In our modern era of political "analysts" who are paid to scream mindless talking points written by D.C. thinktanks on slick TV sets, Glenn Greenwald is a reasoned laser beam, armed with copious citations and his experience as a constitutional and civil rights attorney. Though he's often hailed by the left, his columns are dense and unsparing of Democrats and Republicans alike. Greenwald is a graduate of NYU Law and currently splits his time between New York City and Rio De Janeiro, where he lives with his boyfriend. more ›

Tasers, or "Conducted Energy Devices," are an increasingly popular method of "non-lethal" force in police departments across New York State, as well as being trusted companions at the ballgame. However, according to a new report [pdf] from the NYCLU, "police officers are using Tasers in inappropriate, irresponsible and downright deadly manner." As the saying goes: shoot 50,000 volts of electricity into somebody's chest first, ask questions later. more ›

A respected prosecutor specializing in securities fraud has been suspended from the New York Attorney General's office after it was revealed that she moonlights as a dominatrix. 36-year-old Alisha Smith, or "Alisha Spark" to those that know her in the BDSM community, was commended just three years ago by then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for her $5 billion dollar settlement she extricated from Bank of America due to securities fraud allegations. "They pay her to go to the events. She dominates people, restrains them and whips them," a "fetish source" breathlessly tells the Post. more ›

The high-ranking Department of Education official who was arrested in the winter and accused of sexually torturing his wife with hammers, nails and hangers has been found guilty of sexually abusing and assaulting his wife. Official Laurence Harvey, who previously made $165,000-a-year from his DOE gig, was not found guilty of raping his wife. more ›

We've finally found an answer to that age old question, "What's the best way to spend stolen money from people you tortured and murdered in a drug-related home-invasion attack?" A new Range Rover! Police believe that's just what two men did after an April 6 double homicide in Bedford-Stuyvesant in which they netted $20,000 and 22 pounds of marijuana. Although, they did waffle on which car to get at first: "We already put the money down on the f------ Escalade already," one of the men told an informant, according to the federal complaint. more ›

Less than a week after a Connecticut man died in police custody after being shot with a Taser gun, another man has died in a West Babylon prison shortly after police deployed a Taser on him, CBS reports. Daniel McDonnell began "acting irrationally" on Friday morning in his cell, so police shot him with what is supposed to be a nonlethal weapon. After suffering "respiratory distress," the 40-year-old died at the hospital. more ›

In a scene that is becoming frighteningly familiar, a Connecticut man died early Sunday morning after being shot by a police officer's Taser. The man, whose name hasn't been released, was unruly and "causing a disturbance" at Saint Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, was arrested and placed into the back of a police car where he "continued to act belligerent." more ›

A member of a Queens-based robbery crew has been taken into custody in Georgia on a murder charge, and will be transported to New York for arraignment in the near future. Police believe that Erick Mejia and the crew posed as cops in order to pull off several high-stakes robberies of drug traffickers along the East Coast; they also believe that Mejia used several different torture techniques on the victims, including stuffing a victim's head inside a bag of onions. more ›

A Morris Park man who was arrested and accused of raping a prostitute may have a long history of abuse against ladies of the night. Michael Fishbein is on trial for the alleged torture, beating and rape of a 27-year-old prostitute at the end of last month. When she met him at his apartment at 837 Neill Avenue, he held a box cutter to her and allegedly said, “You’re not leaving. You’re going to take your clothes off or I’m going to cut them off. I’ll kill you.” more ›

The high-ranking Department of Education official who was arrested and accused of sexually torturing his wife with hammers, nails and hangers pleaded not guilty yesterday to first-degree rape, one of several charges he is facing. Official Laurence Harvey, who made $165,000-a-year from his DOE gig (he is currently suspended), is being held on charges of assault, aggravated possession of a weapon, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. And his wife has accused him of at least three instances of abuse. more ›

DoE official Laurence Harvey has been suspended without pay after being accused of sexually torturing his wife with hammers, nails and hangers because he believed she was cheating on him. The abuse allegedly started last May when Harvey decided his wife needed to be "taught a lesson." more ›

The police's announcement that seven members of the Latin King Goonies were arrested for torturing three men, apparently for being gay, offered horrifying details of the crimes. Now, there are more details about the cruel attacks which City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called "appalling and are even more despicable because the victims were clearly targeted in acts of hate simply because they are gay." more ›

Wednesday night a woman who bodyslammed her dog on to the pavement drew a crowd at North 7th Street (and Driggs) in Williamsburg. At around 9:30 p.m. she allegedly began throwing things out her window before walking her dog downstairs and throwing it to the ground. Though there's no word on whether or not the dog survived the ordeal (many witnesses said it was panting and barely alive), we've confirmed with the precinct that the woman, 30-year-old Alexandra Mendez-Diaz, has been charged with animal torture and marijuana possession. more ›

