Tag: new york

Senior citizen who saved himself from would-be mugger is heading to prison because of NYC’s ‘draconian’ laws

A Queens senior citizen who shot dead a man who tried to rob him will spend four years in prison after admitting to toting an unlicensed revolver — as his lawyer ripped the city’s “draconian” gun laws.

Charles Foehner, 67, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal weapons possession Thursday in a deal to end his case more than two years after he fatally shot would-be thief Cody Gonzalez, who charged at him near his Kew Gardens home.

The Queens District Attorney’s Office chose not to prosecute Foehner, a retired doorman, for Gonzalez’s killing after he told cops that he’d defended himself from a mugger who lunged at him late at night holding what looked like a knife — but which turned out to be a pen.

But prosecutors slapped Foehner with a slew of weapons raps for the unlicensed handgun and for an arsenal of illicit handguns, revolvers and rifles inside his home in the quiet neighborhood.

Foehner took the plea deal to avoid a trial, where he faced 25 years in prison on gun charges that are not hard to prove, said his attorney Thomas Kenniff after Thursday’s hearing in Queens Supreme Court.

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Zohran Mamdani Has No Idea How He’s Going to Fund ‘Free’ Buses in New York City 

Zohran Mamdani, the new Democratic Socialist (communist) mayor-elect of New York City clearly has no idea how he is going to pay for all of the supposedly ‘free’ buses he has promised to voters.

He was recently pressed on this issue by a reporter, and when he could not answer the funding question, he simply said that it’s more important that they get it done, not how they fund it.

That’s not how things work in reality.

Transcript via Real Clear Politics:

MAMDANI: Well, I think the mayor will find that he’ll have a tough time trying to stymie the momentum that we have as a campaign and as a movement, because more than a million New Yorkers came out to vote for our vision of making the city more affordable. I know that’s difficult for the mayor because he ran an administration where, for four years, he made it more difficult for those New Yorkers to afford this city.

And even one of the people he floated appointing to the Rent Guidelines Board is a star of a show that I think is called Selling New York, which in some ways is a description of what Eric Adams tried to do.

MANNARINO: But if he does it, does that put a foil — or at least a pause — on freezing the rent?

MAMDANI: I think it’s an obstacle, but it’s one that I think we can overcome.

MANNARINO: And the other one — talking about fast and free buses, and your meeting with the governor. I’ve heard you say many times that you don’t want to take money away from the MTA — you want to put money back in. And it’s something she agrees with, right? “We don’t want to take away money from the MTA.”

How are you getting that $700 million to make the buses free into the MTA if she’s not for raising taxes?

MAMDANI: You know, I think the two clearest ways to raise that money is through raising the state’s corporate tax to match New Jersey. A lot of this is still a case to be made — whether it’s the corporate tax or the personal income tax on those who make more than a million dollars a year. I think these are the clearest ways.

I’ve also said that if there are other ways to raise this funding, the most important fact is that we fund it — not the question of how we do it, but that we do it.

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Mamdani claims NYC is a ‘city of international law’ when asked about arresting world leaders targeted by ICC

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has said that the Big Apple is a city of “international law,” and that he would uphold international warrants for figures such as Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

The reporter asked, “you said you would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu based on the 2024 international court arrest warrant. Next UN General Assembly, as mayor, would you do that?”

Mamdani replied, “so I’ve said time and time again that I believe this is a city of international law. And being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law. And that means upholding the warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC), whether they’re for Benjamin Netanyahu or Vladimir Putin. I think that that’s critically important to showcase our values.”

“And, unlike Donald Trump, I’m someone who looks to exist within the confines of the laws that we have. So I will look to exhaust every legal possibility, not to create my own laws.”

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Netanyahu in November of 2024, alleging that the Israeli Prime Minister is “esponsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.”

The warrant came amid the Israel-Hamas war, which began when terrorists with the Palestinian terror group Hamas launched an invasion into Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 and taking hundreds more hostage. A ceasefire was reached in the conflict in the fall of 2025. 

An arrest warrant was also issued for Putin, accusing the Russian leader of being “responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

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Albany Republicans’ $20B shame: state spending madness is their fault, too

Albany Republicans, the minority in the state Senate and Assembly for the last seven years, face a long hike back to political relevance.

They can start by answering the $20 billion question.

