truesee's Blog

Lottery winner's estranged husband likely to get a cut

Lotto gal's hubby likely to get a cut: expert

 

SELIM ALGAR, REUVEN FENTON and DAN MANGAN

Last Updated: 10:53 AM, February 1, 2011

Posted: 2:40 AM, February 1, 2011

 

Cowering like a debtor cornered by creditors, debt-ridden ironworker Jamie Eisel yesterday skulked at the front door of the wife he dumped -- no doubt dreaming of the $8 million check that popped in her mailbox last week and the hefty piece of it he's likely to collect.

Eisel -- who was the subject of $8,000 worth of claims by three banks and the state, according to court records -- walked out on his waitress wife, Patricia, last year, months before she won the Lotto prize, friends said.

He's likely to reap an unexpected reward.

"She's going to be splitting that money," predicted Marilyn Chinitz, a top marital lawyer at Blank Rome in Manhattan.

HOUSE CALL: Jamie Eisel skulks yesterday outside the Long Island home of his estranged wife, Patricia, whose $8 million Lotto win was reported in The Post.

Victor Alcorn

HOUSE CALL: Jamie Eisel skulks yesterday outside the Long Island home of his estranged wife, Patricia, whose $8 million Lotto win was reported in The Post.

"I think it's a matter of how much."

That's because when the couple separated after nearly 13 years of marriage, she didn't bother to get a divorce -- or even file for divorce.

"Generally, monies that are from the lottery are deemed to be marital monies," Chinitz said. "It's subject to equitable distribution in New York."

Their relatively brief separation -- along with the possibility that Jamie has continued providing financial support to Patricia, 40, and their three young boys -- might lead a judge to award him close to half of the $8 million, Chinitz said.

The only way Patricia could keep all the money, said the lawyer, who's not representing either party, is if she could prove the Lotto ticket was bought with money exempt from the joint marital assets, such as an inheritance.

Despite that apparent good news, Jamie looked decidedly dour as he picked up his mail at the Long Beach, LI, home he had formerly shared with Patricia.

Jaime, who had been married before, declined to tell a Post reporter whether he planned on going after her windfall.

Between November 2009 and March 2010, four judgments against him were recorded in Nassau County Supreme Court. The debts, owed to two banks and the state, totaled slightly more than $8,200. It was not immediately clear if he paid off any or all of it.

Meanwhile, Patricia, who had been struggling to make ends meet by working in a local bar, has been in her native Ireland since collecting her Lotto check in New York last Thursday.

She hasn't been wearing her wedding ring.

Patricia's mood has been much improved since learning that the $8 she dropped on lottery tickets on Jan. 5 paid off with a $21.5 million winner -- which entitled her to an $8 million lump-sum payment after taxes.

"I knew on Jan. 6. I got nervous," she said in Ireland, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

"I didn't want any attention on my kids, and I wanted to think.

"The don't know what is going on, they just know Mammy is going home," she said. "I can't wait to go back and see them."

Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/check_may_be_in_mail_tsBlnpplAisHpMwcHcf8XP#ixzz1ClGUTvUg

Entry #3,859

Janet Napolitano urges officials to stop exaggerating violence on U.S. side of border

Janet Napolitano urges officials to stop exaggerating violence on U.S. side of border

The Homeland Security secretary tries to make her case with FBI crime statistics, but public perceptions are hard to change

 

Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau

February 1, 2011

Reporting from Washington

 

 

 

Battling the widespread perception that U.S. border cities have become more dangerous, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday called on public officials to stop exaggerating the violence on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico and "be honest with the people we serve."

In a speech in El Paso, Napolitano cited FBI statistics showing that violent crime rates in Southwest border counties are down 30% over the last two decades and are "among the lowest in the nation."

Napolitano's effort to change the public perception of danger follows a heated campaign season last fall that saw candidates in border states frequently emphasizing the effects of illegal immigration on their communities.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, was criticized during the campaign for saying that headless bodies were being found in the Arizona desert, a statement she retracted after local coroners could not confirm her claim.

A few mayors in the region recently have said that the portrayal of their towns as dangerous has hurt them economically.

