When cops raided a suspected drug operation in Washington Heights last week, they found that the alleged dealers had a little business going on the side: a day care service. Police arrested Donald Crespo and Akwasiba Radellant not just for drug possession, but child endangerment because the fire alarms in the apartment were deactivated and pacifiers were dirty. One three-month-old child was in the apartment during the raid and has since been returned to her......

Snoop Dogg, in town shooting BET interviews last week, was caught green-handed with the drug he claimed to give up at age 30: pot. The rapper was busted outside of hotspot Lotus last Wednesday for marijuana possession, and was issued a desk appearance ticket. The Post reports that didn't stop Snoop from partying the very next night, with his 25-strong posse, at Serafina and the tapas lounge Lollipop (somewhere in between they ordered 15 pizzas,......

A real estate agent who was handling the sale of a foreclosed houes in Jamaica, Queens discovered 100 marijuana plants inside. The subprime meltdown really is hitting all corners of the city. WCBS 2 reports that the discovery was made on Thursday afternoon and police removed all the plants from 170-04 118th Avenue. No further details were available, but we're guessing the previous occupants weren't able to rent a van to remove their goods.......

Two Jersey City mail carriers were arrested this week for selling marijuana when they weren't delivering most of the mail along their routes. 47-year-old Hector Pacheco Sr. and 37-year-old Al Spencer were arrested Friday afternoon with a third man as police raided a home and finding Pacheco wearing his postal uniform while grinding up marijuana to be deposited in bags that would be sold for $20. Cops seized 4 and half ounces of weed and......

Cordell Lochin is a bit of an enigma. The well-connected scenester, subject of an indulgent profile in the Observer last spring, presented himself as a partner in the obnoxiously affected nightspots La Esquina and The Box. Now the other entitled owners are distancing themselves from Lochin and the enigma will soon be wrapped inside a prison cell; Guest of a Guest has news that Lochin’s gotten sent up on a 3-year bid for involvement in......

Another pot farm bites the dust: A small fire in Queens led the Fire Department to over 200 marijuana plants growing inside a home. The FDNY wanted to inspect some smoking utility lines and entered another home at 61-20 Bleecker Street to turn off the electricity. When they got to Ridgewood home's basement, they found 217 pot plants, ranging in height from 2 to 6 feet, plus three illegal propane tanks. The home's occupant who......

The spicy story of the cop fired after testing positive on a drug test - after unkowingly eating a meatball spiked with pot - returns with a lawsuit! Anthony Chiofalo, a 22-year veteran of the NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force, is suing to be reinstated, claiming his termination was "arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and unconstitutional." Back in 2005, Chiofalo was shocked when he tested positive for marijuana during a drug test. Then it turned out his......

We're sure that one Long Island father thought to himself, "If I can't use my for a urine test, I'll use my child's urine..." when he decided to take his 9-year-old out of school. The problem is, Suffolk police officers happened to be passing by the deli where the 36-year-old father and son were and became suspicious when they saw "the child fixing his pants and watched as the father poured something from a coffee......

The young woman accused of killing real estate broker to the stars Linda Stein pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday. Natavia Lowery was denied bail, and her new defense lawyer, Ron Kuby, made a few points:First, he said Lowery's confession was coerced by the police detectives because, having been interrogated for hours on end without access to a phone or her lawyer "She had to make something up to get out of that......

There's finally been an arrest in the murder of Linda Stein. Yesterday it was reported that the police were interested in re-interviewing Stein's assistant, Brooklyn resident Natavia Lowery, who has a shady past involving identity theft. So it's not all that surprising that today the NYPD announced Lowery has been taken into custody. They found the 26-year old in Virginia Beach, apparently visiting her boyfriend.Police spokesman Paul Browne said Lowery "made statements implicating herself" in......

The police have been, or are interested in, talking to a number of people who knew music manager-turned-real estate broker Linda Stein. Stein, apparently bludgeoned to death, was found in her exclusive Fifth Avenue apartment by her daughter and a friend earlier this week. Since then more details have come out. Detectives believe Stein knew her killer and let him/her into the apartment, or that the killer is someone with access to the building. They......

Some police officers' routine patrolling became a big pot bust yesterday. Cops from the 105th Precinct smelled a pungent odor coming from a home on 269th Street in Floral Park and, once they got a search warrant, found a bumper crop of marijuana. There were more than 300 marijuana plants, growing lights, and 10 lawn bags of marijuana in the process of being dried. Three men, ages 23 to 48, were arrested and face......

If you’ve got time-pressed guests from out of town who can’t decide between seeing a show or taking a tour, Accomplice: New York is a great solution. Described as “an adventure in organized crime”, the show is part mystery/scavenger hunt and part walking tour through downtown Manhattan, orchestrated by a gang of seasoned improv actors. It is never exactly clear who’s part of the production and who’s just part of the woodwork, which makes the......

The two detectives who were shot during an early morning Bronx shootout yesterday managed to avoid serious injuries and the NYPD says it's a near miracle. Detectives Daniel Rivera and William Gonzalez, along with other three other cops, were trying to serve a warrant to a suspect in a bodega shooting when the suspect fired at them five times. Rivera's forehead was grazed and he left the hospital with only a scar - and smiles.......

