The body of an elderly man who lived on a houseboat was found floating under a dock today in Brooklyn, authorities said.
The 74-year-old man’s boat was docked in the Plumb Beach Channel off of Ebony Court in Gerritsen Beach when he he was spotted in the water around 12:35 p.m., cops said.
He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police do not suspect any criminality at this time, cops said.
The city’s medical examiner will determine the cause of death.
HEMPSTEAD — Police say an apartment fire that spread to several buildings has forced 250 people from their homes, killed one and sent 11 to hospitals on Long Island.
Nassau County police say one victim is in critical condition after fire Saturday morning in Hempstead. The rest have injuries that aren't seen as life-threatening.
Police haven't released the identity of the person who died. Newsday says that victim is an 8-year-old boy, and another is a pregnant woman who suffered a heart attack.
Detectives are trying to determine what caused the fire. They don't believe it was set deliberately. It started in a third-floor apartment on Paul Road North around 6:20 a.m.
Some 300 firefighters were called in from 13 departments. It took several hours to extinguish the fire.
It’s like the Enchanted Forest out there.
Suffolk County cops pulled a seemingly-dead fawn out of icy waters in Fire Island today — and a family of deer came up to it and licked it back to health!
Suffolk County PD
Marine Bureau officers Robert Femia and Peter Bogachunas were nearing the Davis Park Marina on their boat about 1:04 p.m. when they noticed a little baby deer’s head among pieces of ice and slush floating on the water about 30 yards from shore.
“They don’t know how long it’s been there, so they maneuver their boat close to the deer, pick it up and throw it into the boat,” said Lt. Raymond Epp, of the Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau, who met the officers on the dock as they tried to rescue the little animal.
The cops quickly covered the brown-eyed deer in several thick blankets but, despite their best efforts, the little guy remained freezing wet and motionless.
Suffolk County PD
Suffolk County police officer with the fawn.
Suffolk County PD
Suffolks County police officer feeding fawn popcorn.
“It wasn’t flailing or kicking, it was just sitting there,” Epp said. “We weren’t sure if it was in shock of hypothermia.”
That’s when the Enchanted Forest-like miracle happened: Three deer — an adult and two young babies that appeared to be members of the fawn’s family — came out of the woods and began to lick the little guy.
Slowly, he started to come back to life, first blinking its big brown eyes, then getting up slowly and moving around the dock.
The officers took the fawn over to the station house and fed it warm popcorn, which the little guy took gladly. “We had limited food,” Epp explained.
After a few minutes, the fawn started to get even more alert and ran off with the other deer.
“I couldn’t wait to go home and tell my daughter about it,” said Epp, who has an 11 year old. “It was just such a nice, heartwarming story.”
A process server slapped Lindsay and Dina Lohan with court papers today — part of Chase Bank’s years-long battle to foreclose on their Long Island mansion, sources said.
The server tacked the court papers on the front gate of the troubled Starlet’s childhood house in Merrick — where Dina and Lindsay brawled in October.
Today’s court documents — which a source said names both Lindsay, 26, and her mom, Dina, 50 — were inside an envelope notes that simply: “Important Information Enclosed.”
The delivery man confirmed to The Post that he was a process server and that the papers were related to a “Chase Bank” mortgage issue.
Splash News
Lindsay Lohan arriving at amfAR gala.
Financial woes run in the family.
Hard-partying Dina has racked up over $1 million in debt in the past decade, barely avoiding foreclosure on the $1.3 million house in 2005 and 2012, court documents show.
In October, Lindsay helped her mom pay the loans, plunking down a reported $40,000.
That set off an October brawl between Lindsay and her mother — which took place in the driveway at the house — there the starlet demanded Dina pay back the huge loan.
“I was like, ‘Give me my money back! Give me my 40 grand back, that I just gave you!’” the actress said, recounting the fight to her father, Michael, in a phone conversation he recorded.
“You gave Mom $40,000?” Michael asked.
“Because she needs to keep her house,” Lindsay responded.
Lohan owes more than $200,000 in back-taxes — which Charlie Sheen reportedly help her pay in November 2012.
“Thank you Charlie Sheen for having Lindsays back!” Dina tweeted today.
But in December, the IRS froze Lindsay’s accounts.
In 2005, Dina Lohan took out a loan totaling more than $700,000 and now holds a $422,723 mortgage on the property, records show.
In 2008, she was forced to pay off a $301,715 lien for money borrowed from another lender, records show.
