Around mile 16 of the New York City Marathon, Karolina Boynton found something better than Gatorade waiting for her on First Avenue: a crowd of cheering fifth-graders.

“I flew through the first half, but with 10 miles to go, I was really feeling fatigued and had a ton of pain in my legs,” she told me today.

“But I knew that my students were coming up soon, so I told myself, ‘OK, I have to just power through. They can’t see me like this.’ ”

Ecstatic P.S. 158 students on the sidelines erupted as Boynton approached. “I saw so many kids screaming, ‘Go Miss Karolina!’ They waved signs saying “Go Mrs. Karolina!!! She is my teacher!’ ” They handed her bananas, slapped high fives, and hugged her.

“They WERE my Gatorade,” she said. “It was the boost of energy that I needed. That really distracted me and kept me going.”

She finished in 4 hours, 36 minutes and 23 seconds — an amazing performance.

The kids know their 35-year-old teacher underwent surgery for thyroid cancer this year before training for the 26.2-mile race.

Boynton is thrilled to have the 9- and 10 year-olds as fans. The school, P.S. 158 Bayard Taylor, is located on York Avenue at 77th Street — just a block from First Avenue, where the marathoners run uptown to The Bronx.

“I’ve always been very fortunate to have my students come out and support me,” said Boynton, a native New Yorker who ran eight prior marathons, including three in NYC.

She was one of 50 runners across the nation and Canada selected to run on Team TCS Teachers, which grants VIP entries to “inspiring educators.” She joined some 60,000 others at the starting line in Staten Island on Sunday.

Boynton brings her passion for running into the classroom, hoping to instill the same grit and determination in the kids.

“I have my students write about overcoming challenges and working hard toward your goals. I weave that into my lessons,” she told me. “It’s just my go-to because I know so much about it.”

Boynton also coaches a P.S. 158 track club which draws about 90 fourth-and fifth-grade students a year. Twice a week, groups meet at 7:30 a.m. in the gym to train before classes start at 8:30. In the spring, they do a weekly run of 2½ to 3 miles on the footpath along the East River. Some parents join as well.

Several colleagues serve as coaches. One of them, fellow fifth-grade teacher Cara Cherepakhov, ran her first marathon on Sunday. She finished in 5:25:07.

After a thyroidectomy in January and radiation treatment in April, Boynton trained for the marathon. Besides New York, she’s run two in Chicago and one each in Pittsburgh, Miami and Toronto. Her best time in 2021, in New York: 4:14.

But Sunday’s was different. She had much more to juggle between her job and training runs.

“This is the first marathon I’m running as a mom of two,” she said.

Boynton and her husband Ryan, who live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, have two sons, Tate, 2½, and Odin, 1½.

“The marathon runs right through Greenpoint, so my boys were out there cheering for me, which was the most rewarding feeling ever.”

Before her battle with thyroid cancer, Boynton faced other major obstacles.

In 2016, at age 26, she underwent a preventative double mastectomy, after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, which raises the risk for breast and ovarian cancers. Her mother Urszula Krauze, who also carried the mutation, was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer in 2014. After her recovery, Urszula died of COVID-19 in 2020, at age 63.

Boynton, who’s called running “always like therapy for me,” ran her first NYC Marathon in 2017.

Now, Boynton hopes to inspire her students. “They’re kind of with me on this journey,” she said in a 2019 Team TCS Teachers video.

“I want them to look at me and feel proud of their teacher running these miles. I want them to to be excited, and I want them to feel that drive and motivation someday, too. Not even to run a marathon, but to do whatever they want to do, even if it’s difficult.”

Brutal cold and below-zero wind chills blew in amid Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s second month in office. By mid-February, the grim toll of people found dead outdoors had risen to 19.

Nine of the homeless people who froze to death had no one to pick them up from the city morgue.

Normally, they would be laid in pine coffins, marked by number, and stacked in mass graves on Hart Island, a vast, desolate field in northeastern Bronx, just east of City Island. That’s where New York has buried more than a million people whose families did not claim their bodies or couldn’t afford a funeral.

Instead, thanks to caring strangers, the nine will receive a dignified funeral and final resting place inside a glorious Manhattan church.

The eight men and one woman range in age from 38 to 74. Several were born in New York or other states, and one in Puerto Rico. One came from Russia and another from India, according to city officials.

“These nine people died alone in the cold. They will not be buried alone,” said Charles King, CEO of Housing Works, a non-profit involved in the effort to give them a proper farewell.

