Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash . . . Because I Spent The Afternoon Robbing Banks!

You’re forgiven for feeling like a huge fuddy duddy after reading about the 16-year-old girl nabbed during a bank-robbing spree:

A 16-year-old girl walked into the Commerce Bank branch at 31-09 Ditmars Blvd. shortly before 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon and passed a note to a teller demanding cash. When the teller walked away from the counter, the girl fled. A few minutes later, the same girl entered the First Central Savings Bank branch at 37-28 Ditmars Blvd. and again passed a note to a teller demanding cash. The teller complied and the girl fled the bank and passed the money off to a white male who fled the scene on foot. The girl was detained until the police responded.

Chrystie Almestica, who lives on 28th Street in Astoria, is charged with attempted bank robbery, bank robbery, and menacing. As of press time the male suspect had not been arrested. According to reports, Almestica allegedly claimed the male suspect had coerced her into committing the robbery. The investigation is ongoing.

Secretary Chertoff? Hold On, Let Me Get That Damned Autodialer Off The Other Line . . .

Apparently nobody added Mayor Bloomberg’s supersecret hotline to the Do Not Call Registery:

Mayor Bloomberg’s secret, secure telephone for managing city catastrophes has been ringing off the hook — with telemarketers pitching insurance policies and magazine subscriptions.

Bloomberg said his “Batphone” — located in the kitchen of his Upper East Side townhouse — gets “lots of calls, including people trying to sell insurance and everything else.”

Bloomberg revealed the existence of the special phone during an appearance before a congressional committee yesterday and later answered questions about it from reporters.

He said the phone has “a secure device that encodes on either end, but it’s a regular telephone. So if you don’t sign up for the service of do-not-call-me during meal times, you get lots of calls.”

“It is not red,” he deadpanned.

The unlisted phone, installed shortly after he took office, has been solved by persistent telemarketers. “You can dial numbers at random and it will eventually get to everyone in the world,” he said.

Bloomberg said the phone has never been used in an emergency, so he knows that whenever it rings, “it’s somebody trying to sell insurance.”

From Hot Dog To Bottle Service

Not only were they dealing drugs at Dyckman Marina in Inwood Hill Park but concessionaires were throwing parties with bottle service, something that apparently will end when the next concession opens:

Jerry O’Rourke, operator of the marina and a co-owner of the restaurant, who ran the businesses on concession from the Parks Department, was arrested on Dec. 12, along with eight other people, on charges of helping to operate a large-scale drug ring out of the marina and nearby buildings. Mr. O’Rourke, who is a retired New York City police officer, pleaded not guilty.

The attention of the neighborhood has turned to discussions among those who express amazement or outright disbelief at the allegations, and those who say the activities were an open secret.

Whatever the truth of the charges, though, local residents are already turning to another question: Whither the marina? The marina was a mainstay of the neighborhood, and Mr. O’Rourke was known for staging salsa and merengue concerts. Those gatherings sent sounds echoing off the Palisades across the water and bred a satellite party scene along Dyckman Street, where young men would park tricked-out cars vibrating with bass. The noise provoked constant complaints from neighbors, occasionally leading the police to restrict car access to the end of the street.

Last week, there seemed to be an inverse correlation between local residents’ ages and their interest in seeing this scene recreated. “People had fun there,” said Javier Fernandez, 28, who was wiping down a Town Car inside Hand Car Wash on Dyckman Street. Speaking from beneath the brim of a baseball hat embossed with red flames, he added, “Everyone who lived here went to concerts there.” But many older residents seemed to hope for a more sedate marina, a place free of the packed concerts and $100 bottle service.

“I think the community is relieved at the possibility of a new concession,” said Sarah Morgridge, an aide to City Councilman Robert Jackson, who represents the area. Ms. Morgridge, 58, remembers the marina of 10 years ago as “a place you could grab a hot dog and be down by the water.” The Parks Department said that it planned to solicit proposals for a new concession at the site, and that it would ensure an end to the late-night parties.

Location Scout: Inwood Hill Park.

It’s My Park!

Golf course as mafia front:

The Department of Parks is involved in talks with a business that has possible ties to organized crime, a letter released by the city’s comptroller said yesterday.

In January of last year, the city chose East Coast Golf for a $9.6 million, 20-year contract to renovate, maintain, and operate Marine Park Golf Course in Brooklyn. East Coast Golf is led by Domenick Logozzo, who has lent money to Craig Marino, a reputed Colombo family soldier, according to federal court papers filed in March.

Marino was indicted on federal racketeering charges for defrauding investors of more than $20 million in a scheme by which cheap stocks were sold at high prices by Mafia-controlled brokerage firms, court papers say.

A lawyer for Marino didn’t return phone calls yesterday, and Mr. Logozzo could not be reached at home or at his business. The numbers listed for East Coast Golf are disconnected.

This comes on the heels of a recent bust of a drug-running ring at another Parks concession:

Jerome O’Rourke, 42, who retired from the New York Police Department in the late 1980s, and the others were charged with several counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy, Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan reported.

A six-month long investigation recorded 48 sales of cocaine, heroin, crack, ecstasy and marijuana to undercover narcotics officers at the Dyckman Street Marina or in the vicinity since May of 2006, Brennan said.

The prosecutor said O’Rourke brokered many of the deals, turning the marina into a place where large-scale dealers could meet with drug buyers who were actually undercover officers.

O’Rourke’s lawyer, Stacey G. Richman, did not return calls for comment.

Brennan said the undercover officers made 21 narcotics purchases, in amounts ranging up to 80 grams of cocaine, at or near the marina in upper Manhattan. She said they also bought “purple haze” marijuana and ecstasy pills.

O’Rourke’s family has been operating, maintaining and managing the marina, a concession leased from the city, for many years, Brennan said.

Police with warrants searched the marina and a number of the defendants’ homes where they found cocaine, marijuana and heroin, the prosecutor said. New York City park rangers participated in some of the searches at the marina.

Two Of Our Favorite Things — Black Cars And Trial Attorneys — Remind Us To Expect The Impossible

This all sounds perfectly reasonable:

[Black car advocate and Manhattan attorney Lauren Z.] Asher, who speaks at Lamborghini speed and wears her brown hair swept back in a banana clip, is thirty-three. Last year, her second in solo practice, she handled around three thousand taxi and black-car cases, making her, as the editor of Black Car News said recently, “one of the biggies” in the field. In September, she opened an office on Eighth Avenue, a block up from a Lukoil station and near a couple of taxi stands.

It was 8:30 A.M., and Asher was examining the summons of Olusegun Victor Samuel, a Nigerian cabbie who’d been issued a summons for running a stop sign at the corner of Spring and Washington. “It’s an unknown cop,” she said—meaning one unfamiliar to her, and thus, likely, with the clubby ways of the D.M.V. court — “which is great for me.” Suddenly, Asher ran down the hall, popping her head into a chamber designated Hearing Room 3. “I didn’t want the case to get pulled,” she explained.

A few minutes later, the trial commenced. Asher, the defendant (wearing a maroon puffy jacket), and the officer who wrote the ticket stood in front of the bench. The officer read aloud from his notes:

“I was on the northwest corner travelling eastbound, when I observed a Ford yellow taxi coming southbound down Washington Street. I observed the vehicle go through a marked stop sign approximately ten feet before the crosswalk and proceeded to pull the motorist over.”

Asher made a motion to dismiss.

“Granted.”

The officer apparently had not described the traffic signal in sufficient detail. “A stop sign’s an eight-sided red sign with the word ‘STOP’ on it, has to face oncoming traffic, has to be posted near the corner,” Asher said. “And he didn’t get any of that.”