At 3:31 p.m., according to the police, a masseuse arrived at the fourth-floor apartment of the building, at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of the bedroom Mr. Ledger was in. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with sleeping pills — both prescription medication and nonprescription — on a night table. They attempted to revive him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.

A Queens cop and several other city employees were busted for insurance fraud in a chop-shop scam, authorities said yesterday.

In addition to McKinnies, a city buildings inspector, a school safety officer, the security director of a city-run hospital, and one registered sex offender were also busted.

A Flushing Army veteran was arrested last Wednesday night after police found a staggering weapons cache in his apartment that included body armor, rifles and more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition.

According to published reports, Suwei Chuang, 36, of 135-11 40th Rd., Apt. 7A, was taken into custody in Manhattan’s 7th Precinct around 8:45 p.m. following a tip cops received from his girlfriend. Officers observed an AR-15 assault rifle fitted with a scope in plain sight in Chuang’s vehicle. After obtaining a search warrant for the vehicle, cops determined the weapon was fully loaded and that Chuang was also carrying 18 loaded 30-round magazines in the car.

A major international cocaine distribution ring has been dismantled with the seizure of $10 million worth of cocaine, officials said yesterday.

To gauge the undercover detective’s ability to unload the narcotics without being detected, Hynes said the smugglers initially sent a Panamanian newspaper and a hat stashed aboard a container ship on Nov. 15. Three subsequent shipments containing cocaine were seized at the port on Nov. 23, Nov. 29 and Dec. 6, said Hynes, adding that the drugs were hidden so deeply in the enormous container ships that the defendants once provided a map to the detective.

For Orlando Taylor, a 26-year-old Brooklyn man who apparently had a strange attraction to a couple of bank branches at the bustling Fulton Mall, three times was a charm. So was the fourth time. But according to the police, when he returned on Tuesday to commit a fifth robbery in five days, his luck ran out.

Despite the long odds against another successful holdup, the police said, Mr. Taylor was spotted shortly after 9 a.m. by plainclothes officers on the sidewalk outside his original target, the HSBC branch. Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said Mr. Taylor was seen looking from the sidewalk through the branch’s windows, where he apparently spotted uniformed officers, and turned to walk away.