On All Souls’ Day, Nov. 2, Saint Thomas Church at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue. will hold a special funeral mass for the nine. Afterwards, their cremated remains, in urns with decorative name tags, will be interred inside the church’s Resurrection Chapel, a donated space.

Following news of homeless people dying of hypothermia, Manhattanite Rhonda Shearer contacted the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to ask if any were unclaimed. Shearer, who runs a non-profit, the Art Science Research Laboratory, has close contacts in the FDNY. She had volunteered to provide supplies for first responders digging at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.

“Every time remains came out of the pile, the firefighters and cops stopped and honored them. That never left me,” she said. “I wanted the nine named and honored with the same dignity all human beings deserve.”

All Souls’ Day is a solemn Christian occasion to remember the departed and pray for their souls, but Monday’s mass will have a universal flair to honor the nine New Yorkers taken in.

“We also respect the religious and spiritual traditions these individuals may have practiced during their lifetimes,” said the Rev. Mark Schultz of St. Thomas Church.

Patrick J. Marmo, owner of International Funeral & Cremation Services, pledged $9,000 toward arrangements, including transportation and cremation. He called the donation “not simply an act of charity but a privilege and a community responsibility.”

Housing Works and Shearer have co-founded the Community Burials Project, which raises funds to provide dignified funerals and permanent resting places for homeless New Yorkers. They hope to raise $7,000 toward funeral home expenses for the nine, with any additional donations for future burials.

A city fire marshal who brought a loaded ghost gun into FDNY headquarters — where he accidentally shot himself in the foot — got a “sweetheart deal” that leaves questions about how he obtained the extremely dangerous illegal firearm.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez dropped a felony charge of criminal weapon possession against Fire Marshal James Beringer, 52, lowering the offense to “disorderly conduct,” which is a violation, not a crime.

Under the generous plea deal, Beringer must pay a $125 fine, perform 25 days of community service and “stay out of trouble” for a year. If not, he faces up to 15 days in jail.

“That’s insane,” said ex-NYPD Sgt. Felipe Rodriguez, a firearm instructor and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “You have a law enforcement officer who’s been trained and knows what he can and cannot carry, and they basically give him a sweetheart deal. It’s ridiculous because he wasn’t held to the highest standard.”

Fire marshals are law-enforcement officers licensed to carry guns on the job, but it’s illegal for anyone in New York city or state to buy or possess a ghost gun.

Ghost guns are typically assembled with parts purchased from online retailers, or made with 3-D printers. Without serial numbers, they are untraceable and can’t be registered. Those carrying the guns don’t undergo background checks.

Beringer brought a 9mm Polymer 80 frame firearm, a Glock-style handgun, to FDNY headquarters at MetroTech Center. He took it out to show someone on the 8th floor, where the office of Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore is located.

The gun went off.

“I shot myself in the foot!” Beringer screamed.

Luckily, no one else got hurt.

His courthouse confession was brief.

“Do you admit that on April 27th of 2026, at 7:35 a.m. at 9 MetroTech Center, here in the county of Kings, that you were disorderly?” Brooklyn criminal court judge Christopher Whitehair asked Beringer.

“Yes, your honor,” Beringer said.

The judge did not ask Beringer to explain his actions, and Beringer made no other comments, a transcript of the Sept. 28 hearing shows.

The Brooklyn DA’s office granted the lenient deal despite Beringer’s refusal to explain how he obtained the unlawful firearm.

“He requested a lawyer and didn’t make any statements. We didn’t have an opportunity to question him,” DA spokesman Oren Yaniv told me.

That lax treatment contrasts with the DA’s tough public stance:

“The surge in ghost guns in our neighborhoods is a major contributor to the violence plaguing our communities, and my office is working tirelessly to stop their proliferation in Brooklyn,” Gonzalez declared in 2022 on the arrest of a Bushwick man who bought $10,000 in gun parts online.

“We prosecute about 1,000 gun cases a year, all of them against individuals potentially more dangerous than Beringer, and we would love to know where and how they got their guns as well,” Yaniv said.

It’s the NYPD’s duty to investigate the source of illegal weapons, Yaniv said.

But the NYPD, which initially arrested Beringer, ignored follow-up questions.

FDNY spokeswoman Amanda Farinacci said the department is considering possible disciplinary charges against Beringer.

Meanwhile, Beringer has filed retirement papers for a disability pension, which pays three-quarters of a firefighter’s last salary. Beringer made $244,331 last fiscal year, doubling his $122,474 base salary with overtime.

