3 teens arrested, charged with killing N.Y. cab driver
NEW YORK (AP)-- Three teenagers were arrested Saturday and charged in the shooting death of a livery cab driver who was the ninth driver to be killed in the city so far this year.Felicia Fields, 18, Charles Rhodes, 17, and Tyriek Cross, 17, were each charged with second-degree murder. Cesar Lopez, 43, was shot in the back of his head while in his car Friday morning, said Sgt. Victor Ramos.
The number of livery drivers killed in the first four months of the year has almost reached last year's total. Eleven drivers were killed in all of 1999.
Lopez did not have a bulletproof partition in his car, and police say he had picked up two passengers who hailed him on the street -- a widespread practice that violates city rules for livery drivers. Livery cabs are supposed to be summoned by a phone call to the company, unlike regular yellow taxis that are hailed on the street.
The police department has created a task force and assigned 300 officers to protect the city's 41,000 livery drivers.
Slip-up in magazine gift angers the donor, publisher
AKRON, Ohio (AP) -- A woman who ordered a skateboarding magazine as a gift for her 15-year-old son received an X-rated publication -- a mistake that angered both her and Larry Flynt, who owns both magazines.
"I was horrified," Becky Barrington said. "I don't want my son seeing that stuff."
Flynt already has fired the employee whose mistake caused Hustler Taboo magazine to be mailed to all subscribers of Big Brother Skateboarding, a Flynt spokesman said.
Jerry Awang, vice president of operations for Flynt's publishing house, said his boss was "livid" over the switch.
He would not say how many copies were mailed in error because the company does not release circulation data.
Barrington said the company apologized to her when she complained, However, she plans to cancel the Big Brother subscription for her son, Justin Noga, now that she knows who owns the skateboarding magazine.
Ex-Mrs. America charged with fraud in '96 bankruptcy
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A former Mrs. America was charged with fraud for allegedly pretending to be single and failing to list $100,000 in jewelry as assets when she filed for bankruptcy.
Jill Scott Chance, 40, of Paradise Valley, Ariz., was indicted Friday. Her 1996 bankruptcy filing resulted in the discharge of nearly $330,000 in debt she had amassed in California.
Federal prosecutors said Chance filed using her maiden name but was married to Phoenix auto glass tycoon C. Richard Chance. They since divorced. Chance also didn't state she was a secretary in her husband's firm, the indictment said.
Authorities also indicted Chance's San Diego attorney, Gary A. Quackenbush, alleging he knew the bankruptcy petition was fraudulent.
Chance was named Mrs. America in 1991, but the pageant sued her for concealing that she was separated at the time. The pageant won a $100,000 judgment.
Rothschild scion collapses and dies outside N.Y. loft
NEW YORK (AP) -- A scion of the internationally known Rothschild family collapsed on a Manhattan sidewalk and died of an apparent drug overdose following a downtown party, officials said.
Authorities said Raphael de Rothschild, 23, died on the afternoon of April 22 outside a Chelsea loft. William Corbin, a friend of Rothschild, was later arrested and charged with heroin possession, according to police.
Corbin has denied any involvement with the death.
Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner, said toxicology results were pending. But a police source told the Daily News, "We have little doubt he died of a drug overdose."
Police investigating death of analyst for Waco panel
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police said Saturday they are investigating the death of an expert hired by a congressional committee who alleged last October that shots were fired in the Waco siege.
There was no sign of a break-in or struggle at the firm of Infrared Technology outside Washington where the badly decomposed body of Carlos Ghigliotti, 42, was found Friday, Laurel police said in a news release. Ghigliotti had not been seen for several weeks.
The office of the chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland was performing an autopsy in Baltimore. It wasn't expected to be completed until Monday.
Distraught Michigan man kills wife, 2 others, then self
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) -- A man apparently distraught over his wife's decision to leave him shot and killed her and two others and then killed himself, authorities said.
The woman, who had left her husband several days earlier, returned to the couple's home outside Detroit with her sister and her sister's boyfriend Saturday afternoon.
The boyfriend, 38, was shot three times as he entered the home, Mount Clemens police Lt. Brian Krutell said.
The gunman's brother was upstairs on a couch when he heard screaming and then gunshots. He looked up to see the sister's boyfriend stumble up the stairs and throw him a cellular phone, saying: call 911, Krutell said.
About five hours after the boyfriend was shot, SWAT team members saw the bodies of the gunman and his wife through a back window of the home. The woman's sister was found dead nearby.