Dear Friends,
My Office is hosting a free Community Food Giveaway TODAY at Tracey Towers in partnership with NY Common Pantry. There will be fresh produce that will be distributed while supplies last. If you have any questions or would like more information please contact my office at 718-409-0109.
Date: Today, December 18th, 2023
Time: 5:00pm to While Supplies Last
Location: Tracey Towers' Community Room Tower - A, 40 W Mosholu Pkwy S, Bronx, NY 10468
In a Coordinated City and State Response, Bronx Legislators Seek to Implement Measures to Equip Parents and Childcare Providers to Ensure Child Safety
State Senator Gustavo Rivera, Councilmember Pierina Sanchez, elected officials, and childcare advocates joined together to announce the introduction of a series of bills in the New York State Legislature and the New York City Council to protect children from opioid exposure in childcare facilities.
In the wake of the tragic death of one-year-old Nicholas Feliz-Dominici at a childcare facility in Kingsbridge in September of this year, Senator Rivera and Councilmember Sanchez worked in tandem to coordinate an appropriate, public health focused response in an effort to prevent a tragedy like this from ever occurring again and ensure that our communities and children are safe.
Senator Rivera’s bill (S.7815) will provide education and training for providers on overdose prevention, ensure thorough training for inspectors on how to identify illicit drugs, and most importantly, will empower parents, who are by far their children’s strongest advocates, by ensuring they are informed about avenues for inquiries and complaints to the State’s Office of Children and Family Services, as well as their rights to inspect childcare facilities.
“The fentanyl exposure incident at a daycare in my district was a horrifying tragedy. The heart wrenching death of one-year-old Nicholas Dominici and the terror that families experienced due to the negligence and callousness of the facility's providers cannot happen again. My legislation will equip inspectors to safeguard daycares across New York, empower parents to ensure childcare facilities are fit for their children, and provide resources to daycare providers to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. Our community is still grieving and reeling from that day, so I am honored to work closely with Councilmember Sanchez on this coordinated legislative response at the state and city level on behalf of New York families and caregivers,” said State Senator Gustavo Rivera, Chair of the Senate Health Committee and sponsor of the bill.
Councilmember Sanchez will introduce a legislative package in the forthcoming legislative session. The first bill of the package dovetails with Senator Rivera’s bill by requiring the NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene to specifically advertise to health inspectors and childcare providers training on opioid antagonists. The second bill within the proposed legislative package will explore a pilot program to support working families in need of child care. The third and final bill will be a resolution calling on the State Legislature to pass and the Governor to sign the proposed changes in Senator Rivera’s bill.
“Nicholas Feliz Dominici should have been safe at this daycare facility. The Feliz Dominici family did everything right, from working with trusted community institutions, to vetting licensed daycare providers. Yet, government protocols failed to catch possible warnings at this facility, and the ongoing scourge of the illegal opioid drug trade robbed us of a beautiful young life. As a mother of a child that even looks like little Nicholas, my heart remains broken from this devastating tragedy,” said Council Member Pierina Sanchez, District 14.
“In the last three months, as we have stayed close with and coordinated support for the Feliz Dominici family, I am thankful to have been working with partners across levels of government to interrogate the gaps in policies and protocols that might have caught warning signs, and explore opportunities to better inform and support parents of their rights. I am proud to be working with Senator Rivera to move city and state legislation for the coming legislative session. This tragedy, and this initial set of legislative responses, highlights so many overlapping challenges our communities face – from the ruthlessness of the illegal drug trade, to lacking affordable childcare opportunities. Nicholas, for you and your family, we fight on.”
We are witnessing a devastating rise nationally in cases where minors and young children inadvertently come into contact with opioids, leading to overdoses. This coordinated legislative effort by Senator Rivera and Councilmember Sanchez seeks to implement a comprehensive public health approach to ensure that our communities and children all across New York City and New York State are safe.
"I am pleased to stand with Senator Rivera and Councilmember Sanchez in support of their legislation to make home day care centers safe. Nicholas' death was entirely needless and avoidable. We will get justice for him and the other children and their families. These bills aim to close the gaps that could possibly have prevented the tragedy at the Divino Niño Day Care Center. The hope is no family will ever have to deal with such a devastating tragedy like Nicholas' family has had," said Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark.