Farinacci said the disability stemmed from a prior injury, not the gunshot wound.

“We will not share specifics about his injury or other protected health information, or the steps of the investigation, or charges, because our general policy is not to discuss aspects of ongoing investigations,” she said. “The department takes the incident seriously and will seek a penalty appropriate for the conduct.”

By HELLA WINSTON and SUSAN EDELMAN

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez is keeping the findings of an independent investigation into explosive complaints of antisemitism under a tight wrap.

The DA called for an external probe in 2023 after we reported the disturbing allegations in a series of stories in the New York Post.

The two entities that conducted the investigation, Guidepost Solutions and the Legal Skills Center, delivered their findings to the DA in January 2025, but the office refused to share their report or summarize its findings.

Instead, DA spokesman Oren Yaniv directed us to file a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request with the office.

After we did so, the office released a 58-page document.

But every page was entirely blacked out.

After we appealed, the office unveiled only the first sentence, which confirmed an investigation into complaints of “specific acts of antisemitism” as well as an alleged “office tolerance of antisemitism.”

The DA justified withholding the entire report by citing exemptions to the state’s Freedom of Information Law, including attorney-client and work-product privilege. The office cited employee privacy, and officials’ deliberations, opinions, advice and recommendations. It also invoked confidentiality of Equal Employment Opportunity matters.

The New York Coalition for Open Government condemned the DA’s response.

“When a government agency commissions an investigation into its own operations and then withholds virtually every page of the resulting report, the public has every reason to question whether transparency is being taken seriously,” the watchdog group’s president, Michelle Allen, said in a statement.

“Taxpayers should not have to fight through administrative appeals and potentially expensive litigation simply to understand what their government investigated and how it responded.”

As we first reported in the Post in 2023, multiple employees, then-current and former, had accused Maritza Ming, Gonzalez’s longtime chief of staff and one of his highest-ranking deputies, of making disparaging remarks about Jewish staffers, bullying subordinates and misusing office personnel and resources.

Accusers told us they feared filing formal discrimination complaints against Ming because the DA’s EEO officers reported to her.

At the time, DA spokesman Yaniv dismissed the complaints.

“As a Jewish person who has worked very closely with [Ms. Ming] for the past eight years, I can personally attest that the idea that she’s anti-Jewish is preposterous,” he said. “She was instrumental in promoting a variety of staffers, including many Jewish attorneys, to high positions in the office.”

Gonzalez – who has made no secret of his ambitions to become New York’s attorney general – emailed staff that he had “no tolerance for antisemitism” or other forms of bigotry. He pledged to hire an outside consultant to improve how discrimination complaints are handled.

The 58-page report, dated January 10, 2025, was authored by Guidepost Solutions, an investigative vendor that has collected $67.2 million in other NYC contracts since 2017, and the Legal Skills Center, a management consultancy that specializes in diversity and equity training.

Redacted Foil Response

2.87MB ∙ PDF file

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The DA’s office would not say how much it paid for the investigation.

“Any allegation of discrimination is taken seriously by this office, which is why we commissioned a comprehensive independent investigation three years ago,” Yaniv told us. “EEO investigations are confidential to protect all parties and we cannot disclose the findings.”

Allen, of the New York Coalition for Open Government, questioned the censorship.

“Protecting genuinely confidential information is one thing; withholding an entire investigation from public scrutiny is another,” she said. “New York’s Freedom of Information Law was enacted to provide public access to government records, not to offer agencies a convenient mechanism for concealing uncomfortable findings.”

According to Christen Smith, a senior attorney with the New York Committee on Open Government, courts have repeatedly held that agencies must provide specific, particularized justifications for withholding records. And even when portions of a document are properly exempt, factual information and other non-exempt material may still have to be disclosed.

In a 2019 case involving the Brooklyn DA’s office, a state appeals court ordered a confidential judicial review of a heavily redacted report, setting a precedent for court scrutiny of FOIL exemptions when extensive redactions are challenged.

Gonzalez’s refusal to disclose the findings of the Guidepost investigation differs from his stance backing an independent investigation into the handling of rape accusations at Cornell University, where he attended law school and currently sits on the Board of Trustees.

In a statement sent at our request, Gonzalez said:

“The allegations in this case are deeply disturbing, and my heart is with the young woman who came forward. I support Governor Hochul’s call for a thorough and independent review by counsel, as well as the (Tompkins County) District Attorney’s decision to impanel a grand jury.