"Let's stick with the facts," Napolitano said. "We need to be up front and clear about what's really happening along our borders."

Even as the drug war has escalated just south of the border, crime rates in Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat, said Napolitano, citing the addition of personnel and technology in the region.

She added that the number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border — an indication of illegal cross-border traffic — has decreased 36% over the last two years.

But Matthew Benson, a spokesman for Brewer, said: "The issue is there are tens of thousands of people being murdered immediately across the border in Mexico by the cartels. And the concern is that the violence by the cartels will begin spilling across the border."

For Arizona cattle ranchers, the day-to-day reality of drug and people smugglers traversing their property is "far more impacting" than Napolitano's comments indicate, said Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.).

"Statistics and averages might mean something to government bureaucrats and analysts in Washington, but try telling the people who deal with these realities every day that the violence along the border has subsided," said Quayle, who won his congressional seat in the Republican surge in November.

Angela Kelley, an immigration policy expert at the Center for American Progress in Washington, argued that there was a "pretty big disconnect" between the public perception about safety along the border and what the statistics showed.

"When you have politicians stirring the pot and turning up the heat on people's emotions and fear levels, you don't have a constructive debate on what to do," she said.

But she added: "Facts matter, but only to a point … because it is what citizens believe that defines the debate and sets the agenda in Washington. We can't be tone deaf to what the public believes."

Since 2004, the Border Patrol has doubled in size to more than 20,700 agents. Napolitano added that the Department of Homeland Security had increased the number of intelligence analysts focused on cartel violence.

With the help of a $600-million infusion of cash approved by Congress in 2010, the department will add 1,000 Border Patrol agents this year, 250 officers at ports of entry and 250 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Napolitano said.

The increase comes as 1,200 National Guard troops that President Obama deployed to the border last year plan to stand down by the end of the summer.

Entry #3,858

Mubarak: I will not run in next presidential elections

Mubarak: I will not run in next presidential elections

 

ASSOCIATED PRESS
02/01/2011 23:27

Egyptian president claims he had never intended on running for reelection; doesn't heed protesters demands that he resign immediately; says, "I will die on Egyptian soil and history will remember me for my merits."

 
CAIRO — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday said he will not run for a new term in office in September elections, but rejected demands that he step down immediately and leave the country, vowing to die on Egypt's soil, in a television address Tuesday after a dramatic day in which a quarter-million protesters called on him to go.

Mubarak said he would serve out the rest of his term working to ensure a "peaceful transfer of power" and carry out amendments to rules on presidential elections.

But the half-way concession — an end to his rule months down the road — was immediately derided by protesters massed in Cairo's main downtown square.

Watching his speech on a giant TV set up in Tahrir square, protesters booed and waved their shoes over the heads in a sign of contempt. "Go, go, go! We are not leaving until he leaves," they chanted, and one man screamed, "He doesn't want to say it, he doesn't want to say it."

The 82-year-old Mubarak, who has ruled the country for nearly three decades, insisted that his decision not to run had nothing to do with the unprecedented protests that have shaken Egypt the past week. "I tell you in all sincerity, regardless of the current circumstances, I never intended to be a candidate for another term."

"I will work for the final remaining months of the current term to accomplish the necessary steps for the peaceful transfer of power," he said.

Mubarak, a former air force commander, resolutely vowed not to flee the country. "This dear nation .. is where I lived, I fought for it and defended its soil, sovereignty and interests. On its soil I will die. History will judge me like it did others."

His speech came after a visiting envoy of President Barack Obama told Mubarak that his ally the United States sees his presidency at an end. Frank Wisner, a respected former US ambassador to Egypt who is a friend of the Egyptian president, made clear to Mubarak that the US "view that his tenure as president is coming to close," according to an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the ongoing diplomacy.

Earlier on Tuesday the Obama administration opened talks with a possible successor to the embattled Mubarak as the US ramped up outreach to the hundreds of thousands determined to force their long-time leader out of power.

  The context of the discussions with Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was not immediately public. But they were taking place as more than a quarter-million Egyptians gathered in Cairo's main square in defiance of Mubarak, which signaled the United States is strengthening its push for a peaceful transition to democracy — and looking for alternatives to its ally of three decades.

