A 16-year-old Staten Island girl faces up to a year in jail for sending Myspace friend requests to three people. Melissa Fernino is charged with second-degree criminal contempt, a misdemeanor, because she violated a Family Court order of protection that barred her from contacting a 43-year-old woman and her two adolescent daughters. The court order, prompted by Ferino's history of "extremely violent threats," has something to do with a soured relationship between Fernino’s father and......

Brushing aside the Staten Island Borough President's repeated criticism and endorsement of his opponent, Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan won re-election in a landslide over Democratic challenger Michael Ryan. Donovan, whose 51st birthday was also yesterday, said during the celebration, "Tonight, you guys made me real happy." The SI DA's race became unexpectedly contentious when SI Borough President James Molinaro, who Donovan worked under as a Deputy Beep and considered a friend, attacked Donovan's......

The Reverend Al Sharpton, speaking out against the beating a black man in Staten Island, announced that he will organize a protest march in the next few weeks. He said, "New York is becoming worse than Louisiana. We're going to Staten Island, Jena, Washington - and we're going to bring out numbers like you've never seen before." On Tuesday, Skylar McCormack, who is black and had been with some white friends, was attacked by......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Airmail in Brooklyn, truck vs train overpass in 31st St & 20th Ave in Queens, an amputation at Grant St & St Pauls Ave in Staten Island and a bomb scare at Broadway and Mercer (NYU) in Manhattan. A former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani is now an "ambassador" for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. But it's not that shocking, since Fran Reiter had lead the Liberal Party before joining......

A man brought in for questioning about the Wednesday incident where a 13-year-old was found practically nude and handcuffed to a tree in Staten Island was arrested. The Staten Island Advance reports that 26-year-old William Marcus is expected to be arraigned today - and that he was "arrested eight years to the day before last night's bust for a sexual abuse case." Though the 13-year-old said he was abducted on his way to school, police......

It's comforting to know that even documentary footage from MTV's True Life: I'm a Staten Island Girl is protected under the Shield Law. The Advance reports that Judge Matthew Sciarrino ruled that footage taken at Tottenville club Hush "does not contain relevant footage" of an alleged assault. The details of the assault are unclear, just that 40 year old Thomas J. Ford was charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment. The Staten Island DA's office wanted......

The Staten Island DA's office is no longer charging two teens with a hate crime in the murder of Richard Salinas. The DA's office earlier said a trio of teens targeted the chef at an International House of Pancakes because he was Mexican, but now the DA believes the motivation was robbery alone. Daniel Betancourt and Travis King were indicted on murder charges. They and John Messiha stole $60 and a cellphone from Salinas while......

The Staten Island DA's office has made some ugly revelations in the murder of the Mexican immigrant Richard Salinas. The three teenagers who beat Salinas to death, only to rob him of $60, had decided to rob a Mexican man. ADA Alex Schapiro said of teens John Messiha, Daniel Betancourt, and Travis King, "The defendants were playing video games and decided to rob somebody. They wanted it to be a Mexican man and that's when......

Because when brother's keepers walk out, problems arise. Eighteen year old Bernard Quiroz was supposed to be watching his two stepbrothers, 10 year old Michael and 17 month old Matthew Diaz, at their Staten Island apartment yesterday, while Michael and Matthew's dad, Luis Diaz, went to a drug treatment program (Diaz's wife was at work). But Quiroz went to cash a check and left the two youngsters in their room. Michael was sleeping, and Matthew,......

People are eager to open up their homes to Dickie, a tabby cat who was at the center of an ultimately fatal incident in Staten Island. Stephanie Lindboe believed that her neighbor Linda Padulla had stabbed Dickie in the eye, leading Lindboe to attack Padulla with a knife. Police responded and killed Lindboe, who did not drop the 12-inch kitchen knife. The Staten Island Advance has in-depth coverage of Dickie's surgery and adoption prospects -......

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes sure does have a lot of enemies. One of his rivals is pointing out many of his top assistant DA's don't live in Kings County, which might violate their "duty as public servants to live in the city where they work," as the Post puts it. John O'Hara filed a complaint with the Conflict of Interest Board; the Post notes that O'Hara has been "prosecuted three times for the felony crime......