A Manhattan jury deadlocked today in the molestation trial of an Upper West Side school aide, with only five out of 12 jurors believing the nine-year-old alleged victim's account of repeated unwanted stripping and "massaging" in the boy's room and auditorum.
Gregory Atkins, 57, remains accused of on four occasions last winter bringing the boy into a bathroom at PS 87 and telling him to undress so that he could "check for bruises." On the final occasion, Atkins allegedly asked the boy to perform a sex act -- which the boy refused, later that day telling his therapist and father.
Steven Hirsch
Gregory Atkins, 56, a teacher's aide at PS 87 on the Upper West Side accused of requesting a sex act from an 8-year-old boy
The jury acquitted Atkins of additional child pornography charges stemming from ten images recovered from his home computer. Testimony showed the images had been downloaded and then deleted, jurors explained after their verdict that they couldn't be sure that Atkins had personally downloaded the images.
He remains held in lieu of $250,000 bail. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro set Feb. 15 for his next court date, during which both sides will discuss a possible retrial on the molestation counts.
The five pro-conviction jurors found the boy credible despite the troubled kid's furious responses to a defense lawyer's grilling on the stand last month. "Shut up!" the kid had snapped at the defense lawyer. "And stop being a bully!"
"He was provoked," one male pro-conviction juror told reporters after the verdict. "He didn't like authority and his buttons were pushed. But that doesn't matter," the juror said. "For me, it was an open and shut case."
The boy had told consistent accounts of the molestation from the day he reported it until his time on the witness stand a year later, the juror noted.
But defense lawyers had argued that the boy's trouble with authority extended to Atkins himself -- and that the boy manufactured a molestation tale to get back at the strict school aide.
The pro-acquittal majority agreed that the boy's emotional and authority problems, along with a lack of corroborating evidence, raised reasonable doubt as to Atkins' guilt, said one female juror from the not-guilty camp.
"It was a very tough judgement call," said another female, pro-acquittal juror. "There wasn't enough evidence."
The silver Jeep was found a little over an hour later with the little girl inside unharmed, police said.
The perp is still in the wind.
The child’s dad told cops that he had hopped out of the 2005 Grand Cherokee — leaving it running with the mom and his baby daughter still inside — after pulling up to the store at Morris Avenue and East Knightsbridge Road around 6:18 p.m., authorities said.
The mom then got out for just a minute — and the thief hopped in.
The crook then sped off. It's unclear if he knew there was a child inside.
The car — with the baby inside — was later found abandoned at 7:40 p.m. at Goble and Jerome avenues in Inwood.
The baby was taken to Montefiore Hospital to be checked out.
She was finishing her workout; he was just starting his.
An Upper West Side woman in post yoga, meditative bliss was allegedly rudely awoken by a maintenance worker masturbating next to her mat, a new lawsuit claims.
Keiko Herskovitz, a regular yogi at Equinox's Pure Yoga on W. 77th Street, was in the corpse pose called shavasana, laying down with her eyes closed on Jan. 26, when she "heard someone walk into the room."
At first Herskovitz, 55, ignored the noise until "she felt that there was a person next to her, and she opened her eyes to find a Pure Yoga employee, a maintenance associate, about two feet away, masturbating," the suit alleges.
Herskovitz "confronted the maintenance employee and asked, 'what are you doing?!'" she recalls in the court papers. The man, described as a 19-year-old, "quickly covered himself with a yoga blanket and ran out of the room," the documents allege.
Herskovitz immediately told a manager about the encounter. The supervisor allegedly dismissed the accusation and said that the man "was a good employee," court papers state.
The yogi, who'd been stretching at the studio weekly for three years, reported the incident to the police. She later received an email from the studio noting the seriousness of the incident, but management "has not reported the offender to the police or has taken any action against the offender," Herskovitz claims in the suit.
Her attorney, Eric Creizman, is hiring a private investigator to determine if the maintenance worker “has been involved in additional incidents.”
Herskovitz is suing Related Companies, which owns Equinox, for unspecified damages.
Neither the yoga studio nor Related returned calls for comment.
Ralph Peters
Violence in Allah’s name in northern Africa won’t end in my lifetime — and probably not in yours. The core question is: To what extent can the savagery be contained?
From the Atlantic coastline to the Suez Canal, struggling governments, impoverished populations and frankly backward societies struggle to find paths to modernization and to compete in a ruthless global economy. Religious fanatics for whom progress is a betrayal of faith hope to block development.