While the US envoy to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, spoke with ElBaradei, the escalating anti-government protests led the United States to order non-essential American personnel and their families to leave the country. Respected former ambassador Frank Wisner was visiting members of Mubarak's government and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had a telephone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

"The US Embassy in Cairo has been especially busy in the past several days with an active outreach to political and civil society," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in a message posted to Twitter. "As part of our public outreach to convey support for orderly transition in Egypt, Ambassador Scobey spoke today with Mohamed ElBaradei."

Wisner, who represented the US in Cairo from 1986 to 1991, was being counted on to provide the US government with an evaluation of the fast-changing situation. "As someone with deep experience in the region, he is meeting with Egyptian officials and providing his assessment," the State Department said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat , gave public voice to what senior US officials have said only privately in recent days: that Mubarak should "step aside gracefully to make way for a new political structure."

"It is not enough for President Mubarak to pledge 'fair' elections," Kerry wrote in The New York Times. "The most important step that he can take is to address his nation and declare that neither he nor the son he has been positioning as his successor will run in the presidential election this year. Egyptians have moved beyond his regime, and the best way to avoid unrest turning into upheaval is for President Mubarak to take himself and his family out of the equation."

By midday Tuesday, the administration had yet to make any public comments on the protests or Mubarak, but renewed a travel warning for Egypt advising Americans to leave and ordering the departure of all non-essential government personnel and their families "in light of recent events." It was an indication of Washington's deepening concern about developments in Egypt and replaces a decision last week to allow workers who wanted to leave the country to do so at government expense.

The department said it would continue to evacuate private US citizens from Egypt aboard government-chartered planes.

The US evacuated more than 1,200 Americans from Cairo on such flights Monday and said it expected to fly out roughly 1,400 more in the coming days. Monday's flights ferried Americans from Cairo to Larnaca, Cyprus; Athens, Greece; and Istanbul, Turkey.

On Tuesday, the US added Frankfurt, Germany as a destination and the Egyptian cities of Aswan and Luxor as departure points.

The Cairo airport is open and operating but the department warned that flights may be disrupted and that people should be prepared for lengthy waits.

Egypt's army leadership is reassuring the US that the powerful military does not intend to crack down on demonstrators, but is instead allowing protesters to "wear themselves out," according to a former US official in contact with several top Egyptian army officers. The Egyptians use a colloquial saying to describe their strategy — a boiling pot with a lid that's too tight will blow up the kitchen, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The officers expressed concern with White House statements appearing to side with the protesters, saying that stoking revolt to remove Mubarak risks creating a vacuum that the banned-but-powerful Muslim Brotherhood could fill, the official said.

While the Brotherhood claims to have closed its paramilitary wing long ago, it has fought politically to gain power. More threatening to the Mubarak regime, it has built a nationwide charity and social network that much of Egypt's poverty stricken population depends on for its survival.
Entry #3,857

Did Jimmy Carter just throw Obama under the bus?

Egypt protests: Did Jimmy Carter just throw Obama under the bus?

 

 



Christian Science Monitor

 

Howard LaFranchi

Christian Science Monitor

Staff writer

January 31, 2011

 

Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday what many experts are thinking: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must go. But President Obama has shied away from making such a statement, even as the Egypt protests escalate, leading to some criticism.



 

Commenting on the week’s tumultuous events in Egypt from the Maranatha Baptist Church near his home in Plains, Ga., the former president who brokered the 1979 peace accord between Egypt and Israel gave a candid personal assessment of Egypt’s embattled leader and said his “guess is Mubarak will have to go.”

President Mubarak has “become more politically corrupt” in recent years and has “perpetuated himself in office,” he told a Sunday school class of 300, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Assessing the popular uprisings sweeping across the region, he said: “This is the most profound situation in the Middle East since I left office” more than 30 years ago.

