Congresswoman Meng wants all blue mail collection boxes in the United States to be retrofitted with narrow mail slots like this one on the corner of Cross Bay

Boulevard and 161st Avenue.

By Michael V. Cusenza
In an effort to combat mail fishing, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing) this week announced that she has introduced the Keep Mail Safe Act, a bill which would require the U.S. Postmaster General to study the possibility of retrofitting all blue mail collection boxes in the United States with narrow mail slots.
Mail fishing is a federal crime in which envelopes containing checks and sensitive documents with information such as bank, credit card, and Social Security numbers are “fished out” of curbside mailboxes by crafty crooks using makeshift rods: many times it is an adhesive slathered all over a weighted, 16- or 20-ounce bottle attached to the end of a string or rope. The perpetrators then cash in at banks or check-cashing establishments through various deceitful methods.
As Meng noted, mail fishing has resulted in many incidents of identity theft and bank fraud. Last year alone, there were more than 3,000 incidents of mail fishing in the five boroughs—many occurred in Queens. While the U.S. Postal Service has begun to retrofit some collection boxes, criminals are shifting their mail fishing activity to other regions that don’t have this security feature. Retrofitting all blue collection boxes would help deter and prevent incidents of mail fishing; ensure the security of mail; and restore people’s trust in utilizing collection boxes, Meng said.
“Year after year, numerous Americans, including New Yorkers—many of whom are seniors, fall victim to criminals who steal their personal information through mail fishing,” the congresswoman added. “This has resulted in identity theft and funds being stolen from victims’ bank accounts. Last year, the Postal Service agreed to retrofit all blue mail collection boxes in my home borough of Queens after I urged the agency to do so. Now, they should look at doing the same throughout the country. We can no longer ignore this problem. The Postmaster General must conduct a study to retrofit all collection boxes.”
Last December, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service told The Forum that the agency had already replaced approximately 40 percent of the old collection boxes in Queens with new, virtually “fishing-proof” ones.
“The plan has always been to replace all of these boxes; it’s the most prudent approach,” USPIS Public Information Officer Donna Harris said. “We know it works.”
Perhaps perps have become more resourceful, because in December two personal checks were pilfered from one of those new, high-security mailboxes with the narrow slots located a few steps from the front door to the Howard Beach Post Office, the victim told The Forum. The Ozone Park woman reached out to the newspaper after receiving a phone call from a TD Bank Fraud representative inquiring about the two checks. The woman, who asked The Forum not to publish her name, said the bank staffer indicated that the two checks, which the victim said were originally made out to the amounts of $50 and $3,000, had been manipulated to the tune of $5,000 and $9,800, respectively.
The victim’s accounts were reimbursed and Harris vowed to investigate the head-scratching case.
“We don’t know what happened. Those boxes are sturdy—but nothing is 100 percent [tamper-proof],” Harris added.

Photo Courtesy of NYPD

South Queens’ Finest last week touted the fruits of their labor—and the Neighborhood Policing program—after an Ozone Park pyrotechnics bust netted hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal fireworks.
Last Wednesday night, hours before Independence Day, 106th Precinct Special Operations officers followed up on an anonymous tip noting an enormous “array of fireworks” being stored in a garage on 98th Street, Community Affairs Officer Seth Jaffe told The Forum on Monday.
Investigators confiscated 600 boxes containing an assortment of entertainment explosives with a combined street value of more than $150,000.
The owner of the property was arrested and booked on site.

Photo Courtesy of the Cabán Campaign

Tiffany Cabán votes for herself way back on Election Day, June 25.

By Michael V. Cusenza
The wild Democratic Primary for Queens District Attorney is headed for a mandatory recount.
According to the City Board of Elections, a recount of all ballots is required when the margin of victory is less than one half of one percent of all votes. As of Wednesday afternoon, Borough President Melinda Katz held a razor-thin lead of 16 tallies over public defender Tiffany Cabán.
BOE staffers are set to start the manual recount of all 91,000 votes on Thursday at the agency’s Queens voting machine facility inside of Metro Mall in Middle Village. The process is expected to take two weeks to complete.
So how did we get here?
It seemed that Cabán, 31, pulled off a stunning upset on Election Day (way back on June 25) when the Richmond Hill native declared victory at her campaign party after noting that, at the time, she had topped Katz by 1,090 tallies. Cabán garnered 33,814 votes (39.57 percent), while Forest Hills’ Katz compiled 32,724 votes (38.30 percent).
More than 85,000 votes had been counted, with roughly 3,400 absentee ballots remaining to be calculated.
However, the borough president would not concede.
“I want everyone to know we are doing a recount,” a prescient Katz, 53, asserted at her reception in Forest Hills.
“This thing ain’t over folks,” Queens Democratic Party Chairman Greg Meeks added.
And after the absentee ballot count last Wednesday, indeed it was Katz claiming the crown.
“We said from the beginning that every vote needs to be counted and that every voter needs to be heard, and now we see clearly why this must always be the case,” Katz said in a statement after surging ahead by 16 votes. “I am proud to have been chosen as the Democratic nominee for Queens district attorney. We know that these numbers can and will be subject to recount, and there may be legal challenges, but what matters most is the will of the Queens voters.”
In a heavily Democratic borough, Katz or Cabán is expected to cruise past the GOP nominee, which as of press time is Daniel Kolgan.

Photo Courtesy of Cardcash.com

According to the charges, an employee of Cardcash.com exclusively handled the Nathoo brothers business and allegedly bought the illegal enterprise’s gift cards—with the website earning a profit of up to 20 percent of the value of the gift cards.

