NY Man Charged With Putting Fake Addresses On Election Petition for GOP | TPMMuckraker

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Please note that this alleged criminal is not a member of ACORN but a regular rank & file Republican working at the Nassau County Board of Elections...

Election fraud alert!

An employee of the Nassau County Board of Elections has been accused of writing eight fake addresses on campaign forms in 2009, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice's office announced Tuesday. Imtiaz Insanally, 27, of Valley Stream, is alleged to have used the fake addresses on a petition to add Republican Christian Browne to the ballot on the Tax Revolt Party line. Browne was running for County Legislator in the Fifth Legislative District.

Insanally was arrested Tuesday, and charged with one felony count of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and one misdemeanor count of misconduct in relation to petitions.

Insanally, who the DA says was working as a campaign volunteer for Browne, allegedly wrote the fake addresses next to names that were illegible. The addresses he wrote do not exist. Insanally is currently employed as a part-time clerk for the Nassau County Board of Elections, in the election machine department, a job he's held since 2006.

"Whether you're talking about a highly sophisticated case of systemic corruption or something as simple as this case, they are both violations of the public's trust and of our democratic process, and my office will continue to have no tolerance for that," Rice said.

In 2009, county Republicans withdrew the petition to add Browne to the Tax Revolt Party line after Democrats challenged the petition's validity in court, according to The Long Island Herald. Democrats claimed that that more than half of the 1,300 signatures were fraudulent. County Democrats later withdrew a lawsuit that accused Browne himself of fraud, citing the fact that Browne did not sign the petition in question. Browne then withdrew a defamation lawsuit against the Democratic election worker who had brought the charges. Browne lost the election to Democrat Joseph Scannell.

"He was not affiliated with my campaign," Browne told the Herald after news of Insanally's arrest. "I don't really know him. He was working for the Republican committee. I hope he didn't do anything wrong. If he did and the district attorney has evidence of any wrongdoing, then he will have to bear the consequences of his actions."

Claims of widespread voter fraud were en vogue in conservative circles before the election, even if actual examples of fraud turned out to be hard to come by.

Insanally faces up to four years in prison.

(h/t Long Island Business News)

Man Arrested for Aggravated Harassment of Ackerman by Lori Gross - Bayside, NY Patch

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Man made 40 calls “of a rambling nature" to U.S. Reps office, also allegedly threatening law enforcement

A Long Island man was arrested on charges of Aggravated Harassment after allegedly making about 40 phone calls to the Bayside office Rep. Gary Ackerman, according to the Nassau County Police Department.

NCPD’s Special Investigations Detective Squad visited the home of James Guarnaccio, 55, in Hicksville on Thursday after the torrent of calls, allegedly made between Dec. 23 and Jan. 1.

The calls, according to NCPD were, “of a rambling nature and were not threats against the Congressman.”

During the visit, detectives told Guarnaccio to stop phoning Ackerman, or he would be arrested.

That evening through the morning, he made seven more calls to the Congressman’s office, making what NCPD describe as “threats against local and federal law enforcement.”

He was arrested on Friday, and taken to Nassau University Medical Center for evaluation, where he was arraigned at bedside on Saturday.

South Ozone Park Woman Charged With $12G Shoe Theft - Long Island Press by Timothy Bolger

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A Queens woman was arrested Tuesday for selling online nearly $12,000 worth of shoes stolen from the Great Neck shoe distributor where she works, according to Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

Darsheena Ray, 34, of South Ozone Park, was charged with grand larceny and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Hempstead. She faces up to seven years in prison, if convicted.

The distributor, Jimlar Corporation, a retailer and wholesaler of Calvin Klein, Coach and other high-end shoe brands, began investigating in February when a customer service colleague of Ray’s received a phone call from a customer wishing to return a pair of shoes, Rice said. The employee was unable to find any record of payment in the company’s computer system when the customer told the employee that she had the warehouse paperwork confirming shipment from Jimlar, according to the district attorney. The customer added that she used the online payment website PayPal to pay for the shoes and that she bought the shoes on eBay.