Mr. Carter’s remarks put him out ahead of the Obama administration, which has inched carefully forward as it has responded to the massive demonstrations engulfing the regime of a longtime US ally.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took the step of calling for an “orderly transition” in Egypt. That seemed to be a few degrees closer to abandoning Mubarak than President Obama’s comments of Friday, which had focused on the urgency of meaningful reforms and the need for the regime to avoid repressive violence.

None of that had apparently impressed Carter, who endorsed Mr. Obama in 2008 but has not shied away from openly criticizing US foreign policy when the spirit has moved him. “The United States wants Mubarak to stay in power,” Carter told his Sunday school class, “but the people have decided.”

Carter’s comments were seized upon by conservative critics of Obama’s foreign policy, though hardly in a uniform manner. Indeed, reactions reflected a split in Republican and right-wing foreign-policy visions between a neoconservative pro-freedom camp, and advocates first and foremost of a firm, even hawkish foreign policy based more on military might than on diplomatic engagement.

Some conservative commentators said that even Carter was shaming Obama by sounding more supportive of Egyptians’ freedoms than his fellow Democratic president.

But more common was an equating of Obama’s foreign policy with that of Carter – who, after all, is generally considered in Republican circles to be the country’s weakest recent president, and the man who lost Iran. A sampling of editorial and commentary headlines: Obama Channeling Jimmy Carter (Washington Times); Carter Redux? (American Thinker), and More Carter Redux in the Middle East (the Heritage Foundation).

A common theme in these writings: Carter favored “soft power” and talking with enemies over confronting them, and so does Obama. Less universal but still a strong vein of opinion: Carter abandoned the Shah of Iran and gave us the Ayatollah Khomeini, Obama is pulling the plug on Mubarak and could be ushering in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Despite the cacophony of reactions to the man from Plains, one conclusion seemed to apply across the board: Jimmy Carter can still cause an uproar, even from a Sunday school in Georgia.

Entry #3,855

Mother picks up son from school to rob bank

Mother, son, two other teens remain jailed on armed robbery charge

 

Ty Tagami and Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Gwinnett County News    11:59 a.m. Monday, January 31, 2011

 

Three DeKalb County teenagers and the mother of one of them remained in the Gwinnett County jail Monday on charges of robbing a bank and then leading police on a high-speed chase.

Around 9 a.m. Friday, Tawander Simmons, 35, of Stone Mountain and two teenagers held up a Wells Fargo Bank in the 5500 block of Lawrenceville Highway in Lilburn while the third teen waited in the car, police said.

It's not clear how the three teens came to be with Simmons because there are conflicting accounts.

According to Lilburn Police spokesman Bruce Hedley, Simmons picked up her son, Benny Brice, 17, and the two other boys, at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain. But school police reported that only Brice came to the school and he decided to leave because the other two had skipped. DeKalb school officials later said none of the teenagers came to school Friday.

All versions of the story agreed that the mother had the handgun  used in the robbery.

Lilburn police began chase within minutes after a witness described the getaway car as a  red Toyota Corolla, with two cruisers chasing the the Corolla at speeds up to 90 mph down U.S. Highway 78 onto southbound I-285.  The Toyota exited at East Ponce de Leon Avenue near Clarkston and tried to turn right without slowing. The Corolla ran into an embankment and then into railroad tracks, Hedley said.

"No innocent bystanders were injured," Hedley said. "We were very lucky."

Police arrested Simmons and her son, along with Glenn Broom, 18, and David Rawlins, 17, both of Lithonia. All four are charged with armed robbery.

Broom's father, also named Glenn, learned of his son's arrest by reading ajc.com Friday afternoon. He spoke briefly with a reporter on the phone, while a woman cried in the background.

Broom said his son was friends with Brice but he said he didn't know how Simmons picked him up Friday morning. "I'm trying to find out right now," he said. "I'm just without words. ... My son is a good kid."