By Forum Staff
A Queens County grand jury has indicted 13 suspects, including seven borough residents, for allegedly running a complex gift card “washing” scheme that generated roughly $1 million every month for two years, Acting Queens District Attorney John Ryan recently announced.
The main defendants are Christopher Nathoo, 33, of Glen Oaks, and his brother, Bryan Nathoo, 30, of Dix Hills, L.I. The two men, their wives, and nine other individuals are charged in a 192-count indictment with enterprise corruption, grand larceny, conspiracy, and other crimes. As of Wednesday afternoon, Bryan, his wife, Annarissa Nathoo, 32, and two other suspects remained fugitives.
According to the charges, in late 2015, the NYPD’s Grand Larceny Division began investigating a fence—an illegal operation based in Jamaica. This fence allegedly bought gift cards purchased with phony credit cards. Christopher Nathoo was the alleged boss or owner of the operation and Bryan Nathoo was the alleged co-owner. The two allegedly paid cash for gift cards that had been purchased using fraudulent credit cards. The two are accused of re-selling those gift cards to Cardcash.com, an online gift card exchange business.
The illegal enterprise had specific roles for each individual involved: fence manager, swipers, shoppers, fence employees, money launderer and more. Swipers acquired stolen credit card numbers from the dark web and embossed the information onto blank cards. The swipers would then use these bogus credit cards at big stores, such as Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Target to buy legitimate store gift cards. The swipers would subsequently sell the legitimate gift cards to the fence.
According to the charges, these gift cards would then go through a “washing” process. Swipers or shoppers would go to department stores and buy merchandise, return the items for either a “cleaned” gift card or store credit—cards that are further removed from the fraudulently-purchased gift card and therefore less likely to be connected to the fraudulently-purchased one and deactivated by the bank.
According to the indictment, the Nathoo brothers allocated some of the shopping duties to their wives. Hama Nathoo, 32, allegedly used the “cleaned” gift cards for personal purchases, including obtaining Home Depot gift cards and buying items to renovate the couple’s home. Annarrisa also allegedly used “cleaned” cards to make online purchases for herself, using the gift cards to remodel the couple’s new Suffolk County home.
The shoppers allegedly were paid $10 an hour or $100 for a day’s work. The fence would pay the swipers a percentage for each gift card—the cleaner the card the more valuable the exchange.
According to the indictment, an employee of Cardcash.com exclusively handled the Nathoo brothers business and allegedly bought the illegal enterprise’s gift cards—with the website earning a profit of up to 20 percent of the value of the gift cards. At times, this employee also met with the Nathoo brothers to deliver checks from Cardcash.com. The brothers allegedly laundered the proceeds of their business through shell companies—that existed in name only—with the assistance of the manager of Uniondale Check Cashing in the Bronx. The establishment would collect a 2-percent take for each transaction, with the manager pocketing 1 percent for himself.
For the years 2016 and 2017, the operation generated approximately $1 million in profits every single month from this gift card “washing” scheme.

Photo Courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

The mayor also touted past initiatives taken by his administration to prevent and address youth homelessness, including Marsha’s House in the Bronx, the first-ever DHS shelter for LGBTQ young people in New York City.

By Forum Staff
The City will adopt new investments to help youth experiencing homelessness transition off the streets into shelter and from shelter into permanent housing, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday.
According to the administration, through collaboration across multiple agencies, including the Department of Youth and Community Development, the Department for the Aging, and the Department of Social Services, youth experiencing homelessness will have access to an array of new resources, including a new mobile service that will help youth experiencing homelessness find and access relevant support. Hizzoner said he will also establish a senior advisor for Youth Homelessness responsible for overseeing the development, implementation, and expansion of the interagency initiatives.
The new resources include:
• The Department for the Aging for the first time will connect youth experiencing homelessness to housing opportunities through their Home Sharing program (program already operating, effective immediately);
• A new mobile service that will help homeless youth more easily find and access support. The design of the service will be informed by youth with lived experiences of homelessness in the five boroughs, developed through a human-centered design process led by the Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, with $200,000 allocated for research, scoping, and design to begin this fall;
• A new cohort of pregnant or parenting youth participating in the outcome-driven Parent Empowerment Program through the Department of Youth and Community Development, which provides access to childcare to young parents while they pursue their high school equivalency diploma and earn workforce credentials.
According to de Blasio, his administration is:
• Piloting the provision of DSS prevention resources within a DYCD 24-hour drop-in center in Queens
• Working with DYCD to connect certain eligible young people transitioning out of DYCD shelters and entering Department of Homeless Services shelters with CityFHEPS rental assistance
• Bidding out a two-year contract through the Department of Social Services-Human Resources Administration to support the NYC Youth Action Board, which will integrate people with lived experience within the NYC Coalition on the Continuum of Care
• Ensuring that DYCD providers are trained by DSS-HRA in applying to NYC Supportive Housing units;
• Partnering with members of the NYC Youth Action Board, DYCD and homeless service providers so that HRA can update the assessment for Supportive Housing applications to include specific eligible experiences of young people; and
• Relaunching the Youth Experiencing Homelessness page on Generation NYC, co-designed by Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity with members of the NYC Youth Action Board, DYCD, and homeless service providers so that there is an online resource guide specific to youth experiencing homelessness (no cost, to launch this summer, the mayor noted).
On Friday, de Blasio also touted past initiatives taken by his administration to prevent and address youth homelessness, including the NYC Unity Project, a $9.5 million investment to prevent and address homelessness for LGBTQ youth across the five boroughs; 500 new beds for homeless youth and expansion of youth drop-in centers; Marsha’s House in the Bronx, the first-ever DHS shelter for LGBTQ young people in New York City; and the commitment to allocate 1,700 supportive housing units for youth through the Supportive Housing NYC 15/15 Initiative.