That’s the difference between what New York state expects to spend this fiscal year — $148 billion, excluding federal aid and borrowing — and what it would be spending if the last budget enacted with GOP support, in 2018, had kept growing only at the rate of inflation.

That amount is $128 billion.

Republicans correctly note state spending is higher than ever — and, given Albany’s reliance on a small subset of high earners, rising unsustainably.

But they can’t put the blame on the Democrats alone.

The $20 billion question isn’t about what Republicans would cut if voters again entrusted them to steer the state.

It’s a deeper challenge: It asks them to explain, to themselves especially, how they can credibly claim to be the taxpayers’ champions when they not only supported much of this fiscal bulge, but pushed to make it worse.

Most of the budget growth since 2018 has been in just two programs: Medicaid and school aid.

Republicans supposedly concerned about the state’s fiscal picture have repeatedly agitated for higher spending on both.

New York spends $4,942 per resident (enrolled or not) on Medicaid, per Empire Center’s Bill Hammond. That’s 23% more than the next-highest state, Kentucky, and double what New Jersey spends.

A credible opposition party would be hammering Gov. Kathy Hochul on this, arguing that the program is pushing up taxes, crowding out essential services and often failing the vulnerable people it’s meant to help.

But the tiny group of upstate fiscal hawks making these points are undercut by their own Republican team: Sen. Pat Gallivan, ostensibly his conference’s health care point man, last year joined 1199 SEIU, the state’s largest health care union, to demand  “Medicaid equity,” a budget-busting increase in what the state pays hospitals and other providers.

New York’s GOP can’t even credibly levy its evergreen complaint about “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicaid.

The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, a once-tiny initiative meant to help a small group of people live outside nursing homes, mushroomed into a $9 billion boondoggle that pays more than 400,000 people to care for 250,000 New Yorkers.

Republicans should have been first to sound the alarm on CDPAP — yet when Hochul proposed modest reforms by eliminating middlemen, they called her suggestion a “full-blown catastrophe” and all but ignored the fiscal hemorrhaging.

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Staten Island Renews Push to Secede From New York City Due to Zohran Mamdani Mayoral Win

Staten Island is renewing its push to secede from the city of New York and be its own city following the mayoral victory of Democratic Socialist (communist) Zohran Mamdani.

Unlike Manhattan and to a lesser extent Brooklyn, Staten Island is home to a much more traditional, slightly more conservative, blue-collar, working community. Most of the people who live there have no interest in the fantasy of free stuff that Mamdani is promising.

Of course, this is unlikely to happen. New York City won’t want to let go of Staten Island because they want all of the tax revenue they can squeeze out of the people who live there.

The Post Millennial reported:

Staten Island sees renewed NYC secession push after Mamdani victory

Following the election of socialist Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s next mayor, Staten Island lawmakers are reviving efforts to secede and form an independent city.

State Senator Andrew Lanza told the New York Post he plans to “put the foot to the pedal” on the initiative in January, arguing that Mamdani “could not be further out of sync with the values of communities on Staten Island, and I’d argue that this time around Democrats won’t want to stop [the borough’s secession] because it would make it even less likely [NYC] ever elects a Republican mayor again.”

Lanza has repeatedly pushed for secession legislation since 2008 with little progress, but he said the city’s increasingly far-left politics could motivate new support, even among some Democrats. He said he believes the “timing is right” and that independence for Richmond County next year would align symbolically with the United States marking its 250th anniversary.

On Friday, State Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo held a rally in Richmond where he read an independence declaration for Staten Island. He delivered the remarks at the location where British soldiers were first read the Declaration of Independence on Staten Island.

Who can blame these people for wanting independence from NYC?

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JFK’s Screwball Grandson and Democrat Candidate for Congress in New York, Jack Schlossberg, Performs Nazi Salute in Now-Deleted Video

Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of former President John F. ​​Kennedy and a Democrat candidate for Congress in New York’s 12th Congressional District, has become the subject of controversy following the emergence of a now-deleted video in which he performs a Nazi salute.

The footage, originally posted to Schlossberg’s Instagram in January and hastily deleted after going viral, shows the 32-year-old Kennedy scion gleefully mimicking Adolf Hitler’s infamous gesture while mugging for the camera.

“Yo, yo, check this out,” Schlossberg said repeatedly into the camera as he raised his arm in the salute several times.

