Tag: new york

Midwife Who Falsified Vaccine Records for More Than 1,000 School Children Fined $300,000

A New York midwife has been fined after falsifying the vaccination records of more than 1,000 school children after administering them and others oral pellets which she falsely claimed were a viable alternative to vaccines.

Jeanette Breen, a licensed midwife who operated a clinic in Nassau County, gave thousands of the pellets to the children since 2019, the New York State Department of Health’s Bureau of Investigations found, per a press release. 

Breen’s “scheme” started in the 2019-2020 school year as she began administering “a series of oral pellets” as an alternative to vaccines. The “homeopathic pellets” she administered are “not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the Department as an immunizing agent against any disease,” per the Health Department. 

Among the vaccinations she falsified include tetanus, hepatitis B, measles and polio. 

Breen was determined to have broken the state’s Immunization Registry Law and was fined $300,000 as a penalty by the Health Department.

In a statement, State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa said that they are “committed to upholding the highest standards of health and well-being within our educational institutions.”

“By intentionally falsifying immunization records for students, this licensed health care professional not only endangered the health and safety of our school communities but also undermined public trust,” Rosa’s statement continued. “We are pleased to have worked with our partners in government to bring this wrongdoer to justice.”

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FAMILIES OF PEOPLE KILLED BY NYPD BRACE FOR ERIC ADAMS TO VETO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM BILLS

A SMALL GROUP OF organizers rallied outside of New York City Hall on Wednesday to call on Mayor Eric Adams not to veto a series of bills that would ban the use of solitary confinement in city jails and increase oversight over police stops and searches. 

The push by grassroots reform groups to ban solitary confinement comes in response to a surge in recent years of deaths in city jails, including several cases of people who had been detained in solitary confinement. Families of people killed as a result of stops by New York Police Department officers have also urgedOpens in a new tab the mayor to sign the policing measures into law. 

Advocates and officials working on the reforms expect Adams, who has publicly opposedOpens in a new tab the bills, to vetoOpens in a new tab at least two of the measures this week. He has until Friday to do so, or the measures will pass into law. 

The battle pits a pro-police mayor, an NYPD veteran himself, against a progressive City Council, which approvedOpens in a new tab the three billsOpens in a new tab last month by large marginsOpens in a new tab during its last meetingOpens in a new tab of 2023. The fight is the latest in a well-trod pattern of centrist Democrats or Republicans fighting back against popular and democratically enacted welfare reforms. In New York, City Council leaders and members said they have the votes to override the mayor’s veto.

“We are prepared to override the mayor’s veto,” council member Crystal Hudson, who sponsored a bill to strengthen laws around consenting to a search, told The Intercept. “The City Council is the city’s legislative body. The body has spoken.” The council would have 30 days from a mayoral veto to issue an override. 

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New York Governor Proposes Repealing Marijuana Potency Tax To Reduce Costs And Combat Illicit Market

The governor of New York is calling for the elimination of a THC potency tax as part of her executive budget, aiming to reduce costs for consumers in a way that could make the regulated market more competitive against illicit operators.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year would repeal the potency tax and replace it with a wholesale excise tax of 9 percent in a way that “simplifies, streamlines, and reduces the tax collection obligations and burden for cultivators, processors, and distributors.”

Cannabis would also still be subject to the existing 9 percent state retail excise tax and four percent local retail excise tax. The changes are estimated to effectively drive down the total tax rate on marijuana from an average 38 percent to 22 percent.

For vertically-integrated medical cannabis operators and microbusinesses, the new wholesale excise tax would accrue on the final retail sale to consumers and be imposed on 75 percent of the final retail sales price, the governor’s proposal says.

The briefing book for the budget says the tax changes would “promote and support the expansion of the legal adult-use cannabis market” and also result in a “net positive impact” of $6.5 million for localities.

But by reducing costs for consumers and businesses, the tax policy reform could also help the administration and regulators address one of their top priorities: driving out the illicit market.

While licensing of legal marijuana businesses has rolled out slowly amid litigation, New York has been dealing with a proliferation of hundreds of unregulated cannabis shops with prices that are generally lower because the operators don’t concern themselves with excise taxes and abiding by other regulations that increase costs.

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Inmate who identifies as a trans Muslim woman sues NYC for $22 MILLION after being placed in a men’s detention center while waiting for domestic abuse trial

A transgender woman is suing the City of New York after they were placed in a  men’s detention center while awaiting transfer to another state on domestic violence charges. 

Ali Miles, who also goes by Dylan Miles, was born a biological male but is in ‘the process of transitioning into a woman’, wears women’s clothing and is undergoing hormone therapy. 