Two 24-year-old men were arrested last week for allegedly raping, beating, and drugging a 14-year-old girl they kept in the basement of a Crown Heights home for two weeks. Anthony King and Kevin Evans were charged with rape against a physically helpless person and unlawful imprisonment. more ›

A Saudi man who is accused of kidnapping, torturing and sodomizing a man on the Upper West Side earlier this year has rejected a plea deal that would have given him 10 years in prison. Naief Al-mateiry, 26, was arrested on Feb. 17, a day after he allegedly kidnapped an unidentified man and held him hostage at the victim's apartment. According to court documents, "Al-mateiry punched his victim in the face and chest before grabbing a metal hanger and wounding the man in the eye and neck. Al-mateiry allegedly then sodomized the battered man several times before grabbing a knife and leading him to two ATMs." more ›

A 71 year-old man and his 36 year-old roommate are going to prison for hiring a 6-foot-5 inch, 350 lbs thug to strong-arm their building manager. You may recall that last year police arrested elderly architect Ekkehart Schwarz and his roommate Vassileios Giamagas, after they threatened "death and torture," against the manager when he tried to collect $265,000 in back rent on their unfinished restaurant on West Third Street. They forced him at gunpoint to sign a waiver excusing them from the rent; later, they kidnapped him and threatened him with fake guns, pliers, a screwdriver, and forced sodomy from "a giant guy with an Eastern European accent." more ›

You may remember last March when we reported on a 70 year-old man and his 35 year-old roommate threatening to do nasty things to their landlord after he tried (unsuccessfully) to get some of his $250,000 in back rent. Well, nearly a year later, the now 71-year-old Ekkehart Schwarz and 36 year-old Vasileios Giamagas have somehow gotten out of the charges, leaving some mysterious third man to take the brunt of it. According to the Post the building manager of this never-opened Third Avenue bar and lounge, Niroo Yavari, 48, was involved in several instances for more than a year, where he was allegedly kidnapped and threatened with fake guns, pliers, a screwdriver, and forced sodomy by what he described to cops as "a never-identified giant guy with an Eastern European accent." more ›

As if watching NFL football wasn't torture enough, a Bronx man claims he was literally tortured by his guests at his Super Bowl party last year. Michael Terry, 40, says he invited his drug-dealing neighbors over to watch the big game, but after the Giants defeated the Patriots, his guests overstayed their welcome, and used his apartment to sell drugs to other buyers. When he tried to throw them out, Terry says they handcuffed him to a chair and put him through hell. more ›

A Long Island woman is suspected of torturing and killing as many as 20 cats and dogs — some of them belonging to her neighbors — before burying them behind her home. Animal control investigators unearthed the "gruesome pet cemetery" on Saturday behind 43-year-old Sharon McDonough's Suffolk County house after discovering five malnourished dogs kept in cramped cages inside the residence. According to WPIX, "McDonough frequently involved her children in the animal killings by asking them to hold pets down as she tortured them." Neighbors whose pets have gone missing showed up at McDonough's home hoping to identify their animals. "A couple of people have lost pets," neighbor Angelo Zotto, 70, told the Daily News. "They were up here today with pictures of their pets showing them to the SPCA, wondering if theirs had been found in the backyard." more ›

With the Justice Department's release of a report on the CIA's abuses in overseas prisons and Attorney General Eric Holder's appointment of a special prosecutor to decide whether a full criminal investigation is needed, former Vice President Dick Cheney released a statement. Cheney says having a special prosecutor look into the matter "doubts about this administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security...The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions." The AP's assessment of the released documents: "Interrogators took the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding beyond what was authorized. Mock executions were held." Specifically, "In one instance, suspect Abd al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole ship bombing, was hooded and handcuffed and threatened with an unloaded gun and a power drill. The unidentified interrogator also threatened Nashiri's mother and family, implying that they would be sexually abused in front of him, according to the report." Cheney also said, "This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of Al Qaeda members and associates since 2002," but Newsweek wonders if the information gained was useful. more ›

Finally! Thanks to MSNBC's Morning Joe, we get to hear what former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani thinks of the debate surrounding waterboarding of terror suspects during the Bush administration. Giuliani first said, "Sometimes I think people get so preoccupied and obsessed with the rights of terrorist that they forget" about the need for getting information from the suspects. more ›

Another day, another tough crowd for former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice. Last week, Stanford students put her on the defensive on the Bush administration's stance on torture; yesterday, a 4th grader from a D.C. school asked her what she thought about the Obama administration's criticism of Bush-era methods. Rice said, "Let me just say that President Bush was very clear that he wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. After September 11, we wanted to protect the country. But he was also very clear that we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally.. So the president was only willing to authorize policies that were legal in order to protect the country," adding, "I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time. We were all so terrified of another attack on the country. September 11 was the worst day of my life in government, watching 3,000 Americans die." Flashback to Rice's 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission, admitting she saw a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" in August 2001. more ›