This incident has surfaced as the unhinged Trump-hating Democrat officially announced his candidacy for the seat being vacated by Representative Jerrold Nadler.

The New York 12th District includes the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, and Midtown Manhattan. The district’s per capita income is the highest among all districts in the US.

He wrote on Instagram:

“250 years after America was founded, and our country is at a turning point.

It’s a crisis at every level.

A cost of living crisis sponsored by the Big Beautiful Bill. Historic cuts to social programs working families rely on. Health care, education, child care.

It’s a corruption crisis. The President has made almost a billion dollars this year. He’s picking winners and losers from inside the Oval Office. It’s cronyism, not capitalism.

It’s a constitutional crisis with one dangerous man in control of all three branches of government. He’s stripping citizens of their civil rights and silencing his critics.

The worst part is: it doesn’t have to be this way. And it wasn’t, always.

We deserve better, and we can do better, and it starts with the Democratic Party winning back control of the House of Representatives.

With control of Congress, there’s nothing we can’t do. Without it, we’re helpless to a third term.

My name is Jack Schlossberg, and I’m running for Congress to represent my home, New York’s 12th congressional district, where I was born and raised, where I took the bus to school every single day from one side of the district to the other.

This is the best part of the greatest city on Earth. We have the best hospitals and schools, restaurants and museums. This is the financial and media capital of the world.

This district should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington.

I’m not running because I have all the answers to our problems. I’m running because the people of New York 12 do. I want to listen to your struggles, hear your stories, amplify your voice, go to Washington and execute on your behalf.

There is nowhere I’d rather be than in the arena fighting for my hometown. Over the next eight months, during the course of this campaign, I hope to meet as many of you as I can. If you see me on the street, please say hello. If I knock on your door, I hope we can have a conversation. Because politics should be personal.

Thanks more to come soon, and I’ll see you on the trail New York 12.”

JFK’s only grandson was also in another controversy for being critical of his cousin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. ​Kennedy Jr., calling him a “dangerous person” and a “rabid dog.”

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DA Alvin Bragg Releases Migrant Taxi Driver Charged for Repeatedly Assaulting Female Passengers

An Algerian national allegedly assaulted two women in the back of his New York taxi in separate incidents but is still snagging fares after getting a sweetheart deal from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the New York Post reported Saturday.

Records show that Mohammed Bellebia, 34, was allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges in at least one of the incidents, according to the newspaper.

According to the tabloid’s detailed reporting, the cabbie’s first alleged victim was 23-year-old Maile Bartow who entered Bellebia’s yellow cab minivan around 2 a.m. in November of last year after a night on the town with friends.

What should have been an uneventful ten-minute ride to her place on the Lower East turned into a nightmare trip through the darkened streets of the Big Apple.

Bellebia, who reportedly spoke little English, allegedly began touching her leg, according to the Post’s account.

The cabbie not only ignored her pleas to stop, he then groped her genitals, according a lawsuit filed by the woman against the driver and the taxi company — ironically named “Tranquil Taxi.”

During the alleged assault, Bartow snapped a photo of the cabbie’s actions, but he snatched it from her hand and deleted her photos, according to her account. She then began recording her requests for him to stop in a voicemail.

“I started to beg him, ‘Let me out!’” Bartow recalled. “I didn’t want to make him any more mad than he was. I was so scared he was gonna kidnap or kill me.”

The cabbie finally pulled over, she said. She had to call for a ride service to get to her home. The California native had been working in New York as a social media marketing specialist.

She filed a complaint with New York police the next morning.

A month later in December, Bellebia allegedly picked up another 2 a.m. fare and touched that woman’s leg throughout the ride and tried to remove the 33-year-old victim’s underwear, a law enforcement source told the Post.

There was reportedly no partition or camera system in his vehicle.

The cabbie was arrested on Dec. 19, 2024 and charged in both cases, according to the Post. Bellebia faced misdemeanor charges of forcible touching and sexual abuse in Bartow’s case. Conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from probation to a year in jail.

Instead, Bellebia pled guilty in March to disorderly conduct and received a “conditional discharge,” the Post reported, avoiding jail time as long as he stayed out of legal trouble.

The second charge is under seal, the Post reported, with no further information available.

Bartow, who has since moved from the city, told the Post she had no idea there had been a second assault allegation and had been largely kept in the dark by the district attorney’s office.