Around 9:50AM, a man was shot multiple times outside a day care center in South Jamaica. A baby-sitter had yelled, "Oh, my God, this is crazy! This is day care!" The victim, identified as 30-year-old Dwight Bent, was pronounced dead at Mary Immaculate Hospital. Apparently Bent was visiting someone in the 110th Avenue building, which both a residence and day care facility. The Times-Ledger reports that "two men wearing bandanas over their faces" approached Bent......

One of the defendants accused of murdering Michael Sandy as part of a hate crime a year ago is now claiming that he is innocent because he himself is a gay man. Michael Fortunato is on trial for the murder of Michael Sandy after he and three friends arranged to meet him in a secluded spot in Sheepshead Bay for a gay tryst. Instead, they ambushed the 29-year-old Williamsburg man who, fleeing his attackers, ran......

The Dept. of Education is claiming that it was simply a mix-up in recordkeeping that led to a failure to hand over a few hundred cases of abuse and misconduct that occurred on city school buses when the Daily News was investigating chaotic situations as kids rode to and from school. Six months ago, the News began a series of articles titled "School Bus Disgrace," detailing the horrors kids face when dealing with bus drivers......

A pot AND stolen sneaker ring was busted yesterday by UPS inspectors who noticed some strange activities amongst some employees. The Daily News reports that inspectors set up a sting when they noticed that "tracking numbers showed the wrong packages were routinely getting loaded onto certain Bronx trucks." Oops! A loading dock supervisor and another employee were caught "loading 5 pounds of marijuana and stolen sneakers onto a truck," which would then be driven by......

A man, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he beat his roommate and the man's 4-year-old son to death with a billy club in 1974, left the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital Sunday afternoon when he went on an unescorted stroll around the hospital's grounds. Sixty-four-year-old retired Marine William Enman admitted the killings in 1975, but was spared prison when it was determined that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Enman left the......

The MTA Bridge and Tunnel police noticed that a truck had an "unstable load" and asked the driver to pull over yesterday. Inside the rig, the cops discovered 210 pounds of marijuana. The Daily News reports that the seven bricks of marijuana were hidden among "pallets of shredded coconuts" (and there is a reference to the driver being 'coco-nuts'). And the Post says the driver claimed he was headed to Long Island, but the cargo......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

All the papers are asking where Spider-Man was when Mary Jane Watson Kirstin Dunst's belongings were burgled on August 9th. The actress, who was in town filming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, was staying at the SoHo Grand Hotel and had just left her suite with some others before the crime took place. What was in her room was a $13,000 handbag, $2500 in cash, ID and credit cards, two digital cameras, a......

Grieving families buried the three victims of last weekend's execution-style murders in Newark. Authorities also named a fourth suspect in the crimes: Rodolfo Godinez, a 24-year-old who has a record of robbery, assault, and weapons arrests. Separate funerals were held for 20-year-old Iofemi Hightower, 20-year-old Dashon Harvey, and 18-year-old Terrance Aerial. Newark Mayor Cory Booker attended all funerals, and when he spoke at Aerial's funeral, the NY Times noted that his words were a......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Dorchester Rd. in Brooklyn, an armed robbery with shots fired on Richmond Ave. on Staten Island, and a bank robbery on Broadway and 68th St. in Manhattan. If one has been ordained by an online ministry, it's good to make sure the state you marry people in will recognize your performance at the altar. A possible problem is that even state officials in charge of issuing......

An ice-cream man whose Mr. Softee truck was parked across the street from an intermediate school in Jamaica, Queens was arrested yesterday for allegedly selling drugs in addition to frozen treats. Police executed a search warrant for the Mr. Softee truck yesterday afternoon and found cocaine, marijuana, and a loaded handgun. Jermaine Jordan is the 26-year-old ice-cream man/alleged drug dealer who is now under arrest. Neighborhood parents were concerned that he was possibly selling drugs......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

Rappers Ja Rule and Lil Wayne both found themselves ending their weekend with arrests last night. The separate incidents both took place in the city. Lil Wayne, fresh off the Beacon Theater stage following his Sunday night show there, was found smoking pot by his tour bus on 61st and Columbus Avenue at 11:30pm. What not to do while smoking an illegal substance, on the street, in the city? Carry a firearm. Lil Wayne had......

A budding Manhattan pot dealer named Peter Dagostino was arrested last year and police found a refrigerator in his apartment stuffed with 88 pounds of marijuana. They also found a list of specific "dos and don'ts" on how to succeed in the drug business. Apparently, a "don't" he forgot to add to his list was "Don't leave a written outline of your criminal enterprise for police to find." Dagostino also had some helpful advice from......

The man who throttled, stomped, kicked, and beat a peacock into a mortal state Thursday morning was turned in to police by his own stepfather yesterday. The Staten Island Advance is all over the story. It reports that John N. Potts was arrested yesterday, after threatening to smash his stepfather's face with a shovel in the older man's home. Potts then ran off and jumped into the Raritan Bay, shovel in hand. The Advance describes......

If they're good enough for Rush Limbaugh, they're apparently good enough for our City's school kids. The Post reports today that there are twice as many NYC eighth graders illegally using painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin than there were five years ago. This surge has lead authorities to a crackdown on pushers, nabbing five NY State doctors who were peddling the stuff to kiddies. Both drugs are opioid derivatives similar to morphine (Vicodin also contains......