What’s This Generation Coming To?

Heartless scam artists responsible for bilking Staten Islanders out of hundreds of dollars turn out to be 12 and 14:

The search for two scam artists who traded on tall tales about dead relatives and needy families came to an end in West Brighton last night.

Not with a whimper, or a high-speed police chase.
But with the young suspects knocking on a door.

A cop’s door.

A brother-and-sister team from the neighborhood — the boy just 12 and the girl 14 — were arrested on charges they have been duping Staten Islanders for months, police said.

The middle-school miscreants were roving Davis Avenue in West Brighton at about 5:40 p.m. when they unwittingly arrived at the cop’s home, according to a police source familiar with the case.

Sensing something was amiss, the cop’s wife called her husband, and officers from the North Shore’s 120th Precinct were immediately dispatched, the source added.

The kiddie culprits were caught a few houses away, with a professional-looking ledger stuffed of falsified donation receipts from two funeral homes for about $150, the source continued.

The duo reportedly confessed to concocting various tall tales, saying that money was tight at home and they were trying to help out their mom.

However, when their mother was notified of her children’s capers, she was shocked, the source said.

. . .

Apparently, the small scam artists coaxed their victims out of cash with the promise that the funeral homes — and even the Advance — would match any donation made toward a burial.

The suspects told cops their inspiration for the sick swindle was the Advance’s coverage of the decomposed body of an infant found Sept. 24 inside a plastic shopping bag in the grass of Luis R. Lopez Playground in Clifton, according to the source.

Who Killed The Jody’s Pool? You Did!

The seven-figure NCAA MArch Madness pool at a Staten Island bar may be no more now that the feds are sniffing around:

Rumors have been swirling around Jody’s Club Forest, the West Brighton bar and restaurant, that the IRS and possibly the District Attorney’s office might crack down on the wildly popular NCAA men’s basketball tournament pool, which last year had a pot of $1.5 million.

Jody Haggerty, the pool’s namesake and owner of the Forest Avenue establishment, was mum yesterday. A source at his bar would say only, “It could be true,” and that the decision would be made by March 17. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Evidently, something’s up,” said a man at Randall Manor Tailor next door to the bar, where the pool tickets and cash are handed in. The man, who also asked not to be identified, said the rumors that there won’t be a pool in 2007 are “strictly speculation — there’s nothing concrete yet.”

When the pool is on, Forest Avenue outside the bar is “like Times Square on New Year’s Eve,” the man in the tailor shop said. “But when somebody wins, it’s hush-hush, like nothing happened. That’s why the IRS is looking into it. Last year, they must have decided, ‘$1.2 million? Enough is enough.'”

Still, it’s not the IRS that’s the problem, the man said, but rather the increasing media attention that the huge payout commands, including coverage in newspapers throughout the city, and even a spot on the “CBS Evening News.”

“The media killed the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said.

A Newer, Much More Invasive Clam Settles On Staten Island

“Invasive clam species” just sounds terrifying:

An invasive clam species has been discovered near Brook’s Pond in Clove Lakes Park — the first documented spotting of the small Asian shellfish within the five boroughs.

About 40 golden-colored Corbicula fluminea — which eat the same plankton as native clams, small fish and baby turtles, potentially threatening their food supply — were found last month by College of Staten Island biology professor Dr. Albert Burchsted.

Because each clam is capable of breeding up to 400 clams per day when the water is warm, the population could quickly swell into the thousands this summer, he said.

“These clams suck all the nutritive organisms out of the water column,” Burchsted said, adding that it’s only a matter of time before the “explosive” breeders take over the pond — and likely show up in other ponds and lakes on Staten Island.

Burchsted said the clams — which according to the American Museum of Natural History has until now been found in this region only on Long Island, upstate and in the Raritan River in New Jersey — were likely transported here as they stuck to the feet of birds which had been to the bodies of water where the clams breed. They also could have been used as bait by fishermen, who disposed of them in the pond.

Varying from dime-size to the size of a silver dollar, the Asian clams were introduced into the Columbia River, near Knappton, Wash., in 1938, possibly as a food item, according to Museum of Natural History records. (The clams are commonly used as food in some Asian cultures). The Asian clam, which can now be found in nearly 40 states, likely reached New York state sometime before 1997, according to the museum.

. . .

The Parks Department is aware that the clam exists in Brook’s Pond; however, there are no plans to attempt to remove them. Eradicating the clam would involve dredging every square inch of silt in the pond, which would be impossible, Burchsted said.

As Your Crusty Old Uncle Might Say, The Thing About Stereotypes Is . . .

Some just don’t get the importance of never repeating the negative:

Citing a journalism “Shield Law,” the judge denied a request to obtain outtakes from the MTV reality show, “True Life: I’m A Staten Island Girl” in the prosecutors’ attempt to document an alleged assault in a swank Tottenville lounge on July 8.

Part of the controversial TV documentary, which followed three 20-something borough women as they club-hopped, mall-shopped, “tawked” and hobnobbed with Gottiesque wannabes, was filmed as one of them partied in Hush, a brass-hued club on Ellis Street. Many residents griped that the show unfairly stereotyped the Island.

Stapleton Criminal Court Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr. said the 40-minute tape, which he reviewed outside the presence of the involved parties, “does not contain relevant footage of the alleged assault or the events leading up to the alleged assault” involving Thomas J. Ford.

Ford, 40, was arrested on charges of misdemeanor assault and harassment, a violation. He has pleaded not guilty, and his case is pending.

Prosecutors had subpoenaed the tapes, hoping to document the alleged crime.

. . .

Sciarrino said the tapes showed six instances of disturbances that could be characterized as “fighting;” however, the instigators and reasons for any assaults “were not discernible.” Consequently, the tapes were not relevant.

“The anonymity of the assailants was conspicuously preserved by the cameraman’s behavior of pointing the camera downward or at inanimate objects each time a disturbance became apparent,” the judge wrote. “Additionally, the lights for the camera would be turned off.”

Backstory: Next You’ll Tell Me That Melanie Griffith’s Depiction Of Working Girl Tess McGill Was Inaccurate!, We Are All Orange Now.

Honestly, Who Hasn’t Dreamed Of Ringing In The New Year By Smoking Crack In A Staten Island Cemetery?

Some Staten Islanders take the personification of “Father Time” literally with a New Year’s Eve party at a local cemetery:

Plastic chairs, an empty keg and discarded liquor bottles littered the grounds of Ocean View Cemetery in Oakwood yesterday, the remnants of a New Year’s Eve party held near a crypt close to Amboy Road.

“It was just disgusting,” said Jim Coffey, a 41-year-old computer programmer from Great Kills who went to the cemetery yesterday with his wife to visit her brother’s grave. “You go to visit a person’s grave and you see all this stuff.”

Coffey took photos of what he saw — a dismantled fence, discarded cups, several chairs and a headstone that looked like it was turned into an open bar. He also said he spotted some “glassine envelopes,” the type used to hold drugs. “The most disgusting thing was the bottles lined up on the headstone there.”

No gravestones appeared to be toppled, Coffey said.

Coffey and his wife visited her brother’s headstone at about 3:30 p.m., and were on their way out when they found a broken plastic chair thrown into the middle of the exit road, leading to Amboy. Then they looked around.

“First we saw the headstone had all of those bottles, and then we looked up the hill at the crypt, and the rest of the party was up there,” he said. “Just the audacity of them. They brought plastic lawn furniture. . . . They did it with impunity. They absolutely didn’t expect anyone to happen upon them.”

(Perhaps El Nino is to blame?)