Wheelchair coke bust at Kennedy
CHARTER SCHOOL foun der Eva Moskowitz published a video Tuesday to explain her motivation for creating the Success Academy Education Institute, a new project to disseminate the high-scoring charter network’s tricks of the trade. Success Academy officials plan a press conference Wednesday. But Moskowitz gave some details in a YouTube video showing a webbased menu of lesson plans and other material the network uses to teach reading. “The development of our school design and our systems have really shown the nation what is possible,” she says. Moskowitz began work on the Institute more than a year ago, directing staffers to work on the project after her charter network raised more than $35 million at its April 2016 fund-raiser. SHE’S WHEELY in trouble now.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have arrested a woman who was rolling around Kennedy Airport with a motorized wheelchair filled with cocaine, officials said Tuesday.
Yoncela Stanley, 33, had just landed in the U.S. on a JetBlue flight from St. Lucia on Sunday when Customs and Border Protection officers noticed something was wrong with the chair’s backseat cushion.
Stanley appeared nervous when she presented her baggage, prompting customs agents to bring over a K-9 dog. The dog alerted the officers to the drugs, authorities said.
When the agents took off the wheelchair cushion, they found it unusually heavy — probably because it was filled with more than 10 bricks of cocaine weighing about 27 pounds, officials said.
The drugs have an estimated street value of $468,000, officials said.
Stanley was charged with narcotics smuggling and was ordered held on $50,000 bail during a brief arraignment Monday in Brooklyn Federal Court.
“This latest seizure demonstrates the vigilance of our (Customs and Border Protection) officers, and their excellence in detecting those who would try to smuggle these illegal substances,” said Leon Hayward, acting director of field operations in New York. MORE THAN 30 people were hospitalized Tuesday after a broken boiler in a Tribeca building triggered dangerous levels of carbon monoxide — and fears that an explosive device with noxious chemicals had been set off, officials said.
Many of the victims fainted inside and outside the Amish Market on Murray St. near West Broadway beginning about 8:30 a.m.
“The boiler in the basement has a crack in it and our kitchen is next to that basement,” said the owner of the Amish Market, who identified himself only as Pat.
Firefighters said 32 people suffered carbon monoxide exposure, with many of them passing out. Of that number, 25 were employees of the Amish Market.