Repair shop raider convicted
A trigger-happy 20-year-old who had the misfortune of hijacking a Flatlands auto-body shop while an off duty cop was inside is expected to get 40 years in jail for his part in the foiled heist, prosecutors said.
On May 20, a jury convicted Ian Fields on attempted murder in the second degree and attempted robbery in the first degree.
When he comes up for sentencing on June 8, he’s expected to get 40 years in jail, prosecutors said.
Fields and accomplice Kenneth Williams apparently had no idea that an off-duty cop was inside DJL Auto Repair Shop at 4201 Glenwood Road when they decided to raid the business on May 9, 2009.
Officials said the two entered the store acting as customers. Seconds later, both men pulled guns and demanded that everyone empty their pockets.
When Williams pointed his gun at civilians, the off-duty detective pulled his weapon and identified himself.
Surprised, Williams opened fire on the NYPD veteran. The cop returned fire, hitting Williams in the neck.
That’s when a frightened Fields opened fire, throwing seven shots at the detective as he tried to escape.
Undeterred, the detective chased after him, catching Fields after a short pursuit, police said.
Life sought for Clinton Hill rapist
The 27-year-old nabbed for raping two women in Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant is a serial rapist.
So said a grand jury last week when they indicted Dupre Nicholson on charges of predatory rape, meaning that if he’s convicted he could get life in prison.
Nicholson was arraigned on the upgraded charge on May 21. Assistant District Attorney Michael Trabulsi said that the crimes were so horrific, that one of Nicholson’s victims was “horribly disfigured.”
“The other woman was penetrated with a gun,” Trabulsi said.
Prosecutors said that Nicholson pulled a gun on a 56-year-old woman on March 16 and took her to Hancock Park where he robbed, raped and beat her.
A week later, on March 23 he beat and raped a 42-year-old woman near the corner of Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street.
Cops ultimately took him into custody on April 3 when he was matched to DNA recovered from both crime scenes. One of the victim’s earrings was found in his home, police said.
Nicholson was held without bail after his arraignment on the new charges, even though his attorney said that he had an alibi witness who could put him somewhere else at the time of one of the rapes.
NYPD lewd
Another one of New York’s Finest was brought before a Brooklyn federal judge last week — this time for demanding sexual favors from the women he arrested.
On May 18, federal prosecutors charged Detective Oscar Sandino, who is currently assigned to a narcotics unit in Queens, with violating the civil rights of three women through sexual misconduct — crimes that could put him in the pen with some of the people he helped lock up for three years.
According to the indictment, Sandino would barter sexual favors for reduced sentences from the women he had arrested on drug charges or from female relatives of drug dealers he had taken into custody between 2006 and 2008. So far, three women have come forward, prosecutors said.
According to court papers, one unidentified women was arrested with her boyfriend on a drug distribution charge following a raid on their apartment in February, 2008.
She claimed that Sandino forced her to undress in front of him at her home. Then, at the precinct, he told her that she would go to jail and lose her children unless she had sex with him.
The woman consented, and performed a sex act on Sandino inside a precinct bathroom, court papers reveal.
But that wasn’t the end. Once she was finally released from custody, Sandino called her repeatedly, claiming that he expected her to have sex with him again at a later time.
After several repeated calls, the woman turned the tables on Sandino and reported his misconduct to the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
A follow-up investigation revealed more “bartering” with women he arrested, prosecutors said.
Back in 2006, he allegedly told the female cousin of a drug dealer he arrested that he could have her relative’s sentence reduced if she had sex with him.
Then, just last year, he ordered a woman he had in custody to raise her shirt, exposing her breasts, prosecutors said.
After pleading not guilty, Sandino was released on $25,000 bond.
His attorney Peter Brill described the charges as “old news.”
The same allegations were brought to the Queens County District Attorney’s office a year earlier, but prosecutors there refused to file charges after finding that at least one of his so-called victims was not credible, he told reporters.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that Sandino’s alleged misconduct brought “dishonor to himself and the department.”
This is the third time in a month that city police officers have been dragged into Brooklyn federal court.
Three weeks earlier, two more of Brooklyn’s finest were taken into custody, both accused of robbing drug dealers.
