Governor David Paterson explained possible rumormongering by the state police was why he admitted his extramarital affairs and drug use shortly after taking office. Yes--Paterson was essentially afraid of the NY State Police! When being interviewed on WFAN-AM and questioned about Spitzer administration's monitoring of State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno's aircraft activity, Paterson said, "I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I will say this: That was also on my mind......

Yesterday, the Post reported about a strange and disturbing road rage incident in Red Hook last week. A woman was ultimately repeatedly hit by the driver of a Land Rover. According to police sources, on Thursday afternoon, the woman got out of her car to speak with 63-year-old Jeffrey Klempner, who was in his SUV at Columbia Street and Atlantic Avenue, "to talk to him about an earlier collision." Klempner "denied any wrongdoing," but when......

This morning, federal agents have arrested over 50 members of the Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno crime families in New York City, New Jersey, and Long Island. Authorities are calling this the "biggest mafia bust in more than 20 years." The Post reports the 80-count indictment includes charges of murder, labor racketeering, "racketeering conspiracy, extortion, , theft of union benefits, mail fraud, false statements, loan sharking, embezzlement of union funds, money laundering and illegal gambling." One......

A van carrying members of Stuyvesant High School's junior varsity girls' track team overturned on the way to a track meet in New Hampshire. The crash occurred last Saturday on I-91 in Vermont, when the van "veered into a median and rolled over," according to Vermont State Police. Other passers-by who stopped helped hold the van so it wouldn't roll over again. The AP reported that "four passengers crawled out, two were partially ejected, one......

In what was probably an end-of-year house cleaning, the e-mails related to the Troopergate re-investigation were obliterated and thus made unavailable to Albany County District Attorney David Soares. The Spitzer administration has been stalling for weeks to make e-mail records available to Soares and state computer recovery experts are now saying that servers and hard drives were deliberately purged and scrubbed. Troopergate was initially about Gov. Spitzer or his aides using State Police to effectually......

More than a year and a half after the death of Nixzmary Brown, the Administration for Children's Services has hired 20 retired NYPD detectives to work as trained investigators consulting with ACS caseworkers. The ACS plans on eventually fielding 120 such investigators. The need for a bolder approach to protecting children being monitored by the ACS follows the beating death of Brown in January 2006 and a number of other deaths of children under ACS......

State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver made a public plea to Gov. Eliot Spitzer to cool down his feud with State Senate Leader Joseph Bruno. The so-called Troopergate scandal began when the Governor allegedly sicced State Police on Bruno to monitor his business travel practices. In the aftermath, Spitzer lost some of his long-time aides when he claimed he knew nothing about the surveillance and they resigned. Darren Dopp recently was hired as a lobbyist after......

Governor Spitzer can rest a bit easier now: The Albany County DA found that the governor's aides broke no laws when they tried to use the state police to discredit a rival, State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. DA David Soares will release a report today, but in the meantime, his spokeswoman's statement said, "This office found no illegal conduct. To the contrary, we found that the governor, his staff, and the New York State......

Governor Spitzer's communications director Darren Dopp has come full circle. The aide, criticized for trying to dig up dirt on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by way of the State Police's records on Bruno's travel, had originally said he'd comply with the investigation and offer up his e-mail correspondence. But, after being served with a subpoena from the Ethics Commission, Dopp's lawyer Terrence Kindlon said his client would fight it. Now, Kindlon tells the press,......

Darren Dopp, Governor Spitzer's communications director who was faulted for at least co-devising a plan to smear State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno by way of State Police records, is planning on fighting a subpoena from the State Ethics Commission. The subpoena, which asks for Dopp's email that relates to the scandal (beginning January 1, 2007, Spitzer's first day, until a few days ago), is described as "very broad" by Dopp's lawyer Terrence Kindlon who......

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......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on 1st Ave. and 92nd St. in Manhattan, a car vs. building on Liberty Ave. and Elton St. in Brooklyn, and a body found on East Tremont Ave. in the Bronx. Looking to avoid damaging snail- and e-mail trails or records of phone conversations, aides to Gov. Spitzer who are being investigated in the State Police scandal investigation are allegedly conversing only in person while driving around......

A terrible accident in the Bronx: Police believe that an SUV on East Tremont was speeding around 4AM when it crashed into a telephone pole and flipped over. 1010WINS says the vehicle was "ripped apart" at Commonwealth Avenue. Three men were ejected from the SUV and pronounced dead at the scene. A fourth passenger, a woman, died at Jacobi Hospital. Over 34 million people are expected to be driving 50 miles or more during......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck at 186th St. and Amsterdam in Manhattan, a child was struck and killed by a car on 130th Ave. and Springfield Blvd. in Queens, and a pedestrian was struck by a Bobcat (motorized work vehicle) on Monroe St. and Catherine Slip in Manhattan. Ironic Sans examines the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and finds specific references to it taking place in NYC, but a......

We were skimming 1010WINS when we saw this headline Spitzer Energy Adviser Resigns Amid Threat Investigation. What? An energy adviser was involved in the plot to discredit State Senator Joseph Bruno? But actually it's something nuttier:Energy adviser Steven Mitnick confirms that he has resigned from his position in the Spitzer administration. In April, a PSC member appointed by former Republican Gov. George Pataki said Mitnick had threatened her in an effort to get her......

