‘Nanny’ defense concludes
AS EXPECTED, the NYPD’s crime-fighting strategist was tapped Friday to be the new chief of detectives.
The move takes effect April 16, the day current Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce ends his 36 years of service and two days before he turns 63, the mandatory retirement age.
His replacement, Dermot Shea, chief of crime control strategies, has been credited with helping continue to drive crime down. Shea, 48, joined the NYPD in 1991. In a surprise move, Police Commissioner James O’Neill named Deputy Chief Lori Pollock, 53, as Shea’s replacement.
Pollock, a 31-year veteran, was running the candidate assessment division.
“The NYPD made history in 2017, and in 2018 we’re building on our historic achievements by keeping New Yorkers across the city safe and building stronger relationships in every neighborhood we serve,” O’Neill said.The personnel moves follow a dozen high-level promotions that were made in January and re-shaped the executive level of the department. THE DEFENSE rests.
At the end of another day of tense expert testimony, lawyers for nightmare nanny Yoselyn Ortega wrapped up their case Friday.
Ortega, 55, is accused of killing siblings Lulu and Leo Kim, ages 6 and 2 years old in their Upper West Side apartment on Oct. 25, 2012.
Defense expert witness Phillip Resnick, who consulted on the “Unabomber” case insisted on the witness stand that Ortega was telling the truth when she said she did not remember stabbing the children in their bathroom.Ortega’s alleged amnesia was a symptom of the “dissociative” episode she experienced as she heard the devil’s voice telling her to commit the crime, Resnick testified.
Prosecutors argued that Ortega’s behavior afterward reveals that she feigned forgetting.
“Doesn't it inform you that when she wakes up and she has her throat cut and in fact she had murdered the children that she doesn’t have to ask what happened because she knew what happened…?” prosecutor asked.
“That is certainly one theory but that is not the explanation that is most likely,” Resnick said.
Ortega’s first words after the ordeal laid blame the blame for her actions on the dead children’s mother, according to earlier police testimony.
Prosecutors will call their own mental health experts next week. AS A KID, Stefanie Pennachio viewed her Uncle Jimmy as a hero. His death one year ago only strengthened her belief.
Pennachio was among the relatives, friends and fellow firefighters who gathered Friday to unveil a plaque honoring revered firefighter Jimmy Lanza of Ladder Co. 43 inside his old Harlem firehouse.
Lanza died in April 2017, killed by brain cancer caused by toxins he was exposed to during his long hours working at the World Trade Center site.
“Jimmy was just saintly,” said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro. “I think he worked more hours doing things for others than he worked as a firefighter. “He just couldn’t do enough for other people.” Lanza famously joined firefighters who ran into the collapsed north tower on that September morning, miraculously pulling 16 survivors from the rubble of a WTC stairwell.
“My uncle was my childhood hero,” recalled Pennachio. “And also as an adult, he was too. We were very close. He was my godfather . . . he loved and supported all of us.”
All the speakers inside the home of “El Barrio’s Bravest” praised Lanza, who died at age 71, as the ultimate firefighter and human being.
“For a man who wore a size seven shoe, he left awfully large shoes to fill,” said FDNY Chief of Department James Leonard. “We owe it to him to try to fill his shoes.
“Of all the things he was — he was so giving and a hero — he was a leader.”