Photo Courtesy of Google

In one of 11 orchestrated attacks, the crew allegedly robbed this 170th Street barber shop at gunpoint.

By Forum Staff
Seventeen members of a Jamaica-based set of the Bloods street gang have been indicted on charges related to their participation in a robbery crew that used guns and violence to steal property over a nine-month period in 2017 in Queens and on Long Island, federal prosecutors announced Monday.
The superseding indictment was unsealed Monday morning. The 16 newly charged suspects were arrested the same day, and all but three have been arraigned. The remaining defendants, who are incarcerated in State and federal facilities, will be arraigned on a later date, officials noted.
According to charging documents, the Makk Balla Brims set of the Bloods is comprised primarily of members who live in and around the South Jamaica Houses and the nearby American Towers. As alleged in the indictment and other court filings, between May 2017 and December 2017, the suspects, ranging in age from 21 to 38, participated in 11 robberies or attempted robberies, brandishing or using guns during most of the crimes. They targeted individuals they believed would be in possession of large amounts of cash, electronics, jewelry or narcotics. Upon receiving a tip about a promising victim, the Makk Balla Brims would assemble a crew to carry out the robbery, and the participants adopted various roles for the crime, including lookout, getaway driver, and gunman.
“Members of this gang allegedly attacked innocent people in their own homes, believing they could act without consequences,” said FBI New York Assistant Director-in-Charge Bill Sweeney, Jr.
According to the indictment, in at least two robberies, the crew looked for homes where Indian flags were flying because they believed the residents stored gold and cash. In one incident, Avery Mitchell, 24, also known as “Slay,” allegedly posed as a deliveryman wearing a United Parcel Service jacket to enter a house, where he and other co-conspirators then restrained two young girls at gunpoint. Mitchell and company fled with electronics and jewelry. And on Nov. 19, 2017, Mitchell, Antonio Davis, 38, a.k.a. “Big Blood,” Nahjuan Perry, 24, a.k.a. “Nas,” and other co-conspirators allegedly robbed a second residence where Indian flags were flying. Mitchell again donned a UPS jacket as a ruse to gain entry, and shot one resident before fleeing empty-handed.
In another attack, four MBB members and other co-conspirators allegedly robbed the Jevo Barber Shop on 170th Street in Jamaica at gunpoint. Armed with a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol, the suspects entered the establishment and removed gold chains, cell phones, and cash from the victims, as well as cash from the business.
“This case is a perfect example of how we don’t stop simply by making a few arrests,” Sweeney said. “We will continue to investigate and track down all those involved in their criminal activity and stop them from literally terrorizing a community in their lust for violence.”
City Police Commissioner Jim O’Neill added that “targeting and dismantling criminal groups, and preventing violence that is often associated with their illegal activities, continues to be among the highest priorities for the NYPD and our law enforcement partners.”
If convicted, each defendant faces a mandatory minimum sentence of at least seven years’ imprisonment and a maximum of life behind bars.

Photo Courtesy of DOC

DOC K9 Kain sporting his new protective vest.

By Forum Staff
Thanks to a Massachusetts-based nonprofit, all City Department of Correction K9s have received bullet- and stab-resistant vests, DOC officials recently announced.
Vested Interest in K9s, Inc., a 501c(3) charity located in East Taunton, donated the vests to DOC K9s Rugby, Justice, Nikki, Kain, Kaos, Gunner, Zeus, Soca, Ace, Khaleesi, Ajax, Kiara, Cole, Logan, Casper, & Bane. The new gear is sponsored by the Survival Armor incentive program and embroidered with the sentiment, “This gift of protection provided by Vested Interest in K9s, Inc. and Survival Armor,” according to agency officials.
“Thanks to this donation, our K9s and their handlers are safer at work,” said Andre Cox, executive director of Canine Operations for DOC. “The vests fit well and the animals appear very comfortable wearing them.”
The donation to provide one protective vest for a law-enforcement K9 is $950, DOC noted. Each vest weighs 4-5 pounds, has a value between $1,744 and $2,283, and comes with a five-year warranty.
Vested Interest in K9s was established in 2009 to assist law enforcement agencies with this potentially lifesaving body armor for their four-legged partners. Since its inception, Vested Interest has provided more than 3,400 protective vests in 50 states, through private and corporate donations, at a value of $5.7 million dollars. The program is open to dogs actively employed in the U.S. with law enforcement or related agencies who are certified and at least 20 months of age. New K9 graduates, as well as K9s with expired vests, are eligible to participate.

Photo Courtesy of Maria DeStefano

After recently winning the City Championship in districts, the 10U softball team from Ozone Howard is headed to the State finals.
They went 3-0 to earn the City trophy: powering past Manhattan, 10-6; surging over Staten Island, 6-2; and topping S.I. once again in the championship game by a score of 5-3.
Congrats are in order to coaches Peter DeStefano, Christine DeStefano, and Mario Zurita; and players Sydney Ambrosino, Vivian Natividad, Nicolette Battaglia, Ava Noto, Taylor Dalo, Zara Noto, Rosalie DeStefano, Josephine Polisi, Sabina Franzese, Madi Sassone, Michaela Manekas, and Caitlyn Zurita.
Good luck!!

