing incident for the Brooklyn DA's office, an audio technician taped over a statement made by a cop killer while in custody. The DA's office will now have to rely on a detective's notes taken during that statement and the videotape recorded during a follow-up interview with suspect Robert Ellis. Ellis was arrested after the fatal shooting of police officer Russel Timoshenko, who was shot in the face at point blank range......

Some new details from the ME's office about slain realtor to the stars Linda Stein. Toxicology tests on Stein, who was brutally bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment in October, show that there were "no traces of marijuana in her system," according to the NY Post. Stein's assistant, Natavia Lowery, has been accused of murdering her employer. At the time of her arrest, police had said Lowery snapped after Stein verbally abused her......

After a public scrutiny over police procedure when dozens of youths were arrested on their way to a gang members' wake, the Brooklyn DA's office has decided to drop the charges of 22 of the arrestees. Ten others will face charges. Last May, a number of young people were headed to the wake of 17-year-old Donnell McFarland, who police say headed the "Pretty Boy Family, a subdivision of the Bloods gang." The mourners wore t-shirts......

A judge has decided not to grant murder suspect Natavia Lowery bail. Lowery is accused of killing her boss, broker to the stars Linda Stein, by bludgeoning her to death. Police say that Lowery confessed to snapping after Stein verbally abused her and blew pot smoke in her face. However, her lawyer Ron Kuby had claimed she deserved bail because the videotape confession (which he once referred to as being like a hostage video, since......

The young woman accused of killing real estate broker to the stars Linda Stein pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday. Natavia Lowery was denied bail, and her new defense lawyer, Ron Kuby, made a few points:First, he said Lowery's confession was coerced by the police detectives because, having been interrogated for hours on end without access to a phone or her lawyer "She had to make something up to get out of that......

The New York Times examines the practice of handcuffing prisoners who have been shot by the police, just a few days after the death of Khiel Coppin. The mentally disturbed Brooklyn 18-year-old was handcuffed by cops after they shot him ten times, thinking he was armed with a gun. It turns out, Coppin was armed only with a hairbrush. According to the Times, the practice of handcuffing someone who is already prone and wounded is......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on 160th St. and Sanford Ave. in Queens, a stabbing on 10th Ave. in Manhattan, and a homicide on Kelly and East 163rd Sts. in the Bronx. CUNY hired a legendary graffiti artist to teach a course on the subject, which is upsetting a lot of people. Ron Kuby is upset that Don Imus is back on the air. Mostly because he took his job to......

Now that WABC-AM has announced the return of Don Imus to radio airwaves starting December 3, their morning programming is shifting. In fact, Ron Kuby, who with Curtis Sliwa, co-hosted the station's morning drive program, was asked not to come to work starting today in anticipation of Imus' arrival! Citadel Radio, which owns WABC-AM, said,"The chance to get Don is something we couldn’t pass up." According to the Times, Boyce said that he "hoped to......

Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro placed a full page ad in the Staten Island Advance blasting Staten Island D.A. Daniel Donovan. Molinaro called the trial and the sentencing of his 18-year-old grandson Steven to 5 years in jail a "miscarriage of justice." In 2006, Steven was arrested for beating up a 14-year-old Staten Island Advance paper boy and, this year, Molinaro was accused of violating an order of protection and driving down the paper......

The same day that Don Imus settled his breach of contract lawsuit with CBS, he was slapped with a lawsuit by a member of the Rutgers women's basketball team. Initial reports yesterday put Don Imus' settlement figures with CBS as high as $20 million, but reports today say that figure is actually much lower. In addition to the settlement, The Post says the two sides agreed to a "non-disparaging" clause, forbidding the sides from criticizing......

Possibly the only thing more reassuring than marijuana possession charges being dropped against a 71-year-old is the Daily News's determination to make her into a kind of folk hero by calling her "Ganja Granny." Barbara Jackson, who had been smoking pot during a bout with colorectal cancer, credited marijuana with helping her appetite (her weight was under 100 pounds before the MJ, now it's at 124 pounds). But that excuse wasn't enough for undercover police......

The law can be very cruel, even to cancer-stricken 71-year-olds. The Daily News has a feature on Barbara Jackson, who was arrested last month after she bought some bags of pot in her Bronx neighborhood. Jackson was diagnosed with colorectal cancer eight years ago, and tells the News she's been smoking for the past seven to restore her appetite. "The marijuana calmed me down and gave me back my appetite. My taste buds are gone,......

As we all expected, the Hells Angels member who was arrested during a police raid of the motorcycle gang's headquarters plans to sue the city. The police were investigating the beating of a 52 year old woman found on the sidewalk outside the Hells Angels' location on East 3rd Street in the East Village. The police prepared to raid the establishment and brought out snipers, a hostage negotiation truck, and more, and arrested Richard West......

More details have emerged about why the police raided the Hells Angels Headquarters on East 3rd Street yesterday. It turns out that 52 year old Roberta Shalaby was beaten into a coma when, as the Daily News puts it, she "tried to push her way into the Hells Angels clubhouse" Sunday night. Shalaby had gotten into an argument with a female Hells Angel biker at The Edge, and then followed them to their headquarters.......

A strange fight has broken out between the FDNY and the firefighters' union. The union, Uniformed Firefighters Association, says that the FDNY won't allow firefighters to put up stickers of American flags, photographs of family or colleagues lost on September 11, mass cards or other seemingly innocuous items on their lockers. The FDNY says that firefighters are actually allowed to put up flag stickers or other "inoffensive material" and that the debate - which now......

The two police officers accused of sexually assaulting a Brooklyn woman they initially stopped for a traffic violation two and a half weeks ago were indicted for sexual abuse yesterday by the Brooklyn DA. It turns out that four more women stepped forward to say that police officers Fernand Clerge and Charles McGeean had abused them as well (the DA's office has only charged the two for one assault). Earlier reports that the victim knew......

This is awesome and more dangerous than Jack McCoy sleeping with Claire Kincaid: A disgruntled ex-secretary's complaint that a judge was having an affair with an assistant district attorney now may have repercussions for the judge's rulings. Defense lawyer Ron Kuby now claims that Supreme Court Justice Jaime Rios' "improper sexual relationship" with former ADA Meryl Lutsky and is asking for a new trial for Tyrone Johnson, who was convicted in 2003. Former secretary Judith......

The protestor who stripped down in Washington Square Park, with the words "Stop the War" painted all over her body, had her case of "public indecency" thrown out by a judge. Haila Faisal was in Criminal Court yesterday, armed with lawyer Ron Kuby, to argue her case, but Judge Stanley Katz said the complaint was too vague (or as the NY Times put it, "too scantily described to warrant prosecution") and therefore threw out the......

Gothamist has been following the tempest-in-a-policeman's-coffee-mug story of Justice Laura D. Blackburne since late last week, when it turned out that Justice Blackburne let a drug dealer evade arrest. A detective was waiting to arrest Derek Sterling for a robbery case after Sterling's routine update hearing; Justice Blackburne stated:"I understand that there is a detective on the premises who has some reason to believe that he ought to arrest you...I resent the fact that a......

I keep telling Jen that we need to do posts with more nudity- posting about Anil Dash and Pete Rojas can only boost traffic so much. With that thought in mind, I knew I had to post about the decision in the naked mermaid case. It seems that at last year's Coney Island Mermaid Parade, 31 year-old Brooklyn resident Amy Gunderson was arrested for going topless. Arresting a naked mermaid at the mermaid parade is......