Lede Of The Day

The Queens Ledger empire throws child molesters to the wolves and feels little remorse about it:

Sexual deviant Jason Forgetta, who was arrested and charged with sodomizing a seven-year-old girl in Williamsburg, may soon be getting a taste of his own cruel medicine.

Vermin Licking Good

And I have no doubt that the person quoted here actually was sick after saying this:

Inspectors raced to the [KFC/Taco Bell] franchise at Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street after a Post lensman shot these photos of scores of scabby rodents brazenly parading across the floors and tables of the fast-food joint early yesterday morning. Rat droppings could be seen littering the floor.

What the inspectors found was a “vermin infestation” that one health official called “egregious.”

The city Heath Department immediately padlocked the restaurant.

Earl Heffintrayer, a 29-year-old student at New York University, was particularly horrified to hear the news.

“That’s so disgusting. I just ate there last night. I think I am going to be sick. I’ll never come back here again,” he said, looking a bit green.

Officials at ADF Operating Corp., of Fairfield, N.J., which owns the franchise, said the infestation had resulted from a construction project in the building’s basement.

“It seems that due to this construction, an open space was left in the foundation that allowed the rats inside,” said the company’s chief operating officer, Harry Harnett. “It is our goal to complete the construction as soon as possible and clean and sanitize the restaurant and only with the OK of the Health Department will we reopen.”

But then who exactly will eat there?

And that Health Department OK may be easier than you think:

A city health inspector gave a passing grade to the notoriously filthy, vermin-infested KFC/Taco Bell just one day before shuttering it — after news cameras recorded a rat rampage through the Greenwich Village restaurant.

“We’re looking to see if the inspector dropped the ball on this,” said Health Department spokesman Geoffrey Cowley. “I think it may not have been as rigorous an inspection as it should have been.”

After receiving three rodent-related complaints about the establishment to 311 in the past few weeks, the inspector visited Thursday and uncovered some violations, said Cowley — but allegedly not enough for a failing grade.

The next morning, after horrified onlookers observed dozens of rats brazenly scurrying around the floors, tables and trash bins, and word spread to the media, inspectors raced back to the scene.

This time, they found a whopping 92 points worth of health-code violations — far surpassing a failing grade of 28.

Build Your Own Law & Order Intro Quip

“This is a homicide until we see an alternate side”:

An unidentified man died yesterday when he plunged from a 15th-floor Park Avenue apartment and was impaled on a No Parking sign, police said.

A source said the man may have worked in the building. A resident of the 16-story high-rise at 1130 Park said that the apartment was recently vacated and that a young couple was preparing to move in.

An EMS team was called to the scene between East 91st and 92nd streets just after 2 p.m. By then, the body had slid down the pole and was draped over a bicycle leaning against the pole.

Some of the man’s clothing was still on the sign hours later.

It was not immediately known whether he fell, was pushed or jumped.

Specially Formulated For Healthy Skin And Volt

We know it’s “finally” winter why? Dogs are finally getting electrocuted again:

A dog was electrocuted in front of 80 John Street in Manhattan yesterday afternoon, officials and witnesses said. A Con Edison spokesman, Chris Olert, said “questionably wired lighting on a scaffolding” was to blame. The dog was revived by CPR, New York 1 reported. Another dog named Bob was said to be fatally shocked on Rector Street on Tuesday, making yesterday’s incident the second dog electrocution in two days.

Not Really Biting The Hand That Feeds You So Much As Jumping Over The Counter And Shooting It Off

Despite how they make it sound, Bedford-Stuyvesant really is a tight-knit neighborhood:

There are video cameras watching the counter all the time. The monitors are wrapped in clear plastic to keep them clean. Most of the other Chinese restaurants nearby also have thick plexiglass shields between the cashier and the customer, like a gas station or a liquor store, but not Happy House. Longtime customers, presumably the very people who would be the most offended by beefed-up security, tell [Gigi] Wong they need more.

“They need, like, a partition here with a window,” said a matronly woman who gave only her first name, Lorna. “People are stupid. They always kill the ones that help them.”

To Ms. Wong, she said, “If that was you they shot, I would have cried.”

So new was the cashier that, after the shooting, no one in the Wong family seemed to know her full name, only her last name, Lin. Before the shooting, when Gigi Wong had tried to speak to her at work, they would be constantly interrupted by customers.

And the kicker:

The man, Raymond Wiliams, 21, was identified on the security video tape as the gunman leaping over the counter, according to a criminal complaint filed in court. The police are looking for another man who may have been involved, the complaint says.

Mr. Williams has been charged with attempted murder, assault, menacing and harassment, and remained in jail as of yesterday. He admitted he leaped over the counter and fired two shots, according to the complaint.

Ms. Wong did not recognize his name.

But she was stunned to learn of his address, 210 Stuyvesant Avenue, right around the corner from the restaurant.

“We deliver to that address,” she said. “Every single day.”

Robbing a Chinese takeout is not particularly smart. Robbing your neighborhood Chinese takeout . . . nice.