Photo Courtesy of Tiffani Spinelli

The Ozone Howard Bulldogs softball team last weekend secured the title of New York State Champions after travelling up to Fishkill, N.Y., and absolutely mauling its competition.
The gifted girls outscored their opponents 39-0 over the first three games before besting North Shore Little League, 6-1, in the title tilt on Sunday to raise the trophy.
Next up is the Eastern Region Championship this weekend in Bristol, Conn., where the top East Coast teams will battle to earn a spot at the Little League Softball World Series next month in Portland, Ore. The NY champs play their first game against Maryland this coming Saturday at 1 p.m. All games will be televised on ESPN+.
Good luck, girls!

Photo Courtesy of TSA

Transportation Security Administration officers Tuesday detected this handgun in a West Virginia man’s carry-on bag at JFK Airport.

By Forum Staff
A West Virginia man set to board a flight to London was arrested Tuesday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport after Transportation Security Administration officers detected a firearm in his carry-on bag at one of the hub’s checkpoints. The .38-caliber handgun was loaded with seven bullets, including one in the chamber, according to TSA officials.
The TSA officers immediately contacted Port Authority Police after spotting the weapon as the passenger’s bag rolled through the checkpoint X-ray machine. PAPD officers confiscated the firearm and detained the Bluefield resident for questioning before arresting him on weapons charges.
Authorities noted that Tuesday’s incident marked the fourth gun that TSA officers have detected at JFK so far this year—already doubling the two firearms that were discovered in carry-on bags at the airport all of last year.
According to the TSA, in 2018, 4,239 firearms were discovered in carry-on bags at checkpoints across the country, averaging about 11.6 firearms per day, approximately a 7-percent increase nationally in firearm discoveries from the total of 3,957 detected in 2017. Eighty-six percent of firearms detected at checkpoints last year were loaded, and nearly 34 percent had a bullet in the chamber.
According to the agency, passengers are permitted to travel domestically with firearms in checked baggage if they are properly packaged and declared. However, travelers flying to international destinations should check on the laws of the countries that they are flying to prior to taking the trip. Firearms must be unloaded, packed in a hard-sided case, locked, and packed separately from ammunition. Firearm possession laws vary by country, state, and locality.

Say what you want about Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but the guy obviously hasn’t forgotten about the village that helped raise him.
As he has said in the past, Cuomo is “a Queens boy, through and through.” And seemingly proud of it. From his boyhood home in Holliswood to Archbishop Molloy High School on Manton Street in Briarwood to the unforgettable accent that always seems to sneak in to remarks a handful times at every event, you can tell that Cuomo is Queens.
You can also see the governor’s affection for The World’s Borough at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Once derided as a world-class dump, JFK is on its way to better days—and we have Cuomo to thank, in part, for that.
On Tuesday, Cuomo announced that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is issuing a Request for Information for the design and development of JFK Central, an approximately 14-acre, mixed-use space at the epicenter of the completely redeveloped airport. Potential uses at JFK Central include, but are not limited to: retail and dining, including pop-ups and food trucks; office space; and recreational and cultural offerings and events for airport passengers and employees.
The RFI is the latest step in Cuomo’s $13 billion vision plan for the future of JFK, unveiled in October 2018. The investment, 90 percent of which is private funding, calls for a unified and interconnected airport featuring two new international terminals with state-of-the-art passenger amenities, convenient ground transportation options, and vastly simplified roadways that will enable the airport to accommodate an expected increase of at least 15 million passengers per year.
Built on top of the brand-new Ground Transportation Center, JFK Central would be a highly visible public space located in the middle of JFK Airport, accessible from the new Terminal 1 and Terminal 4 in the southern half of the Central Terminal Area, and serving all airport passengers and employees.
Cuomo’s JFK Vision Plan—initially unveiled in January 2017 and based on the recommendations from the Governor’s Airport Advisory Panel—calls for an overhaul of the airport’s hodgepodge of eight disparate terminal sites into one unified JFK Airport by: demolishing old terminals; utilizing vacant space; modernizing on-airport infrastructure; and creating a multi-tiered cargo modernization program, while incorporating the latest in passenger amenities and technological innovations.
The Vision Plan also calls for increasing the number and size of gates, improving parking availability, an array of airside taxiway improvements to allow for bigger planes and reduced gate congestion, upgrading the AirTrain JFK system to handle increased passenger capacity, and enhanced roadways on and off the airport. This includes better access to JFK from regional roadways. The State Department of Transportation has targeted $1.5 billion in highway improvements designed to ease bottlenecks, particularly at the Kew Gardens Interchange with the Van Wyck Expressway and on the notoriously congested Van Wyck as well. The goal is to help reduce travel times for vehicles between midtown Manhattan and the airport, Cuomo has said.
“I am a New York City boy, if you can’t tell by the accent,” the governor said on Monday. “I am born and bred Queens—I have New York City in my veins, and anything New York City needs, I’m there.”
Home, sweet home.

Photo Courtesy of AG James’s Office

“We hope that this action will at long last allow us to put this national nightmare behind us, and give us the opportunity to fully focus on education and outreach so that we can ensure that all people are counted,” NY Attorney General James said.