Miles, a self-identified Muslim woman, is now seeking more than $22,000,000 in compensation, claiming she was discriminated based on gender identity.

Miles was held at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island from June to July 2022 before being transferred to Yavapai County Jail in Arizona. 

Subsequently, she was convicted of aggravated harassment, disorderly conduct, harassment, threatening or intimidating, and false reporting to a law enforcement agency.

In October of 2022, she was placed on supervised probation for a period of three years and sentenced to 312 days in jail.

The lawsuit, filed on August 24, 2023, states that despite expressing a female gender identity and allegedly having a court order for her to be placed in a female unit, Miles was housed in a male facility at Rikers. 

The filing contends that Miles faced discrimination, assault, and human rights violations during this time despite ‘wearing women’s clothing and in all appearance expresses as a person of the female gender.’

Following her arrest, Miles informed a judge about being transgender and the need for special housing, with the court purportedly agreeing.

However, Miles alleges that after being placed in a male jail, she suffered ‘shock and distress.’ 

‘As Miles approached the inside of the building, Miles realized it was a male jail which caused shock, panic and fright to Miles,’ the suit reads. 

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A brief history of the Messianic movement that inspired the tunnel under 770 Eastern Parkway

A plaque commemorating the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson hung outside the Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway for nearly a decade after his 1994 death. 

The plaque was notable less for what it said than what it had said, before vandals chiseled out the phrase: “Of blessed memory.”

It’s a ubiquitous honorific across the Jewish world. But in Chabad ranks, when it came to Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher rebbe, it was a political statement, as the movement split over whether he was the Messiah, and therefore about to return to Earth — if not still alive. Those who maintain that belief are known as Meshichist — Yiddish for Messianist  — and have long been ostracized by Chabad-Lubavitch leadership. 

The rift is most apparent at 770 Eastern Parkway, which houses both the Chabad administration that disavows Meshichist ideology and a synagogue adorned with a huge banner emblazoned with what’s known as the Yechi, the eight-word Meshichist credo.

That division burst into public view this week with a tumultuous confrontation over a secret tunnel under the headquarters by Meshichist students that led to the arrests of nine men and the temporary shutdown of the iconic 770 building.

Much remains unclear about who built the tunnel and why. Two yeshiva students who said they were involved with the project but spoke on the condition they not be named for fear of arrest said they were taking initiative on a long-deferred synagogue expansion. But some see it as part of a Messianic quest to build a Third Temple — not in Jerusalem but in Brooklyn.

“The Messianic significance of 770 is underscored by the fact that it actually needs to be expanded,” said Ezra Glinter, who is writing a biography of Schneerson. “And not only does it need to be expanded, but in a manner of totally breaking through a barrier.”

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Extremist Jewish teens secretly ‘hired migrants’ to dig covert Brooklyn synagogue tunnel ‘Shawshank’-style

Extremist students from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic group secretly hired migrant laborers to help them build a controversial tunnel at the sect’s world headquarters in Crown Heights — all to fulfill what they felt was a religious obligation to expand the holy site, The Post has learned.

Six renegade members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement secretly began digging the 3-foot-high, 20-foot-wide, 50-foot-long tunnel themselves, using crude instruments and their hands. They stuffed the dirt into their pockets so that their work wouldn’t be detected by the sect’s leaders and wider community, a source in the orthodox community told The Post.

“You’ve seen the movie ‘The Shawshank Redemption’? That’s what these young men did at first: They dug and put the dirt in their pockets,” said Eitan Kalmowitz, a member of the Lubavitcher community in Crown Heights.

Later, the men, most of them in their teens and early twenties, took up a collection and hired a group of migrant laborers to finish the job, Kalmowitz said, describing the workers as “Mexicans.”

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Inside secret tunnel built by ‘extremist Jewish students’ linking historic ‘cleansing bath’ to Brooklyn synagogue that was only discovered when homeowner heard ‘suspicious noises at night’

A new video shows the secret underground tunnel dug by a group of young Orthodox Jewish men that is at the core of a bizarre dispute with religious leaders. 

The tunnel was discovered by rabbis in December, who were horrified that the young men had burrowed it from the Chabad Lubavitch synagogue in Crown Heights. 

Initially, local site Crown Heights Info reported that it led all the way to a women’s mikvah at the end of the street – several houses away. 

However the operators of that women’s mikvah say it does not, and instead connects the synagogue with an out-of-use historic men’s mikvah at 770 Eastern Parkway – the synagogue site. 

The NYPD is yet to confirm exactly where the tunnel leads, what is being used for or what the young men have been charged with.  