Still, if the only conflict was between Islamist terrorists and those who want civilized lives, the situation could be managed over time. But that struggle forms only one level in a layer cake of clashing visions and outright civil wars bedeviling a vast region. Much larger than Europe, the zone of contention encompasses the Maghreb, the countries touching the Mediterranean, and the Sahel, the bitterly poor states stretching down across desert wastes to the African savannah.
AFP/Getty Images
Figthers of the Islamic group Ansar Dine
The Sahel is the front line not only between the world of Islam and Christian-animist cultures in Africa’s heart, but between Arabs and light-skinned tribes in the north, and blacks to the south. No area in the world so explicitly illustrates the late, great Samuel Huntington’s concept of “the clash of civilizations.”
If racial and religious differences were not challenge enough, in the Maghreb the factions and interest groups are still more complicated. We view Egypt as locked in a contest between Islamists and “our guys,” Egyptians seeking new freedoms. But Egypt’s identity struggle is far more complex, involving social liberals, moderate Muslims, stern conservative Muslims (such as the Muslim Brotherhood) and outright fanatics. The military forms another constituency, while the business community defends its selfish interests. Then there are the supporters of the old Mubarak regime, the masses of educated-but-unemployed youth and the bitterly poor peasants.
Atop all that there’s the question of whether the values cherished by Arab societies can adapt to a globalized world.
The path to Egypt’s future will not be smooth — yet Egypt’s chances are better than those of many of its neighbors. Consider a few key countries in the region:
Mali
Viva la France! (Never thought I’d write that in The Post.) Contrary to a lot of media nonsense, the effective French intervention in Mali demonstrates that not every military response to Islamist terror has to become another Afghanistan: The French are welcome.
As extremists invariably do, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its allies rapidly alienated their fellow Muslims — after hijacking a local uprising. The local version of Islam is far more humane and tolerant than the Wahhabi cult imposed by Islamist fanatics. To the foreign extremists, the Malian love of Sufi mysticism, ancient shrines and their own centuries of religious scholarship are all hateful — as is the Malian genius for music that’s pleased listeners around the world.
Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!
ANKARA, Turkey — The suicide bomber who struck the U.S. Embassy in Ankara spent several years in prison on terrorism charges but was released on probation after being diagnosed with a hunger strike-related brain disorder, officials said Saturday.
The bomber, identified as 40-year-old leftist militant Ecevit Sanli, killed himself and a Turkish security guard on Friday, in what U.S. officials said was a terrorist attack. Sanli was armed with enough TNT to blow up a two-story building and also detonated a hand grenade, officials said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that police believe the bomber was connected his nation's outlawed leftist militant group Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C. And on Saturday DHKP-C claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on a website linked to the group. It said Sanli carried out the act of "self-sacrifice" on behalf of the group.
The group called itself "immortal" and said, "Down with imperialism and the collaborating oligarchy." But it gave no reason for attacking the U.S. Embassy. The authenticity of the website was confirmed by a government terrorism expert who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with rules that bar government employees from speaking to reporters without prior authorization.
Turkey's private NTV television, meanwhile, said police detained three people on Saturday who may be connected to the U.S. Embassy attack during operations in Ankara and Istanbul. Two of the suspects were being questioned by police in Ankara, while the third was taken into custody in Istanbul and was being brought to Ankara.
NTV, citing unidentified security sources, said one of the suspects is a man whose identity Sanli allegedly used to enter Turkey illegally, while the second was suspected of forging identity papers. There was no information about the third suspect.
Earlier, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said Sanli had fled Turkey after he was released from jail in 2001, but managed to return to the country "illegally," using a fake ID. It was not clear how long before the attack he had returned to Turkey.
NTV said he is believed to have come to Turkey from Germany, crossing into Turkey from Greece. Police officials in Ankara could not immediately be reached for comment.
DHKP-C has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s, but it has been relatively quiet in recent years. Compared to al-Qaida, it has not been seen as a strong terrorist threat.
A career crook wanted for targeting Asians in eight violent East Harlem muggings was ordered held on one of the alleged attacks today, with the rest remaining under investigation.
Jason Commisso, 34, committed the eight attacks on Asian men and woman late last month, prosecutors say.
"The people are still investigating, as are the police, the hate crimes aspect, as all of the victims are of Asian descent," assistant district attorney Sioban Carty said of Commisso's alleged spree in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Commisso was ordered held in lieu of $150,000 bond or $75,000 cash bail on the one robbery he has so far been charged in -- that of an Asian woman inside an elevator at 1641 Madison Avenue on Jan. 24.