By Michael V. Cusenza
Empire State elected officials have declared victory after President Donald Trump decided to abandon efforts to include a question inquiring about citizenship status on the 2020 Census.
“The President saw the writing on the wall. Despite digging in, he knew that he was facing an uphill battle, and ultimately retreated from his ill-sought crusade to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census,” said U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing). “While we’re extremely pleased over this victory, we must not forget the chaos, contradictions, misinformation—and of course the lies—that came out of the administration during this fight. President Trump sought to weaponize and politicize the census. Administration officials such as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who lied straight to my face about the question’s origins, must still be held accountable for not telling the truth to Congress. We must also watch closely over how the President and the Commerce Department will continue to seek to acquire citizenship information through other means. We will not tolerate the intimidation of immigrant communities.”
The U.S. Supreme Court recently determined that the explanation that Ross had provided for including such a question on the census was insufficient to support the agency’s decision.
“I disagree with the Court’s ruling, because I believe that the department’s decision was fully supported by the rationale presented on the record before the Supreme Court,” Trump wrote in an executive order issued Thursday. “The Court’s ruling, however, has now made it impossible, as a practical matter, to include a citizenship question on the 2020 decennial census questionnaire. After examining every possible alternative, the attorney general and the secretary of Commerce have informed me that the logistics and timing for carrying out the census, combined with delays from continuing litigation, leave no practical mechanism for including the question on the 2020 decennial census.”
On Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo sought to clarify the record.
“[Trump] did not decide to withdraw. When a boxer is in the ring and gets knocked down and knocked out and does not respond to the bell and cannot get to their feet at the count of ten we don’t say he withdrew from the fight. Right?” Cuomo said. “We say he lost the fight. The President did not decide to withdraw. The President lost his politically motivated quest to pursue his anti-immigration stance in the census and it’s good news for New Yorkers.
Still, the President won’t let it go.
“Nevertheless, we shall ensure that accurate citizenship data is compiled in connection with the census by other means,” Trump wrote Thursday. “To achieve that goal, I have determined that it is imperative that all executive departments and agencies provide the [Commerce] Department the maximum assistance permissible, consistent with law, in determining the number of citizens and non-citizens in the country, including by providing any access that the department may request to administrative records that may be useful in accomplishing that objective.”
State Attorney General Tish James remained focused on the future.
“We hope that this action will at long last allow us to put this national nightmare behind us, and give us the opportunity to fully focus on education and outreach so that we can ensure that all people are counted,” James said.

Photo Courtesy of DOC

Led by the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and Department of Correction, the administration’s proposal is to implement a borough-based jail system and close the facilities on Rikers Island.

By Michael V. Cusenza
Opponents of the de Blasio administration’s vision of the future of the city’s criminal justice system recently gathered at a City Planning Commission public hearing to have their say put on the record.
Dozens of detractors descended on CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice last Wednesday morning to deliver remarks vehemently opposing the City’s proposed Borough-Based Jail System. Led by the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice and Department of Correction, the proposal is to implement a borough-based jail system and close the facilities on Rikers Island. The project would develop four new detention facilities to house individuals who are in the City’s correctional custody with one located in each of these four boroughs: Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.
In February 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson agreed to a single public review process for the four proposed sites. These locations together will provide off-island space for 5,000 detainees, and will include the three existing DOC facilities in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, as well as a new site on the grounds of a former City Police Department tow pound in the Bronx.
The World’s Borough site is the Queens Detention Center at 126-02 82nd Ave. in Kew Gardens. According to the administration, the City would demolish the existing facility and replace it with a modern one. The new jail would have housing units for detainees, programming and recreational space, and a new above-ground public parking facility. On the ground floor there would be publicly-accessible community space.
However, critics of the proposal are wary of the new jails and the seemingly breakneck pace that has been implemented to get them up and running. Queens Borough President and district attorney candidate Melinda Katz has been one of the more vocal opponents of the plan. At a public hearing held at Borough Hall last June, Katz officially outlined her recommendation of disapproval.
“A 1,500-person jail anywhere in Queens is unacceptable,” she said. “The purpose of closing Rikers Island and instead creating community-based jails is to have smaller facilities meant to provide treatment, education, and other needed services for those detained or incarcerated. Much of the violence and inhumane treatment of those jailed which has led to the efforts to close Rikers Island is due to the massive size and conditions caused by it.”
Katz also blasted the administration for lack of communication with Queens residents.
“Before any sites are considered, there has to be meaningful dialogue with all community stakeholders with consensus there has to be agreement about the size and scale of any facility that would meet the goals of maintaining the connection between the incarcerated and their families.”
In other city jail news, Mayor de Blasio on Tuesday announced that for the first time in decades, the number of city jail admissions fell below 40,000—a roughly 50-percent drop since the beginning of his administration.
“For decades, we’ve been told we can only arrest and imprison our way to a safer city. Under my administration, New York City has proven that’s not true,” Hizzoner said. “Instead, we can keep fathers at home and kids in school and get even safer.”

Photo Courtesy of Flickr/Pam Andrade

“With hurricane season already here and sea levels rising on our coasts, we must act quickly to fix the program and give Americans the relief they need,” Sen. Gillibrand said.