Governor Eliot Spitzer think the State Senate's idea to have Attorney General Andrew Cuomo appointed "special prosecutor" - to investigate misdeeds in Spitzer's office - is "pointless." Spitzer told the Sun, "It seems to me that the attorney general already issued a report that he called complete, and Joe Bruno already called it a complete report. We have the Ethics Commission doing its thing." Um, State Senate majority leader Bruno actually wants Cuomo to be......

Earlier this month, the NY Times had an article about how Governor Spitzer seemed "defiant and chastened" about the battles he was having with State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Now, after the Attorney General's office found that Spitzer's aides had been involved in a dirty-tricks attempt to smear Bruno by using State Police records, the NY Times reports the Spitzer is "at a loss for words" and that he will try to rebuild his......

Senate Majority Joseph Bruno's and Governor Eliot Spitzer's epic Choppergate fight grows each and every day. Yesterday, Bruno demanded that investigations be opened to focus on Spitzer's administration and whether Spitzer staffers were engaged in trying to sabotage him. Bruno said, "A lot of people in authority think there was criminality in the executive branch... I want to know how much the governor knew ... This is not going to go away, not going to......

Governor Eliot Spitzer's "ChopperGate" has more of a stink today: It turns out that two of his senior aides refused to speak with the Attorney General's office during the investigation. While the investigation ultimately found that Spitzer aides didn't technically break the law when they were trying to use State Police records to discredit State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, it makes it hard to believe Spitzer's assertion that his aides had cooperated fully with......

After Attorney General Cuomo found that Governor Spitzer's staffers were using state police records to attack rival Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, everyone agrees on one thing: It's very bad for Governor Spitzer. In a nutshell, Spitzer's aides, including communications director Darren Dopp, leaked information about possible misuse of state aircraft by Bruno to the Albany paper, the Times Union. Spitzers' aides later claimed that they were investigating Bruno's use of state aircraft because......

Talk about timing! Governor Eliot Spitzer visited an Albany child care center and got a photo op with some kids, which could only help take the attention off his bitter feud with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. But we wonder if these tots have been paying attention to the news: The Post reports that when Spitzer told them to call him "Eliot," one kid declined and said, "I want to call you 'clown,'" a......

Why is it that things are hotter in Albany with the Legislative session over? The brouhaha between Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Governor Eliot Spitzer has, as the Sun put it, "reached a new low." Bruno had a press conference yesterday, saying Spitzer's alleged State Police surveillance on Bruno's activities was "espionage." From the Times Union:"I've been in government 31 years and I've never experienced anything like this," said Bruno. "I was stunned to......

The fight between Governor Eliot Spitzer and Senate Majority Joseph Bruno gets more and more unbelievable. Yesterday, Bruno claimed that the Times Union, the Albany newspaper, tried to shake him down for money and today the Post says Spitzer had Bruno tailed by the state police! Hopefully the next news will be that the Legislature is selling tickets to a fight in the boxing ring. Over the weekend, the Times Union reported that Spitzer was......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a found grenade(!) at Sedgwick Ave. and Depot Pl. in the Bronx, a child abduction on 8th Ave. and 150th St. in Manhattan, and a person struck by a train on 103rd St. and Roosevelt Ave. in Queens. A New Jersey State Police report concluded that the unauthorized use of flashing emergency lights by his driver didn't cause Governor Corzine's near-fatal crash, but it did contribute significantly to the......

Hundreds of Virginia Tech alumni, NYU students and other New Yorkers gathered for a candlelight vigil in Washington Square Park last night. Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, who had traveled to Virginia Tech earlier in the week, brought back a candle from a vigil there and used it to light candles last night. And today, many people are also wearing orange and maroon, Virginia Tech's colors, for "Orange and Maroon Effect" day to show support for......

With the NJ State Police confirming that NJ Governor Corzine's SUV was going 91 MPH on the Garden State Parkway during a crash that left a seat-beltless Corzine critically injured, it was only natural for reporters to ask Mayor Bloomberg his thoughts. And the NY Times' Diane Cardwell says that his "nanny tendencies...were on full display" First the Mayor revealed that his car has signs reminding people to buckle up. (What, no audio recording of......

How much of an emergency is getting back to the Governor's mansion for a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team? Because the NJ State Police confirmed that Governor Corzine's SUV, which crashed last Thursday along the Garden State Parkway, was going 91 MPH, well over the 65 MPH speed limit. Further, NJ State Police Superintendent Joseph Fuentes said that the speed of the state trooper-driven SUV probably contributed to the accident,......

NJ Governor Jon Corzine may taken off a ventilator that has been helping him breathe since his Thursday night car accident on the Garden State Parkway. Yesterday, doctors removed fluid from his lungs (considered a routine procedure) successfully, and today, they will be performing another surgery to continue to clean up wounds from his left leg - when the femur broke, it punctured his skin. Corzine remains in critical but stable condition. His family......

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The New York International Auto Show opened its Javits Center doors to the press today. While lots of car manufacturers were showing off more environmentally friendly models, one activist group made its distrust of Toyota's claims known. Freedom From Oil had members scale the interior walls of the Javits to hang a sign spoofing the Toyota ad campaign. It reads: "The Truck That's Changing It All The Climate" and "Toyota: not an environmental leader."......