In that robbery, Commisso allegedly punched his victim in the face -- breaking her cheekbone and cutting her eye and chin -- as he stole her purse and cell phone, according to the complaint against him.
Commisso is due back in Manhattan Criminal Court on Feb. 6.
A Queens man was convicted today for the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her toddler.
Jimmy Humphrey was found guilty of strangling Linda Anderson to death and setting her lifeless body on fire. The fire ultimately killed her 2-year-old son, Aiden Hayes, as he searched for his mother through the smoke in their St. Albans apartment.
"I'm not happy about the verdict, I really don't know how to feel. My little sister, Aiden and Gabriel are all gone," said Anderson's heartbroken older brother Rob, 40, outside of Queens Supreme Court.
The 6-foot 2, muscular Humphrey, 25, choked back tears as the forewoman read eight "guilty" verdicts to the court.
Humphrey will be sentenced on March 6.
Anderson, 25, was seven months pregnant with Humphrey's son -- to be named Gabriel -- when their complicated relationship escalated to a crime of passion on July 13, 2010.
Humphrey testified that after their altercation he went home to for a few hours to call his girlfriend and called 911 to report the fire from a pay phone three blocks away.
"I'll be alright, I love ya'll," said Humphrey, who faces up to 50 years in prison, to his family.
Both of Anderson's brothers are expected to give impact statements.
The underboss of the Colombo crime family was sentenced to 63 months in prison today on mob racketeering charges.
Benjamin “The Claw” Castellazzo, 75, will also have to pay $400,000 in restitution and serve three years probation.
The wiseguy - who's the second highest-ranking member of the Colombos - began his 55 year-long criminal career in 1958.
Castellazzo had pleaded guilty to a mob extortion stemming from a dispute over a stolen red sauce recipe from Brooklyn's L&B Spumoni Gardens pizza restaurant. He also admitted shaking down of a construction company.
An American Airlines jet ferried thousands of passengers in December and January with its emergency exits blocked by misaligned passenger seats, sources told The Post.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the misplaced seats – which blocked the exits over the wings -- on the Boeing 757, which an aviation expert said would have endangered passengers’ lives in an emergency.
“It’s extraordinarily difficult to evacuate an airplane when everything goes perfectly, because of the sheer numbers and small space and minimum exits that exist,” said aviation lawyer Brian Alexander of the Manhattan firm Kreindler and Kreindler.
“When you take away an exit row by virtue of not being able to remove an exit door, that’s a very significant safety issue.”
The misaligned seats were discovered at Kennedy Airport on Saturday by an American Airlines crew during a routine maintenance check.
The seats were about 2 inches out of line — enough, said sources, to prevent the emergency hatches from properly opening.
American said the seats were only “slightly out of configuration,” and denied that the exits were blocked.
After all-day repairs by American workers at Kennedy, the plane was put back in service on Sunday morning.
Sources said the seats were aligned improperly when the plane was sent to a TIMCO Aviation Services Inc. facility in North Carolina early in December for interior cabin work.
TIMCO declined comment.
TIMCO was also blamed last fall for allegedly failing to properly bolt down the seats on several American 757s.
In that case, two of the planes were forced into unscheduled landings at Kennedy Airport because their seats were sliding around the cabin. Those incidents also resulted in an FAA investigation.
I'm proud of him, the dad testified today of a brave nine-year-old boy who stood up to an alleged sex-molesting school aide at the Upper West Side's PS 87 last year.
The boy had taken the stand Friday to describe the alleged abuse at the hands of aide Gregory Atkins, 56, angrily confronting the defense attorney during cross examination by shouting, "Stop being a bully!"
In his own turn on the stand today, the kid's father, an educator, described to jurors how his son complained to him of Atkins on the night of the alleged abuse in a manner largely consistent with the kid's witness stand account a year later.
The troubled child had needed counseling three times a week after the incident, but now, "He is doing better than he's ever done before," the dad told a Manhattan Supreme Court jury, where Atkins is fighting first degree sex abuse and felony child porn possession charges.
"He's very extroverted, very curious," the dad told jurors of his son. "I'm very proud of him," testified the dad, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the child.
Of the family's $3 million claim against the Board of Education, the dad said that should a lawsuit be pursued, any money damages would be the child's. But another motivation of filing suit would be to prompt the BoE to improve background checks on staff, he said.
Atkins was hired at the high performing school despite a history of being reprimanded verbally for inappropriate sexual behavior toward another boy student at his prior school -- including giving that child inappropriate gifts including a jock strap.
