Parents of a 14-year-old boy are suing the city for allowing a harrowing anti-gay assault to take place inside Roy H. Mann Junior High School in Bergen Beach — a brutal beating that left their child blind in one eye.
Pierre Ulysse told the Daily News, a Manhattan paper, that the city did nothing to stop the cafeteria fight inside the E. 68th Street school on June 5, which left his son Kardin with extensive injuries after shards from the teen’s glasses entered his cornea.
Ulysse said that his son has already undergone two surgeries and many more may be needed in the future.
“The doctor says he needs a transplant,” Ulysse said. “For me to send him to school with two eyes and come back with one eye is really absurd.”
The lawsuit claims that a group of teens jumped Kardin, attacking him with both their fists and a barrage of anti-gay epithets.
Kardin was hospitalized and school officials took a report.
Ulysse’s attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, is filing a $16-million lawsuit against the city for failing to supervise the students.
School officials told reporters that they gave Kardin immediate attention, took the investigation very seriously, and made sure that the teens responsible for the assault were disciplined.
Check cashers busted
Workers at two borough check-cashing businesses were arrested on money-laundering charges for failing to file currency transaction reports and filing currency transaction reports with federal authorities — violating laws and regulations enacted by Congress to address an increase in criminal money laundering through financial institutions, officials said.
Federal prosecutors say the two check-cashing businesses, who were not named, were a common venue for individuals who wanted to anonymously cash large numbers of checks to facilitate fraud and launder money.
Investigators said that two suspects involved in the businesses acted as check couriers from 2009 to 2010, bringing multiple checks from Brooklyn to Philadelphia made payable to various medical services companies.
On almost all occasions, the checks exceeded $10,000, officials said. The check-cashing companies filed false currency transaction reports claiming that the checks were cashed on behalf of the couriers themselves, or for companies associated with the couriers.
“The Bank Secrecy Act provides law enforcement with a powerful tool to detect and prevent crime by requiring financial institutions to document and submit reports on certain currency transactions,” said U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte. “Those who seek to evade the restrictions of the Bank Secrecy Act — both individuals and financial institutions — will be aggressively pursued by the Department of Justice and its partners in federal, state, and local law enforcement.”
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Lorretta Lynch agreed.
“These indictments send a clear message that we will not tolerate the willful failure of check-cashing businesses to take all steps under the law to prevent their businesses from being used to launder the proceeds of crime,” she said.
Attempts to reach attornies for the defendants were unsuccessful by Tuesday evening.
Reach reporter Thomas Tracy at ttracy@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2525.