 

LINK TO PHOTO OF MOTHER AND THREE TEENAGERS INVOLVED:

http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/mother-son-two-other-819206.html

Entry #3,853

Judge rules Obama's health care law unconstitutional

The Miami Herald
Mon, Jan. 31, 2011

Judge: Obama's health overhaul unconstitutional

MELISSA NELSON and RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press
 The emergency room filled with patients and medical personnel at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Al Diaz / Miami Herald Staff
The emergency room filled with patients and medical personnel at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
A federal judge in Florida ruled Monday that President Barack Obama's entire health care overhaul law is unconstitutional, placing even noncontroversial provisions under a cloud in a broad challenge that seems certain to be resolved only by the Supreme Court.

Faced with a major legal setback, the White House called the ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson - in a challenge to the law by 26 of the nation's 50 states - "a plain case of judicial overreaching." That echoed language the judge had used to describe the law as an example of Congress overstepping its authority.

The Florida judge's ruling produced an even split in federal court decisions so far on the health care law, mirroring enduring divisions among the public. Two judges had previously upheld the law, both Democratic appointees. A Republican appointee in Virginia had ruled against it.

The Justice Department quickly announced it would appeal, and administration officials declared that for now the federal government and the states would proceed without interruption to carry out the law. It seemed evident that only the U.S. Supreme Court could deliver a final verdict on Obama's historic expansion of health insurance coverage.

On Capitol Hill, Republican opponents of the law pledged to redouble pressure for a repeal vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate following House action last month. Nearly all of the states that brought suit in in Vinson's court have GOP attorneys general or governors.

Vinson ruled against the overhaul on grounds that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring nearly all Americans to carry health insurance, an idea dating back to Republican proposals from the 1990s but now almost universally rejected by conservatives.

His ruling followed the same general reasoning as one last year from the federal judge in Virginia. But where the first judge's ruling would strike down the insurance requirement and leave the rest of the law in place, Vinson took it much farther, invalidating provisions that range from Medicare discounts for seniors with high prescription costs to a change that allows adult children up to age 26 to remain on their parents' coverage.

The central issue remains the constitutionality of the law's core requirement that Americans carry health insurance except in cases of financial hardship. Starting in 2014, those who cannot show they are covered by an employer, government program or their own policy will face fines from the IRS.

Opponents say a federal requirement that individuals obtain a specific service - a costly one in the case of health insurance - is unprecedented and oversteps the authority the Constitution gives Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

Vinson agreed that lawmakers lack the power to penalize citizens for not doing something. He compared the provision to requiring people to eat healthful food.

"Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals," he wrote, "Not only because the required purchases will positively impact interstate commerce, but also because people who eat healthier tend to be healthier and are thus more productive and put less of a strain on the health care system."

Defenders of the law said that analogy was flawed. Insurance can't work if people are allowed to opt out until they need medical attention. Premiums collected from many who are healthy pay the cost of care for those who get sick. Since the uninsured can get treated in the emergency room, deciding not to get coverage has consequences for other people who act prudently do buy coverage.

"The judge's decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent that support the considered judgment of the democratically elected branches of government that the act's individual responsibility provision is necessary to prevent billions of dollars of cost-shifting every year by individuals without insurance who cannot pay for the health care they obtain," White House adviser Stephanie Cutter wrote in an Internet posting.

Vinson, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, said in his 78-page ruling that requiring people to buy health insurance marks a break with the nation's founding principles.

"It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place," the judge wrote. "If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain."

It would be difficult to recognize any limits on federal power, he added. Defenders of the law said the founders couldn't have envisioned Medicare or Social Security either.

Vinson did side with the administration on another major issue in the case, the expansion of Medicaid to cover more low-income people. About half of the more than 30 million Americans who would gain insurance through the law would be enrolled in Medicaid. However, striking down the law would also invalidate the Medicaid expansion.

Opponents of the health overhaul praised the decision. House Speaker John Boehner said it shows Senate Democrats should follow a House vote to repeal the law.

"Today's decision affirms the view, held by most of the states and a majority of the American people, that the federal government should not be in the business of forcing you to buy health insurance and punishing you if you don't," he said.

Democrats just as quickly slammed the ruling.

"This lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt by those who want to raise taxes on small businesses, increase prescription prices for seniors and allow insurance companies to once again deny sick children medical care," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Former Florida Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum filed the lawsuit just minutes after Obama signed the 10-year, $938 billion health care bill into law in March. He chose a court in Pensacola, one of Florida's most conservative cities. The nation's most influential small business lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business, also joined.