"I've always said he's a significant improvement on the prior generation," the dad beamed to reporters, speaking of his son after court. "He's a great guy."
An off-duty school-safety agent was shot in the chest in Brooklyn tonight, sources said.
A masked man walked up to the city worker around 5:46 p.m. as the victim sat alone in his black Infiniti at 256 East 51st St. near Clarkson Avenue in East Flatbush and blasted him once, sources said.
The wounded man was rushed to Kings County Hospital. His condition was not immediately available, but first responders said they expect him to survive.
Although school-safety agents wear uniforms similar to NYPD cops and are Police Department employees, they do not carry weapons.
kconley@nypost.com
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving $350 million to alma mater Johns Hopkins University, pushing his lifetime giving to the private Baltimore university past $1 billion, the university said today.
University officials believe Bloomberg, who earned his fortune creating the global financial services firm Bloomberg LP, is now the first person to give more than $1 billion to a single U.S. university.
Most of the latest gift, $250 million, will go toward a variety of cross-disciplinary subjects, including research on water resources, health care, global health, the science of learning and urban revitalization.
AFP/Getty Images
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving $350 million to alma mater John Hopkins University.
The remaining $100 million will go to need-based financial aid for undergraduate students, awarding 2,600 Bloomberg scholarships in the next 10 years.
"Johns Hopkins University has been an important part of my life since I first set foot on campus more than five decades ago," Bloomberg said in a statement released by the university. "Each dollar I have given has been well-spent improving the institution and, just as importantly, making its education available to students who might otherwise not be able to afford it."
The mayor has stayed closely involved with the university where he graduated in 1964, including stints on its board of trustees from 1996 to 2002 and as chairman of Johns Hopkins Initiative fundraising campaign. Among his past gifts was $120 million toward the construction of a children's section at The John Hopkins Hospital in honor of his late mother.
"This latest initiative allows us to greatly accelerate our investment in talented people and bring them together in a highly creative and dynamic atmosphere," university president Ronald J. Daniels said in a statement. "It illustrates Mike's passion for fixing big problems quickly and efficiently."
They finally flushed out this fugitive!
A murder suspect who escaped from a Brooklyn police precinct yesterday by asking a cop for a bathroom break was captured today by cops hiding out in a friend’s Bronx apartment, the NYPD said.
Brandon Santana, 24, was apprehended at 3:15 p.m. at 3930 Third Avenue by NYPD officers and the Regional Fugitive Task Force, about 37 hours after he ran, un-handcuffed, from the 78th Precinct in Park Slope after knocking down a cop escorting him to the toilet.
Police said that the girlfriend of Santana’s friend opened the door when they arrived, and she told them that a pal of her boyfriend was staying there.
NYPD
Brandon Santana, escaped during bathroom break.
Cops found Santana standing in the bedroom, and took him into custody without incident, according to the NYPD.
Santana is suspected of repeatedly bashing 22-year-old dad-to-be Alexander Santiago with a lead pipe during a gang assault on the man and three of his friends at 12th Street and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope on Aug. 1, 2010.
After Santana’s latest arrest today, Santiago’s girlfriend Stephanie Mercado, told The Post, “'I hope the cops keep him tight, and don't let him get away.”
“No bathroom breaks this time,” Mercado said. “And now that they have him we want them to get the rest of the cowards. I want justice."
Santana’s apprehension was the second time in the past week he was caught by cops.
He had been hiding out with a relative in Iowa, but returned to the city this week – and was promptly caught by cops who wanted to arrest him for Santiago’s murder.
Detectives questioned Santana at the station house Wednesday night, and then left at the end of their shift at 1 a.m. yesterday, expecting to put him in a witness lineup later.
An hour later, after he had been placed in a first-floor holding cell, Santana asked the officer minding him if he could use the bathroom.
When the cop opened the cell door, Santana — who was not handcuffed — shoved the officer, knocking him to the ground, and ran straight out of the station house, law-enforcement sources said.
One cop behind the front desk jumped over it to chase him, but hurt himself in the process, sources said.
A lieutenant also went after Santana but couldn’t catch up, sources said.
“It’s like they gave us justice, then took it away,” said Anaisa Santiago, Alexander’s 15-year-old sister yesterday.
These Bronx detectives don’t have supernatural powers — but two operations, including one called Ghostbusters, took down fourteen people in a gun sales investigation today, authorities said.
Ringleader Reinaldo Romero, 27, who gave the operation its name because of his alias ‘Caspa,’ and other crooks affiliated with him allegedly sold 55 guns to undercovers—including seven assault rifles, police said.