“Oh my God,” she told the Post when she learned of the second woman.

Only when she pestered the DA’s office with phone calls did she learn of the cabbie’s plea deal. Bellebia, meanwhile, had his license suspended after the incident, but it was reportedly reinstated in March.

“He’s back on the road driving the exact same taxi cab,” Bartow told the Post. “I wasn’t looped in at all. They didn’t ask me what I was OK with.”

The newspaper contacted the cabbie, who said he was unaware of the lawsuit filed against him and the taxi company, which the paper reported couldn’t be reached for comment.

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The Governor, the CEO & the FBI: Scandal Threatens New York Hospital

After taking the helm at New York’s financially troubled Nassau University Medical Center late last year, Megan C. Ryan stumbled upon something baffling in the books: a two-decade-long series of transactions engineered by New York State that may have shortchanged the hospital by a staggering $1 billion in matching funds.

As a hospital primarily serving patients on Medicare, Medicaid, or who are uninsured, the medical center qualified for federal matching grants tied to state contributions. Ryan’s discovery indicated that the state was having the medical center itself post its share of the match – for around 20 years at $50 million per year – essentially cheating it out of the state’s matching dollars. “We just couldn’t wrap our heads around how a hospital that serves the poor would be forced to put up tens of millions of dollars” in place of state funds, Ryan told RealClearInvestigations.

Ryan says she called James Dering, previously general counsel of the New York Department of Health, for a legal opinion about the financial arrangement. That opinion indicated it was improper.

What seems like a local tussle over health care has all the trappings of a bigger partisan political fight in the run-up to one of the more important races for governor next year in New York. 

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Suffolk County Ordered to Pay $112 Million to Hundreds of Illegal Aliens After Obama Judge Rules They Were ‘Unlawfully Detained’

Suffolk County was ordered to pay $112 million to hundreds of illegal aliens after a judge ruled they were ‘unlawfully detained.’

US District Court Judge William F. Kuntz II, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling after an illegal from Guatemala living in Long Island filed a lawsuit claiming he was detained by ICE beyond his release date.

The judge ruled that the sheriff’s office in Long Island unlawfully held the illegal aliens since the state of New York doesn’t allow local law enforcement to do so.

The plaintiff was arrested in 2017 were police asked him about his immigration status.

According to PIX11, lawyers argued that the plaintiff’s cousin paid a $1,000 bail with the agreement that he would appear in immigration court yet he was never informed of the bail.

Police reportedly transferred the Guatemalan illegal to the Varick Street Detention Center in Manhattan and later transferred to a county jail in New Jersey.

The case ballooned after it became a class action lawsuit so now Suffolk County residents are on the hook for $112 million.

“This decision brings long-overdue accountability,” said plaintiffs’ attorney José Pérez, Deputy General Counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “The jury confirmed what we have argued all along, that Suffolk County’s actions trampled the basic due process rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment.”

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Prosecutors: Ex-Hochul Aide Spied for China, CCP Paid Her Enough to Buy Mansion, Ferrari, Condo in Hawaii

A Chinese former top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and millions of dollars in kickbacks working as an undeclared agent for China, federal prosecutors claim. 

Linda Sun, 41, is accused of working as an unregistered operative for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and using her position to influence the governors into acting favorably toward Beijing, the Daily Mail reported.

During Sun’s trial on Monday, prosecutors alleged that she earned a government salary of $145,000 but received millions of dollars in side deals orchestrated by Chinese officials. Per a Wall Street Journal report, Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, 42, used their alleged ill-gotten gains to buy a $3.6 million mansion in Long Island, a $1.9 million condo in Hawaii, and a 2024 Ferrari Roma worth $243,300. 

Sun allegedly regularly communicated with CCP insiders and even at Nanjing-style salted duck dinners made by the Chinese consulate chef, prosecutors claimed. She often traveled to China and even celebrated the CCP’s 70th year in power in Beijing, the court heard.

Prosecutors further claimed Sun funneled the money she received from China through Hu’s businesses. The couple is also accused of accumulating $2.3 million in kickbacks from imports on personal protection equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.

Sun began working in the Cuomo administration in 2012 and held various positions, including Global New York Trade Manager, Asian Outreach Director for the Office of the Governor, and Queens Regional Representative, according to the report. She was named “chief diversity officer” in 2018.

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