By Forum Staff
New bipartisan legislation recently introduced in the Senate would extend and reform the National Flood Insurance Program, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), an original cosponsor of the measure, announced Tuesday.
According to Gillibrand, the National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2019 would extend the NFIP for five years and reform the program to make it more sustainable, affordable, and efficient. The legislation would make flood insurance more affordable for policyholders, refocus the program to fund more prevention and mitigation efforts to protect properties from flood risk, reform the beleaguered claims process, and protect against the types of unscrupulous practices that defrauded New Yorkers after Superstorm Sandy.
The new measure would:
• Place protections against sudden rate shocks for policy holders and implement regulations for Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new rating methodology.
• Provide vouchers for homeowners and renters if their flood insurance premium causes their housing costs to exceed 30 percent of the Adjusted Gross Income.
• Freeze interest payments on the NFIP debt while reinvesting savings towards mitigation efforts to restore the program to solvency and reduce future borrowing.
• Provide robust funding levels for cost-effective investments in mitigation, which have a large return on investment and are the most effective way to reduce flood risk, Gillibrand said.
• Increase the maximum limit for Increased Cost of Compliance coverage and expand ICC coverage eligibility to encourage more proactive mitigation before natural disasters.
• Authorize funding for Light Detection and Ranging technology, which would help create more accurate mapping of flood risk across the country, reducing confusion and generating better data.
• Place limits on profits for private insurance companies; Write Your Own compensation policies would be capped at the rate that FEMA pays to service its own policies.
• Create new oversight measures for insurance companies and vendors and provide FEMA with greater authority to terminate contractors that have a track record of abuse.
• Fundamentally reform the claims process to level the playing field for policyholders during appeal or litigation, ban aggressive legal tactics preventing homeowners from filing legitimate claims, hold FEMA to strict deadlines so that homeowners get quick and fair payments, and end FEMA’s reliance on outside legal counsel from expensive for-profit entities.
• Provide for increased training and certification of agents and adjusters to reduce mistakes and improve the customer experience.
“Our National Flood Insurance Program is broken, and New Yorkers who live and work in coastal communities are demanding that Congress solve this problem now. With hurricane season already here and sea levels rising on our coasts, we must act quickly to fix the program and give Americans the relief they need,” Gillibrand added. “I was proud to help write this bipartisan bill to make our National Flood Insurance Program stronger, and I urge all of my colleagues to join me in fighting to pass it.”
Unless Congress acts, the NFIP will expire on Sept. 30.

Photo Courtesy of Marc Hermann/MTA New York City Transit

“This transformation will allow us to finally give our customers the system they deserve, and prepares us to execute on what is likely to be the biggest capital plan in MTA history,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye.

By Michael V. Cusenza
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Friday released a preliminary report of its transformation plan as part of widespread reforms passed in the State Budget in April. The recommendations for this historic reorganization were made following an extensive evaluation process conducted by the consulting firm AlixPartners.
According to the MTA, the transformation plan contains the following key recommendations:
• In the new organization, the agencies should focus exclusively on service delivery, safety, day-to-day operations and maintenance, rather than general support functions. The agencies will have reporting lines to a Chief Operating Officer. All other services will be merged and coordinated centrally with a goal of driving a higher level of services at lower costs. This would result in consolidation of more than 40 functional groups within the existing MTA Agencies to six departments in the new MTA organization. Furthermore, the transformation plan calls for changes to the fundamental ways the MTA does business in order to achieve more effective and efficient performance.
• To address slow, costly, and bureaucratic processes and to create accountability, all Capital-related functions across the MTA should be merged into a central group. This new capital group will be accountable for planning, development, and delivery of the Capital Program. This group would identify optimal project delivery (groupings, timing, delivery), increase competition in a historically constrained supplier market, and complete important capital projects that improve service and customer experience quicker.
• To address inconsistent engineering methods across agencies and eliminate the duplication of processes and standards and ensure quality and sustainability of infrastructure, a new central Engineering group reporting to a Chief Engineering Officer will establish clear engineering and maintenance standards to be executed consistently across all agencies. This will provide consistent standards and specifications and eliminate unnecessary complexity and duplication.
• To address many existing differing communication types (i.e., service updates, timetables, customer feedback, etc.) from several different agencies, MTA should centralize communications to clearly and consistently manage the message, medium and content.
• To eliminate silos and enable multimodal network design optimization, the MTA should centralize operating standards and service design. Currently each MTA agency has its own internal operations standards and service design capabilities, which would be better managed under one integrated function serving all agencies.
• The MTA should create a centralized human resources department focused on attracting, developing, and retaining the talent required to improve MTA performance and service delivery. This new entity will be tasked with clearly articulating a new talent strategy. This will help to resolve issues of duplication and improve analytics, data consistency, and data integrity.
According to the MTA, to drive the transformation, the agency will require a selection of new leadership roles and capabilities:
• A Chief Operating Officer should lead the team of agency leaders including subway, commuter rail, bus, and bridge/tunnel transportation systems to deliver safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation services. The COO will shape operations with a regional, multimodal view of service design and delivery.
• A Chief Transformation Officer is responsible for leading the execution of ongoing and new initiatives across the $18 billion enterprise. These efforts will include reorganization, development of strong center-led business functions, streamlining business processes, quality assurance and establishing internal controls. According to the MTA, the CTO will play a crucial role in quality assurance and should focus on building and embedding cross-functional capabilities that ensure intended results from vendors and suppliers, including on-time performance and accountability. Waste, fraud, abuse and possible legal violations remain the jurisdiction of the MTA Inspector General. However, the two offices could work collaboratively. This Chief Transformation Officer will report directly to the MTA Board and work closely with the MTA Chief Executive Officer and COO.
• While MTA officials have indicated that they believe the agency has made progress in increasing accessibility to subways, buses, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North in recent years, much more remains to be done to make the transit system accessible to all customers. To accelerate the creation of a fully accessible transit system, AlixPartners recommended that the MTA should hire the first-ever network-wide MTA Accessibility Officer reporting to the Chief Executive Officer.
“Make no mistake about it, this transformation will allow us to finally give our customers the system they deserve, and prepares us to execute on what is likely to be the biggest capital plan in MTA history,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye.
The release of the AlixPartners analysis arrived a day after the MTA touted the “enormous success of the Subway Action Plan.” On Thursday, the agency noted that subway on-time performance was 81.5 percent, marking the first time it had crossed the 80-percent threshold in six years.