Romero sold the weapons out of a Soundview barbershop he owned called Kache on Westchester Avenue, as well as out of his Van Nest home, to cops between April 2011 and November last year.
Most were loaded, and the assault rifles came with 30-round magazines. Some were brand-new, others were used. They were sold in the South Bronx, Soundview, and Baychester, authorities said.
The guns initially came from Ohio, but started coming in from Baltimore last year. “These guns are coming out of state,” said Detective Charles Lennon, the lead investigator on the case. The case started when police received a tip about the gun ring in Brooklyn.
The assault rifles sold for $1400 a pop, while pistols went for $900, cops said.
“They would have gone into the streets of the Bronx," said Lennon.
Romero was charged with first-degree sale of a firearm, authorities said.
Angel Plass, 31, who went by the alias ‘Acura’ was extradited from East Lake, Ohio and arrested Tuesday, police said. He was charged with criminal sale of a firearm, in the third degree.
Elvis Montero, 25, was also extradited from Baltimore, and charged with criminal sale of a firearm, in the third-degree.
Four other people were arrested in a second investigation where they sold 85 guns from George and Virginia to an undercover detective.
“We appreciate the hard work of the NYPD in apprehending these alleged peddlers of illegal and often deadly weapons,” said Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson.
Two Columbia University graduate students claim a pair of lecherous former instructors ruined their career prospects by retaliating against the women for reporting their sexual advances.
In their $16 million Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit, filed today, the women also fault the Ivy League school and its deans for failing to address their complaints.
The suit names former Human Rights Department head J. Paul Martin, who now teaches at Barnard, and Law School lecturer Francis M. Ssekandi.
Scholarship student Laura Williams, 31, was in Martin’s campus office in 2005 when he allegedly cornered her against a wall, the suit claims.
“If you wanted a good grade, you’d need to have sex with me,” Martin allegedly told Williams.
Martin then allegedly asked Williams, who is black, “if she planned to have children out of wedlock,” the documents allege, adding that “he thought that black women typically have children out of wedlock.”
Fellow master’s student Susan Farley, 41, was doing research in East Timor in 2002 where Ssekandi allegedly harassed her, according to the suit.
“Ssekandi would hold Farley’s leg beneath the table and insist that she call him by his first name, which she refused to do,” court papers claim.
Both women told The Post they’ve struggled to find work since the incidents because the university has allegedly withheld transcripts and marred their credit ratings.
Neither the professors nor Columbia University returned calls or emails for comment.
Thank you, Honorable Justice Ingram for your role during this trial (and beyond.) A very special thank you to Assistant DA Kevin O’Donnell for your endless hard work and sleepless nights throughout the trial in order to see justice served.
Standing here, I think back to those years throughout my ordeal when I suffered great psychological damage and fell into severe depression. I clearly remember how I would look in the mirror and see a person I didn’t recognize. I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at the age of 12.
A girl who couldn’t look at her own reflection without feeling repulsed knowing what abuse that tortured person was continuously experiencing. A girl who couldn’t sleep at night because the horrifying images of the recent gruesome invasions which had been done to her body kept replaying in her head. A girl who numbed her feelings and froze her emotions every minute of the day just to stay sane. A girl who was forced to lose any respect for herself. A girl who lost the right to say NO, to an abuser who used and abused her repeatedly for years that seemed like forever and ever. A sad girl who so badly wished she could have lived a normal young teenage life but instead was stuck being victimized by a 50 year old man who forced her to experience and perform sickening acts for his sick sense of pleasure again and again.
I saw a girl who didn’t have a reason to live.
I would cover up the burn marks inflicted on the body he used to serve his sadistic pleasures. Every time I would look at it, I would get flashbacks and feel my body burning all over again. I would cry until my tears ran dry.
But now, with the help and support of so many officials, family members, friends, supporters, and of my dear husband, I finally stood up and spoke out.
I gathered all my inner strength and courage to go through this battle. A battle of justice, to right in some small way the terrible wrong, to prevent further evil, to protect the innocent, and most of all, to heal. It continues to be a very rough battle that brought me, my parents, and family great humiliation and intimidation, aggravation and rejection, strain and loss of business, each too great to describe.
However, this same battle was one of righteousness. A battle that was the voice of other silent Weberman victims coming forward to bring this monstrous perpetrator to justice. Unfortunately, the others could not or would not publicly testify. Many were too scared to face the opposition and repercussions from the community while others had already passed the statute of limitations — but we were all one voice as they were with me in spirit.
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