After learning about what the young men had done, the Chabad’s rabbis ordered it to be filled, but when construction workers showed up last night to complete the work the young men blocked their way, jumping into the tunnel and sparking a riot that was filmed and broadcast on social media. 

In the end, 12 young men were arrested by the NYPD, who had to be called in. The site has been at the center of a dispute between the rabbis and ‘extremists’ who both stake claim to the property. 

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NYPD faces backlash as it prepares to encrypt radio communications

The New York police department (NYPD) is facing serious backlash after announcing additional details about its plan to encrypt its radio communications system, which experts warn will limit transparency and accountability.

NYPD radio signals have been publicly accessible since 1932, allowing journalists and civilians to listen to police communications, Gothamist reported. The NYPD will now be encrypting its radio channels for the first time ever. Police radio encryption is already underway in several US cities, including Chicago and Denver.

Since starting in July, 10 precincts have already “gone dark”, or fully encrypted their radio systems. The entire “upgrade” to a new, encrypted radio system will be completed by December 2024 and cost an estimated $400m, a hefty price tag as several city agencies have been forced to swallow major budget cuts.

Critics of encryption say that the public radio channels are necessary for police accountability, press freedom and public safety.

Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (Stop), a New York-based civil rights organization, called planned encryption a “disturbing attack on transparency and public oversight of the police”.

“Radio monitoring is one of the few ways that we can get an unfiltered look at how the NYPD is policing,” Cahn said.

Several police-involved killings have been uncovered by the press after listening to police radios, Cahn said. Video of an NYPD officer killing Eric Garner in 2014 was obtained due to a call on the police radio, Gothamist reported. The police killings of Amadou Diallo in 1999 and Sean Bell in 2006 were also uncovered due to police radio communications.

“Without public radio, we will simply be at the mercy of police to tell us when they killed someone. There’ll be no one else who knows,” Cahn said.

Press freedom advocates have also argued that encrypting police radios will prevent journalists from accurately reporting or covering police misconduct, ultimately allowing the NYPD to decide what should be considered news.

Todd Maisel, founder of New York Media Consortium, a group of eight media organizations against radio encryption, says: “Having the NYPD controlling the narrative is the worst possible scenario.

“They’re not going to tell you stories about anything that didn’t go well,” he added.

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New York Local Governments Could Shut Down Unlicensed Marijuana Businesses Under New ‘SMOKEOUT Act’ Bill

As New York works to significantly expand the state’s regulated marijuana market, a new bill would empower individual municipal governments to shut down unlicensed cannabis businesses and seize their products.

The legislation from Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar (D) aims to address the proliferation of illegal operators that have emerged throughout the state amid the protracted rollout of New York’s legalization law.

Currently, state regulators with the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) hold enforcement authority to close unlicensed businesses. The newly filed Stop Marijuana Over-proliferation and Keep Empty Operators of Unlicensed Transactions (SMOKEOUT) Act would expand that authority to local governments by giving municipal officials the power to “order the immediate closure of any business” found to be illegally marijuana and to seize its merchandise.

“The lack of authority for municipalities to interdict unlawful retailers, combined with limited resources from the Board, has resulted in the proliferation of so-called ‘smoke shops’ openly selling illegal, unregulated cannabis and other contraband with near total impunity,” a justification memo attached to the bill says.

“The vast amount of contraband and loose cash in these smoke shops have made them tantalizing targets for robberies and hotbeds of crime. This has put communities, shop employees, and their customers in extreme danger,” it says. “These shops are also unfair competition to licensed dispensaries, who cannot afford to sell their rigorously tested and regulated cannabis at the prices smoke shops offer.”

The bill’s introduction comes as New York regulators move to process hundreds of marijuana business license applications. Over a dozen new cannabis retailers opened in December alone following a settlement agreement lifting an injunction that had imposed a months-long licensing blockade.

“Our top priority is to grow and expand New York’s legal cannabis industry while cracking down on the illicit storefronts that continue to plague communities,” Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) had said at the time.

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Retired NYPD captain shoots man in leg during New Year’s Eve road rage feud: sources

A recently retired NYPD captain shot another man in the leg during a road rage feud in Brooklyn on New Year’s Eve, police sources said. 

The retiree, who was driving a Toyota Corolla, clashed with a 22-year-old man behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz on Coney Island Avenue near Brighton Beach Avenue around 2:15 p.m., the sources said. 

Both drivers got out of their vehicles and started to argue, according to the sources. 

The confrontation took a violent turn when the former cop fired off a gun, hitting the other motorist in the left leg, the sources said. 

The wounded man was taken to NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn, where he was listed in stable condition, police said. 

The retired captain was taken to the same hospital, and it remained unclear Monday whether he would face charges. 

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