Results tagged “stealing”

The future used to be in plastics, but now it's cardboard. While you were in some office hustling to make an honest buck, a team of freewheeling thieves were raking in $1,000 a night intercepting cardboard left out for recycling... and recycling it themselves. Apparently, there's big money in those brown boxes, and now we're really kicking ourselves for not hoarding more. Yesterday Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced the arrest of eight men involved in the recycling ring; according to Brown they worked in two-man teams, stealing 1-ton bales of cardboard that companies had left out for private carters. That's unlawful, and the city has been trying to crack down on perpetrators for years. Speaking to reporters, Brown revealed that "for the price of renting a box van, each team could net close to $1,000 a night by bringing the stolen cardboard to a recyclable transfer station," Brown said. The value of recyclables is soaring these days, and cardboard's risen as high as $75 per ton! In June, an East Side grocery store manager was held-up at knife point for his cardboard, and cops later busted the thieves in a truck loaded with 37 bundles worth $5,550 when sold to recycling centers.

Remember Arelia Taveras? She's the lawyer who tried to sue casinos for $20 million for allowing her to gamble, when clearly she was addicted to gambling, pointing out, "They knew I was going for days without eating or sleeping. I would pass out at the tables." But Taveras, who once made $500,000/year and used $100,000 of her clients' money to cover her gambling losses (estimated at $1 million), lost that suit. recently pleaded guilty to charges from the Queens DA's office, which said she "violated her clients' trust and let down the entire legal system, which counts on members of the bar to conduct themselves in an ethical manner." She is expected to be sentenced to over three years of prison time. You can see videos of Taveras telling her clients she will pay them back here.

A YouTube video titled "NYPD corruption at its best," depicts undercover NYPD officers stuffing cash in their pockets during a raid at embattled Staten Island bar "Beer Goggles" (MySpace). The surveillance tape was recorded back in November 2007 when cops busted the bar for promoting gambling; three employees were arrested but the charges were eventually dropped.

Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, owner of Craft, Craftbar and Craftsteak, and a familiar face to millions for Top Chef, is being sued in Federal court by a former waitress who accuses his company of denying employees a portion of their tips and distributing the earnings among supervisors. Nessa Rapone, a Brooklyn resident who worked at Craftbar from March to May 2007, says the company also "failed to pay proper overtime compensation," and illegally retaliated by firing her when she objected to the policies. According to City Room, Rapone's lawyers say they hope other Craft employees will come forward so the can certify the lawsuit as a nationwide class action. (There are Craft restaurants in Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Ledyard, Connecticut.) Colicchio has not yet released a statement.

After the Daily News's recent stunt, in which reporters at the tabloid used fake documents to transfer ownership of the Empire State Building to a non-existent company, city prosecutors are calling for an overhaul on how the city register handles property transactions. As the News demonstrated, clerks in the office are not required to verify that the information on deeds and mortgages is correct, and some con artists exploit the loophole to claim ownership of properties, then cash in with illegitimate mortgages before disappearing. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes tells the News today that there ought to be a law giving the register's office the time and power to check transactions before they're recorded. But Sam Miller, a bureaucrat at the city Finance Department, swears these fraudulent transfers "are few and far between." And more importantly, they usually don't end up on the cover the the Daily News.

The Daily News has a clever little cover story today about how the tabloid "stole" the Empire State Building. Inspired by the Brooklyn DA's increasing number of deed fraud prosecutions, reporters decided to try the scam, which involves drawing up fake documents, making a bogus notary stamp and filing paperwork with the city to transfer the deed to the property. Grifters use the fraudulent deed to take out big mortgages, then disappear.

The Post has it that a prep cook at Junior’s restaurant in Brooklyn is in hot water after a co-worker spotted him stuffing 15 lobster tails down his pants and into bandages around his legs. In recent weeks, Junior’s staff had noticed that the restaurant’s supply of lobster tails had inexplicably dipped. So when 40-year-old Raymundo Flores was observed in a walk-in freezer bulking up his trousers with crustaceans, coworkers called 911.

Marc Jacobs, who is no angel himself, had a questionable employee managing one of his three stores in the Village. The NY Post reports that 24-year-old Kyle Avila stole approximately $62K from the designer in just 18 months. Gawker notes that the Kansas boy also once posed nude for a Jacobs t-shirt (pictured), so maybe he just felt he was due.

The Staten Island homeless man who repeatedly attempted to lay claim to the SoHo Grand Hotel has pleaded guilty and faces a year in prison. Kouadio Kouassi is an immigrant from the Ivory Coast and has been jailed since last December. He repeatedly filed claims with the city's Dept. of Finance in an attempt to assume legal ownership of the $76 million boutique hotel. Upon sentencing, Kouassi will like be quickly released and then deported...