"ECE On the Move extends heartfelt condolences to the family of Nicholas Dominici. We stand united with Senator Gustavo Rivera and Council Member Pierina Sanchez on the proposed regulatory changes which represents a significant step forward in creating a more secure environment for our community's children,” said Shanita Bowen, Chief Operating Officer at ECE On The Move. “By emphasizing household transparency and implementing comprehensive training initiatives, these measures aim to equip both inspectors and child care providers with the tools necessary to prevent future illnesses or tragedies."
Permits have been filed for a six-story residential building at 2267 Andrews Avenue North in University Heights, The Bronx. Located between West 183rd Street and West Fordham Road, the lot is near the 183rd Street subway station, serviced by the 4 train. Erenik Nezaj is listed as the owner behind the applications.
The proposed 70-foot-tall development will yield 16,305 square feet designated for residential space. The building will have 25 residences, most likely rentals based on the average unit scope of 652 square feet. The masonry-based structure will also have a 34-foot-long rear yard, eight open parking spaces, and three enclosed parking spaces.
Node Architecture Engineering Consulting is listed as the architect of record.
Demolition permits were filed at the end of last month for the 2.5-story structure on the site. An estimated completion date has not been announced.
PPNA and Pelham Parkway Vision Center Toy Giveaway
By Robert Press
Saturday December 17, 2023 was the Annual Pelham Parkway Neighborhood Association and Pelham Parkway Vision Center Toy Giveaway. Santa Claus came into the store to help give each child one of the over three hundred toys wrapped for him to hand out.
Families were led into the store one at a time, the children were given an age and gender appropriate toy by one of the staff of the Pelham Parkway Vision Center while members of the Pelham Parkway Neighborhood Association guided the families towards the exit giving all candy canes as they were leaving.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Aaron Mayers and Zahir Williams were indicted in connection with the murder of a Brooklyn man who was pummeled unconscious before being run over with his own car. According to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, 50-year-old Francisco Ortega survived a brutal beating by the defendants and two other attackers in Astoria, but was killed when Williams drove over the unconscious victim.
District Attorney Katz said: “An outnumbered victim was sucker-punched, viciously beaten unconscious and then mercilessly run over. We need to get people capable of such cold-blooded brutality off our streets as soon as possible.”
Williams, 24, of Beck Street in the Bronx, and Mayers, 25, of Pennsylvania, were jointly indicted on charges of murder in the second degree, gang assault in the first degree, two counts of robbery in the first degree. two counts of robbery in the second degree and robbery in the third-degree. Williams faces an additional count of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. Each faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder ordered them to return to court February 27, 2024.
According to the charges and video surveillance footage:
The investigation was conducted by Detective Oliver Kim of the New York Police Department’s 114thPrecinct Detective Squad under the supervision of Lieutenant Matthew Barber.
Harris Sentenced to the Maximum Penalty, 5-to-15 Years in State Prison
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr., announced the sentencing of DR. JEFFREY HARRIS, 59, to an indeterminate term of 5-to-15 years in state prison, the maximum penalty, following his trial conviction for recklessly killing his wife, Tammy Harris by treating her unethically and improperly. On October 26, 2023, a New York State Supreme Court jury found DR. HARRIS guilty of Manslaughter in the Second Degree for killing her by giving her numerous supplements and alternative treatments, including poisonous levels of selenium, and preventing her from seeking treatment for lupus.
“Jeffrey Harris betrayed his duty as a physician and as a husband by ignoring all medical evidence and advice and experimenting on his wife, leading to her slow and painful death,” said District Attorney Bragg. “Dr. Harris prevented his wife, Tammy, from being treated for lupus, and instead filled her with unnecessary prescription medications and herbal supplements that exacerbated her symptoms and left her in excruciating pain. He moved from one diagnosis to the next, finally falsifying mercury poisoning and giving her such high doses of selenium that he eventually killed her with his reckless treatment. My heart goes out to her loved ones, and in particular her children. I hope they have some sense of resolution as this final chapter closes.”