Photo Courtesy of NYPD

According to the NYPD, this man attempted to steal from St. Helen’s Church on Sunday afternoon.

By Michael V. Cusenza
Area detectives on Monday reached out to the public via social media for help in identifying and locating a man who attempted to burglarize a Howard Beach church that was plundered by a pair of perps just three months ago, police said.
According to 106th Precinct investigators, security camera footage showed that on Sunday, around 2:40 p.m., the suspect forced open the door to the sacristy at St. Helen’s Church in Rockwood Park. The man quickly perused the room for valuables before fleeing the house of worship empty handed in an unknown direction.
Anyone with information is asked to call the stationhouse at (718) 845-2261 or the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at (800) 577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, (888) 57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit info by logging onto NYPDCrimestoppers.com or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All correspondences are strictly confidential.
In April, two brazen burglars broke into the beloved Catholic church and stole hundreds of dollars in cash from donation boxes. According to police reports, a black man and woman, both 30 to 40 years old, forced their way in the front door to the 83rd Street church and pilfered approximately $400 from four containers positioned in the nave of the church near the doors. She was clearly captured on security footage casually rifling through one of the coffers. The thieves fled the scene in a red, four-door sedan, cops noted.
The lifted loot was donated by parishioners and goes to various charities that provide aid to the indigent and other Church initiatives. That case remains unsolved.

Forum Photo

Due to the deterioration of the building, DOB issued an immediate emergency declaration allowing a city contractor to demolish the home.

By Michael V. Cusenza
An unoccupied residence that has teetered precariously on the lip of a Hawtree Basin inlet in Hamilton Beach since Superstorm Sandy inundated the area with water in 2012 partially collapsed into the drink on Monday, according to officials and eyewitnesses.
A City Department of Buildings spokeswoman told The Forum that the agency responded to reports of a leaning building at 102-39 Russell St. DOB inspectors found that the vacant, single-family home had shifted 2-3 feet toward the waterway behind it. Any utility services feeding the home were cut. Due to the deterioration of the building, DOB issued an immediate emergency declaration allowing a city contractor to demolish the home.
The spokeswoman indicated that DOB will continue to monitor the edifice until the home is demolished. In addition, the agency issued an aggravated violation to the building owner for failure to maintain the home in a code-compliant manner.
The property owner has pledged to DOB that they will hire a private contractor to perform the work; however, if they do not commence the demolition right away, a City contractor will perform the work and bill the owner.
The City Office of Emergency Management promised to conduct a follow-up probe of the site on Wednesday.
Area residents have been alerting elected officials and authorities about the home and others like it for years. Just last May, residents in Old Howard Beach recently made several calls to The Forum after a waterfront property located on Bayview Avenue near 163rd Avenue in Ramblersville, abandoned since Superstorm Sandy, began to sink further into Hawtree Creek.
Fears had been mounting that the shed and the deck attached to the property would soon break free and clog the waters of the creek, introducing dangerous conditions in the waterway and prohibiting any watercraft from passing.
As with all properties in similar condition, the homeowners were offered the choice to renovate, rebuild, or surrender the property for market value to the City’s Build it Back initiative. Due to the highly restrictive conditions and the extended time frame involved, the owners of the property chose to participate in the acquisition phase of the program and sold their home to the City.
The house, which was under the jurisdiction of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, has been demolished.

Photo Courtesy of Google

Hussain allegedly killed his wife and injured his teen daughter inside their Fresh Meadows home.

By Forum Staff
A Fresh Meadows man has been indicted for fatally stabbing his wife and for seriously injuring their daughter, Acting Queens District Attorney John Ryan announced on Thursday.
Jawad Hussain, 57, was arraigned Thursday on a six-count indictment charging him with second-degree murder, felony assault, and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Hussain was ordered held without bail and to return to court on Sept. 5.
According to the charges, on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019, during the afternoon, Hussain, wielding two knives, allegedly attacked his wife, Fatima Jawad, in their 69th Avenue residence. The 44-year-old victim was stabbed multiple times. During the bloody assault, the couple’s daughter, Manhor, 18, tried to stop her father from killing her mother. She stepped between the two and was slashed in her hands and wrists. Both women were taken to nearby New York-Presbyterian hospital, where Fatima Jawad died from her injuries.
Ryan called the incident “the absolute worst outcome to domestic violence.
“This was a vicious attack—one woman stabbed to death and the other slashed—in their home,” he added. “The two women were in their home and allegedly attacked by someone who presumably loved them both. The victim succumbed to her injuries and the surviving daughter’s wounds will heal, but she’ll forever be traumatized by this violent incident. The defendant now faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life incarcerated for his alleged actions.”
If convicted, Hussain faces up to 50 years to life in prison.

Photo Courtesy of Google

At the time of his arrest, federal agents recovered $80,000 from Chandresh Kumar Patel’s 147th Street residence.