An elderly German architect; his 35-year-old Greek roommate; and a 6-foot-5-inch, 350-pound Dean & DeLuca security guard were indicted yesterday on charges of kidnapping and robbing the agent for a Manhattan property owner. Prosecutors say that some time last year the brawny Kakhaber Gogoladze, a Georgian national in the U.S. illegally, approached the unidentified property agent and told him to get in a car. He was driven to the apartment shared by 70-year-old Ekkehart Schwarz and Vasileios Giamagas, who were $267,000 behind on the rent for a lounge space at 68 West Third Street (pictured), where they'd failed to open a nightclub. more ›

With the release of CIA documents showing that terror suspects were waterboarded—FireDogLake found that 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month—President Obama visited the CIA yesterday to reassure the agency that his administration wouldn't prosecute officials "for following legal advice," the NY Times reports (though some lawyers could be prosecuted for crafting the advice). Obama also addressed criticism that he was naive for releasing the memos, "What makes the United States special and what makes you special is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it’s hard.” (The Daily Show took on the torture memos last night, saving Peggy Noonan's despair about the memos' release for last). The ACLU has called for the Department of Justice "to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate torture crimes under the Bush administration as well as a Select Committee in Congress to investigate torture and pass legislation to prevent a reoccurrence of past violations of the law." more ›

A 70-year-old man and his 35-year-old, uh, roommate have been arrested for threatening their landlord's agent with gruesome torture. Elderly architect Ekkehart Schwarz and his younger roommate, Vassileios Giamagas, allegedly threatened "death and torture," against an unnamed man sent by the landlord to collect $265,000 in back rent. Prosecutor James Meadows says the two stopped paying rent on a restaurant space at 68 West Third Street because the landlord would not make necessary repairs. According to the Daily News, when the landlord's representative came to collect, Giamagas and another man forced him at gunpoint to sign a document stating that $50,000 had been paid, and threatened to sodomize him if he didn't comply. Later, after threatening the agent with torture via "a hammer and pliers," they allegedly forced him to sign blank checks for them, one of which they cashed for $25,000. As for Schwarz's roommate situation, a neighbor tells the News, "It was very mysterious." more ›

Families of firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks are looking to obtain a meeting with President Obama to discuss his decision to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Obama announced on Thursday that Gitmo would be closed for 120 days while officials review the prison known for its harsh interrogation methods. Civil Rights lawyer Norman Siegel says that the families are looking for "open and fair, but speedy trials for the prisoners who are being held there." Obama may be in store for an an earful if family members share the sentiments of Michael Burke, whose brother was a fire captain who died in the attacks and writes an op-ed for today's Daily News. He argues that it is impossible to fight terrorism under the Constitution, which would could become a "means to our destruction." He also says that Obama "is convincing these mass murderers that we are too narcissistic, too foolish and too weak to protect and defend ourselves." more ›

Explosive accusations are being leveled against two NYPD cops, one active and one retired, who allegedly participated in at least 100 robberies of drug dealers, netting more than 100 kilos of coke. The duo are part of a crew that's been named in federal indictments in Brooklyn. The Daily News reports that the cops would change the collar brass on their uniforms to disguise their precincts when they kidnapped drug dealers and took them to "remote areas," where they'd torture them to find out where they were hiding their cash and drugs, which the crew would later resell. Two defendants who worked with the unidentified officers "applied a pair of pliers to one victim's testicles, threatening to squeeze the pliers if the victim did not talk." U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg last month promised additional charges and the arrest of the two cops, who, apparently, have not yet been taken into custody. more ›

Today, a judge sentenced Robert Williams to life in prison for the brutal rape and torture of a Columbia graduate student. Williams was convicted last month, with a jury finding him guilty of 44 counts, including attempted murder, kidnapping, arson, burglary, robbery, assault, rape and sodomy. The attack occurred in April 2007, after Williams had gained access to the victim's Hamilton Heights apartment building, followed her to her floor and forced his way into her apartment. more ›

Yesterday, a jury of eight men and four women found Robert Williams guilty of 44 counts, including, per the Post, "attempted murder, kidnapping, arson, burglary, robbery, 10 assault charges, five separate rapes and 11 incidents of sodomy," related to his 19-hour rape and torture of a Columbia University graduate student in her Hamilton Heights apartment a year ago. more ›

A 24-year-old woman took the stand and began to relive a terrifying ordeal as she described how she was raped, tortured, and held captive in her own Hamilton Heights apartment in April 2007. more ›