As proven at trial and according to court documents and statements made on the record in court, DR. HARRIS met Tammy in 2003 when he was her doctor and she was his patient. After mentoring her while she trained to be a nurse, they married in 2007 and lived together in Washington State. In 2016, Tammy began to experience aches and pains. She was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease by her primary care physician, who suspected she had lupus – which was later confirmed by other doctors. Despite this diagnosis, DR. HARRIS refused to believe her doctors and took her treatment into his own hands. He searched the internet for rare and unlikely causes, including cat scratch fever and avian bird flu. He began prescribing her antibiotics, antifungals, pain medication, and a vast variety of herbal supplements.
Tammy’s health began to rapidly decline. She lost a significant amount of weight, became severely jaundiced, and was eventually bedridden. When they went to the hospital in August 2017, DR. HARRIS argued with her physicians, instructed her to spit out the medications they prescribed, and continued to provide her with his preferred supplements without her doctor’s knowledge. Over the course of the next four months, a similar cycle repeated. Isolated and subject to DR. HARRIS’s treatments, Tammy would decline at home, briefly improve with hospitalization, and then decline again when the defendant removed her from the hospital against medical advice.
Beginning in late summer 2017, DR. HARRIS determined, with no medical basis and despite multiple negative tests, that Tammy had mercury poisoning. He dosed her with extraordinarily high levels of selenium, which eventually led to her death. In January 2018, DR. HARRIS flew Tammy, who at this point weighed less than 80 pounds, to New York City to visit an alternative medical center in Midtown Manhattan run by a doctor DR. HARRIS admired. Testing done at that center came back negative for mercury poisoning but showed an enormous amount of selenium in her blood – more than 10 times the reference range.
On February 22, 2018, Tammy’s heart failed in the Palace Hotel, where they were staying. She was rushed to Lennox Hill Hospital, where she died six days later at 55-years-old.
Stephen Burton, a citizen of the United Kingdom, was arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn before United States Magistrate Judge Taryn A. Merkl on an indictment charging him with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy in connection with a scheme perpetrated through Bordeaux Cellars, a company that he operated. Burton was extradited yesterday to the Eastern District of New York from Morocco where he was arrested in 2022 after entering the country using a false Zimbabwean passport. Burton’s co-defendant, James Wellesley, remains in extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and James Smith, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the extradition and arraignment.
“With the successful extradition of Burton to the Eastern District of New York, he will now taste justice for the fine wines scheme alleged in the indictment,” stated United States Attorney Peace. “This prosecution sends a message to all perpetrators of global fraud that you can run from law enforcement, but not forever.”
Mr. Peace thanked Moroccan authorities for their assistance. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs also provided significant assistance in securing the arrest and extradition from Morocco of the defendant.
The indictment alleges that from at least June 2017 and continuing through February 2019, the investors posed as executives at a company called Bordeaux Cellars. The defendants solicited investors, including residents of the Eastern District of New York, at, among other places, investor conferences held in the United States and overseas. The defendants claimed to investors that Bordeaux Cellars brokered loans between investors and high-net-worth wine collectors that would be fully collateralized by high-value collections of wine. The defendants promised that investors would receive regular interest payments from the borrowers, and that Bordeaux Cellars would keep custody of the wine securing the loans while the loans were outstanding. As alleged, these representations were lies, the “high-net-worth wine collectors” did not actually exist and Bordeaux Cellars did not maintain custody of the wine purportedly securing the loans. Instead, the defendants used incoming loan proceeds to make fraudulent interest payments to investors and for their own personal expenses.
The charges in the indictment are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. If convicted, the defendants each face up to 20 years in prison.
The NYPD is releasing today body-worn camera footage from an officer-involved shooting that occurred on April 21th, 2023 in the confines of the 44th Precinct..
The video includes available evidence leading up to the incident as well as during the incident. The NYPD is releasing this video for clear viewing of the totality of the incident.
All NYPD patrol officers are equipped with body-worn cameras. The benefits of cameras are clear: transparency into police activity, de-escalation of police encounters and accountability for police officers, through an independent account of interactions between the police and the citizens they serve. Body-worn cameras serve as a vital part of ongoing efforts to increase trust between the police and all New Yorkers.
