The police said Mr. Taylor first struck at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, robbing an HSBC branch at 342 Fulton Street of $450. On Saturday, the police said, he showed up two doors down at a Bank of America branch, and robbed that one too, making off with nearly $3,500.

On Monday, growing more brazen, the police said, Mr. Taylor showed up twice more at the same Bank of America branch, at 350 Fulton Street — first at 10 a.m. and then at 2:20 p.m. Each time, they said, he demanded that tellers turn over cash. He fled with more than $3,800 from the two robberies into the teeming crowds of holiday shoppers.

The police have rarely experienced a string of bank robberies in such quick succession and proximity. So when the two branches opened on Tuesday, dozens of officers in uniform and in plainclothes were on the lookout inside and positioned outside along the Fulton Mall’s sidewalks.

They would have little trouble recognizing Mr. Taylor if he showed up again, investigators said, because his image had been captured by bank surveillance cameras.

The Borough Park yeshiva administrator was slapped with a $115 ticket after he parked at a “bus stop” on 51st St. – even though the closest bus route is one block north.

Since the June 13 fine was issued, Zenwirth, 34, has appealed the decision, but has been stymied by two city administrative law judges, most recently in October.

“It upset me more the unfairness, the negligence, the stupidity than the money itself,” said Zenwirth.

Smith Street and Fifth Avenue are becoming mirror images of one another — thanks to at least half a dozen entrepreneurs opening shops on both streets.

Call it “Smifth Avenue.” Lucia, Something Else, Soula and Flirt, plus chains like Brooklyn Industries and Area Kids, have staked a claim on both streets.

Owners say they’re making life easier for shoppers, not trying to erase Brooklyn’s long-standing neighborhood distinctions.

“We noticed that we had significant numbers of customers who shop on Smith Street, but live in Park Slope and Prospect Heights,” said Soula owner Rick Lee.

In almost all cases, shop owners opened their first outlet on Smith Street before expanding to Fifth Avenue.

He was found with more than 130 pieces of other people’s mail in his car, according to a court complaint.

Michael Olivio was released on his own recognizance Thursday following his arrest the previous day, court records show. The exact charges against him were not listed in court records available early Saturday, and a spokesman for prosecutors did not immediately return a telephone call.

. . .

Postal authorities started getting complaints in June about greeting cards getting lost en route to residents of a Brooklyn ZIP code, U.S. Postal Inspection Service Special Agent Stephen Dolloff said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

The bouncer, Stephen Sakai, 32, was surrounded by 16 court officers as the verdict was announced in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. He rose, thrust his arms back to accept handcuffs and paced to the holding pens, the picture of discipline.

The split verdict, one juror said, apparently reflected acceptance of some of Mr. Sakai’s testimony, a wide-ranging account of conspiracy by police assassins who coveted his private security business. Though he was born Stephen Sanders in Queens and has no passport, Mr. Sakai testified in a thick, wavering accent, transposing L’s and R’s.

“It was laughable,” said the juror, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I brought it up multiple times, and the rest of the jury really didn’t see it.”

The verdict closed the last chapter in the improbable history of the Sweet Cherry, a sleazy strip parlor that lasted a decade, in defiance of the authorities, on the docks of Sunset Park. The scene of various assaults and a documented in-house narcotics trade, the club closed last year after Mr. Sakai’s arrest.

. . .