By Forum Staff
A Texas-based bail bondswoman has been sentenced to three years in prison for her role in smuggling hundreds of illegal aliens into the United States, federal prosecutors recently announced.
Hema Patel, 51, pleaded guilty in June 2018 to alien smuggling for financial gain by fraudulently bonding illegal aliens from immigration custody and causing their release into the country. In November 2017, Patel’s co-defendant, Chandresh Kumar Patel (no relation) pleaded guilty to smuggling aliens for financial gain for his role in the scheme as an alien trafficker and financial broker. At the time of his arrest, federal agents recovered $80,000 from his Flushing residence. On Oct. 5, 2018, Kumar Patel, 30, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.
According to authorities, from April 2015 through October 2016, Patel and her co-conspirators executed a scheme to bring undocumented aliens, primarily from India, into the U.S. in exchange for “fees” ranging from approximately $28,000 to $60,000 per person. Patel and her co-conspirators paid middlemen, or “coyotes,” to arrange the logistics of the aliens’ travel—either a northern route through Canada or a southern route through Mexico. When the aliens were stopped and taken into custody by law enforcement officers at the U.S. border, they called Patel, who then prepared phony bond documents on their behalf, including documents listing fictitious names and addresses indicating where and with whom the aliens would reside while their cases were pending. These documents and the bail bonds were then filed in U.S. immigration courts, and the aliens were released into the community. Patel used two of her hotels in Texas to temporarily harbor some of the aliens, federal officials noted.
On Nov. 17, 2016, law-enforcement agents toting a search warrant descended on Patel’s Texas home, seizing thousands of bogus alien bonding records.
“For her personal financial gain, defendant Hema Patel arranged to have hundreds of aliens smuggled into the United States, completely by-passing the visa application and eligibility requirements,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue. “She will now pay the price for placing the safety and security of the residents of our communities at risk.”
The Court also ordered Hema Patel to forfeit her Texas residence, two hotels, $7.2 million in bail bonds, $400,000 in cash and 11 gold bars, among other assets.
“In a classic example of how criminal networks exploit loopholes in our nation’s immigration system to make a profit while threatening the national security of the United States, Hema Patel and her human smuggling co-conspirators manufactured fraudulent bond documents to secure the release of undocumented aliens that were smuggled through the southwest border by an international criminal network,” added Angel Melendez, special agent-in-charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, New York. “HSI remains steadfast in its commitment to secure our nation’s legitimate travel, trade and finance by going after transnational criminal networks, their facilitators and their ill-gained assets.”

Photo Courtesy of Google

Pichkhadze’s First Choice Pharmacy is located at 245 East 124th Street in Manhattan.

By Forum Staff
Three borough residents have been charged with orchestrating and participating in a multi-million dollar Medicaid fraud scheme involving kickbacks and HIV drugs, State Attorney General Tish James announced Friday.
Pharmacy owner Irina Pichkhadze, 34, and three of her pharmacy managers: Raymond Dieffenbacher, 46; Tarlan Pinkhasov, 40; and Yana Dubrinskaya, 31, the only one of the four suspects who lives outside of Queens; Pichkhadze’s First Choice Pharmacy; and two additional companies, Express Audit Prevention Corp. and OTC Distributors, Inc., were charged with crimes related to defrauding Medicaid out of more than $10 million in a kickback and drug diversion scheme through First Choice Pharmacy in Harlem.
According to prosecutors from the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the defendants, acting in concert with each other, allegedly paid or directed employees to pay cash kickbacks to Medicaid recipients in return for each patient’s agreement to fill their HIV prescriptions at First Choice. The pharmacy in turn billed and eventually received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Medicaid for refills that it either did not dispense to patients, a scheme known as “auto-refilling,” or were predicated on the payment of an unlawful kickback.
According to James, State law strictly prohibits all medical providers, including pharmacies, from paying or offering to pay cash kickbacks to anyone in return for the referral of medical services ultimately paid for by Medicaid.
Prosecutors also alleged on Friday that their investigation found that between Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2016, First Choice Pharmacy did not purchase sufficient quantities of medication from state drug wholesalers to justify the quantities of medication it claimed, through its billing records, to have dispensed to patients. Relying on thousands of false claims for payment filed by the pharmacy, Medicaid and Medicaid-funded managed care organizations in turn paid First Choice and the individual defendants more than $10.2 million dollars to which, prosecutors allege, they were not entitled.
Large sums of that money, prosecutors allege, were then funneled through bank accounts bearing the names of Express Audit, OTC, Minnesota Independant [sic] Drugs, and Azure Drugs, among others, and disguised as payments to pharmaceutical wholesalers. The latter two accounts were opened as assumed names for First Choice Pharmacy and in effect, prosecutors allege, the defendants funneled money back to themselves under the guise of inventory purchases.
During its investigation, MFCU executed a search warrant at First Choice and recovered hundreds of bottles of allegedly adulterated, diverted HIV medication. State law requires pharmacies to only secure medication from licensed pharmaceutical wholesalers.
In conjunction with the criminal case, James on Friday also filed a civil asset forfeiture and New York State False Claims Act action against criminal defendants Pichkhadze, Dieffenbacher, Dubrinskaya, Pinkhasov, First Choice Pharmacy, Express Audit, and OTC, as well as against three non-criminal defendants Eduard Yagudayev, Janice Dieffenbacher, and Marina Pichkhadze. The asset forfeiture action and civil recovery action seeks to recover more than $22 million dollars in damages from the defendants for defrauding the State Medicaid program.
“It is disturbing and deeply damaging to our society when health care professionals exploit our most vulnerable patients to steal millions of dollars reserved to provide New Yorkers with essential health care,” James said.