The company does not sell shoes on eBay and they do not take payments through PayPal, Rice said.

Later the same day, another call came in from a customer with a similar story who wanted to return a pair of shoes and again the Jimlar representative was unable to locate any sales records. The two calls prompted the vice president of the corporation to conduct an internal review. The case was later referred to the district attorney.

Investigators have identified 30 instances between November 2008 and February 2009 in which Ray used eBay and PayPal to sell shoes belonging to Jimlar for a total loss of $11,770, Rice said.

A Jimlar spokesperson had no comment.

Carrozza Represents Queens, But is Living Large on L.I. Gold Coast by John Lauinger - NY Daily News

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Queens Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza outside her home located in Glen Head, Long Island. DelMundo for News

Queens Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza pulled her Mercedes up to her brick mansion recently after a long day at work.

Her husband and one of her two sons were outside, along with the family's black Lab, Stanley. With the stately manse as a backdrop, the petite, blond lawmaker and her family could have been modeling for an L.L. Bean catalogue.

There was one problem with the pretty picture: Carrozza's $1.8 million home is in tony Glen Head, L.I. - 15 miles from her district in Bayside, Queens.

Carrozza, 42, who has represented the 26th Assembly District since 1997, bought the mansion on Nassau County's Gold Coast in June 2008, taking out a mortgage for $1 million, property records show.

She told the Daily News the lavish digs were supposed to be "an investment or a second residence." But she signed mortgage documents that specifically state the mansion would be her "principal residence."

When confronted outside the posh pad last week, Carrozza admitted she has lived there full-time since February.

"My primary residence is in Bayside - and we're temporarily renting that out," she said.

Carrozza and her doctor husband own four properties in Bayside - two offices, a home where her mother lives and another residence where the lawmaker is registered to vote.

State legislators are allowed to have second homes outside of their districts as long as they maintain a residence in the district, experts said.

"The issue is then, 'How do you define residence,'" said Manhattan election lawyer Henry Berger. "There is a slightly different standard between establishing a residence and maintaining a residence."

The Bronx district attorney's office is investigating a similar situation involving state Sen. Pedro Espada (D-Bronx). Espada once beat a residency challenge, but authorities decided to take a closer look following his central role in the coup that has deadlocked the Senate.

Carrozza said her family outgrew the Bayside home where she is registered to vote - a modest, three-bedroom house.

"We had a deal on a bigger house in Bayside," she explained. "I made arrangements to rent out my primary residence."

The deal fell through, so they moved to the Nassau County manse, she said, rather than renege on their tenants.

"It wasn't my intention to permanently occupy the home," she added. "We thought we would stay here temporarily."

The mortgage papers Carrozza and her husband, William Duke, signed in June 2008 say otherwise.

"I will occupy the property and use the property as my principal residence within 60 days after I sign this," the document stated. "I will continue to occupy the property and to use the property as my principal residence for at least one year."

Power Outage Affects 70,000, Stalls A-Train Subway Service -- Newsday.com

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Service on the A train and along the Long Island Rail Road's Far Rockaway branch has been restored after an earlier LIPA power outage knocked out service to subways in the Rockaways and power to LIRR signals, slowing several commuter trains running through that area.

According to Long Island Power Authority, at 3 p.m. Wednesday there were 30,739 outages in the Far Rockaway peninsula, and 44,231 in the Hempstead area. Check power outage map.

As a result of the outages, the 1:05 p.m. LIRR train from Flatbush Avenue, scheduled to arrive in Far Rockaway at 2:03 p.m., was operating 20 minutes late. Additionally, the 1:36 p.m. LIRR train from Far Rockaway, scheduled to arrive in Flatbush Avenue at 2:33 p.m., was operating 25 minutes late. Forty passengers were on the trains.

On the subways, the MTA also reported that, because of a train with mechanical problems at the Broadway Junction Station, Inwood-bound A trains were running local from the Euclid Avenue Station to the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Station. Customers on the A should expect delays.

LIRR service through the Rockaways was back by 2:17 p.m. and subway service was restored around 2:42 p.m., according to the MTA's Web site.