Officials in the states that sued lauded Vinson's decision.

"In making his ruling, the judge has confirmed what many of us knew from the start: Obamacare is an unprecedented and unconstitutional infringement on the liberty of the American people," Florida Gov. Rick Scott said.

Other states that joined the lawsuit were: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 





Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/31/v-print/2043613/fla-judge-strikes-down-health.html#ixzz1CfFzok1j
Entry #3,852

Student fined $637 for using foul language in class

Mesquite student faces $637 in fines, penalties for swearing in class

 

RAY LESZCYNSKI                           

                                                                                                                                                                  Staff Writer 

28 January 2011 11:13 PM

 

It’s not just a trip to the principal’s office anymore.

North Mesquite High School senior Victoria Mullins is taking on a waitressing job to pay $637 in fines and other charges after being ticketed for disorderly conduct/abusive language in class.

According to court records, shortly before 10 a.m. on Oct. 6, teacher Michelle Lene heard Mullins say “you trying to start [expletive]!” loudly inside the classroom.

“A kid who is really obnoxious, starts stuff with everyone and always gets on my nerves was bothering me,” Mullins said. “It was wrong on my part.”

She was sent to the office.

“The principal gave me a lunch detention and told me to watch my mouth,” Mullins said.

Meanwhile, the school resource officer was contacted. When Mullins got to her next class, the officer presented the 17-year-old student with the ticket.

The complaint says Lene was offended, and that by its utterance, the language incited a breach of the peace.

Mullins claims what she said wasn’t loud enough to be heard by the entire class and doesn’t know why the teacher was offended. Lene was not available for comment.

The original fine was $340. Mullins pleaded not guilty Oct. 21. She said she tried to submit audiotapes made later from the classroom to show she was being singled out, but the tapes were deemed inadmissible.

Mullins finished the one-semester speech class but didn’t show for her Nov. 18 court hearing.

“I didn’t really know what to do. I didn’t have the money to pay for it,” she said.

The failure to show was cause for a $100 penalty. The city tacked on another $50 when it issued a warrant for Mullins’ arrest Jan. 21 and then a $147 collection fee.

School district spokesman Ian Halperin said the incident should be a reminder to parents.

“If your kids do something, there’s a way to handle it to mitigate these situations before you get to this point,” Halperin said.

All Mesquite secondary campuses have a school resource officer. The program is funded by both the city and the school district.

“They’re police officers, they’re in a public place, and they have the statutory authority and responsibility to maintain peace and enforce the law,” Mesquite Police Lt. Bill Hedgpeth said.

The program is also designed to create positive relationships between the students and officers. SROs are to serve as mentors, counselors, teachers and role models for the students, officials said.

Entry #3,849

Juror recognizes undercover cop on witness stand threatens to kill him

Juror recognizes undercover cop on witness stand - and threatens him

Alison Gendar and Joe Kemp
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Friday, January 21st 2011, 4:00 AM

A Brooklyn juror was tossed in jail for threatening to kill a cop - after he recognized the undercover detective on the witness stand, the Daily News has learned.

Sean Adams, 43, sitting on a grand jury for a narcotics case Wednesday, was right next to the witness stand when the cop took the chair to testify, sources said.

In a bizarre coincidence, the detective was one of several undercover cops who has been investigating Adams in a separate narcotics case.

Adams recognized him and realized the guy he'd been dealing with on the street was really a cop, the sources said.

"Ahh, f--- this guy. I'm going to kill him," Adams said, according to court documents.

The officer, realizing his cover was blown, motioned to the prosecutor to speak outside the courtroom.

After they chatted about the threat, other members of the NYPD's narcotics unit arrested Adams, sources said.

He was arraigned Thursday on charges of tampering with a witness and intimidation of a witness, both felonies. He was held in lieu of $7,500 bail.

The details of the grand jury case were not disclosed. Adams later denied making the threat.

It was not immediately clear if the narcotics case against Adams was compromised because he blew the detective's cover.

Entry #3,847