Gonzalez called for “accountability” at Cornell.

But his statement raises an obvious question:

Why is an independent investigation necessary when serious allegations involve another institution, while the findings of an investigation into Gonzalez’s own administration remain hidden from public view?

For her part, Ming, who had worked in the Brooklyn DA’s office since 1997, resigned in March 2024 after spending about eight months away from the office following our revelations in The Post.

Payroll records showed that she received $223,849 in the preceding fiscal year, including a $15,000 year-end bonus.

Ming, who resigned from the DA’s office in March 2024, joined Harris Keenan & Goldfarb. Her profile on the Manhattan-based law firm’s website makes no mention of her work for the Brooklyn DA’s office.

When a Queens school official gushed praise for a new Early Childhood leader to work throughout the district, it baffled the staff at P.S. 35 Nathaniel Woodhull.

District 29 Superintendent Robin Davson announced the appointment of Aneesha Jacko to the post, calling for a warm welcome “as she begins this new chapter with us.”

The announcement came two months after the city Department of Education removed Jacko as principal of P.S. 35 in Hollis amid ongoing investigations of alleged purchasing abuses and an upcoming disciplinary trial that could end in Jacko’s termination.

“Everyone is PISSED!” a P.S. 35 teacher told me.

The DOE said Jacko would revert to a prior title of Early Childhood Director, but a spokesperson would not explain why Jacko received the prestigious title while facing disciplinary charges that led to her ouster as principal.

The Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools has had Jacko under scrutiny for nearly four years. SCI agents went to PS 35 on June 16, asking Jacko and aides for purchasing records. The DOE’s Office of Special Investigations is also conducting a probe, staffers said.

Jacko has spent tens of thousands in taxpayer funds to buy books and clothing sold by friends, hired others as consultants, and painted their logos on a sprawling lobby mural.

Jacko’s closest associates included Damon Dash, Jay-Z’s ex-business partner and co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, and Dash’s wife Raquel Horn. Jacko spent school funds to buy hundreds of copies of Horn’s children’s books.

The DOE had Jacko removed from P.S. 35 on Sept. 10, the first day of school.

In an email to district leaders last week, Superintendent Davson wrote, “Dr. Jacko will support our Pre-K to Grade 2 communities across the district, working alongside our school leaders, teachers and teams. … We look forward to Dr. Jacko’s expertise, collaboration, energy and partnerships she will bring to our schools and our youngest learners.”

A P.S. 35 teacher said, “It’s hard to comprehend how someone accused of doing so much wrong and wasting taxpayer dollars to enrich her friends would receive such a glowing welcome to the district team.”

Jacko is expected to collect the same salary pending her administrative trial. She collected $204,907 in paychecks last year.

Top officials with the Special Commissioner of Investigation lied to an FDNY inspector about a stockpile of ammunition, then handed out 114 boxes with a total of 5,700 bullets to co-workers, a bombshell whistleblower lawsuit alleges.

SCI, the agency charged with probing misconduct in city schools, hid the boxes and “squandered city funds” by giving them away to cover up the deception and avoid a fire code violation, according to court records.

The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, names SCI along with the city Law Department, the Conflicts of Interest Board and the Department of Investigation, accusing the three other agencies of failing to penalize the officials despite having all the evidence of wrongdoing.

“Their response lets every whistleblower know that the city does not protect whistleblowers and does not have to follow the law,” said Richard Marin, a computer systems manager who filed the suit on June 3 along with Roberto El Lakkis, a tech investigator, and Ralph Gerard, a vehicle fleet manager.

The SCI— led by Anastasia Coleman — suspended Marin after he threatened to report a “theft” of the ammunition. SCI also terminated El Lakkis and pressured Gerard to resign in lieu of termination. The ousted employees call it retaliation.

The lawsuit accuses SCI of other misconduct as well, such as falsifying certification of peace officer firearm training. City corporation counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant substantiated that complaint, but did not recommend any discipline.

The suit also cites misuse of E-ZPass. In March 2024, Goode-Trufant concluded that Coleman “failed to enforce and hold all investigators accountable for E-ZPass violations, and permitted some investigators to use E-ZPass for commuting purposes, without requiring reimbursement.”

Goode-Trufant referred her findings to the Conflicts of Interest Board, which has yet to publicly act on them.

The suit also alleges abuse of the 211 waiver hiring process, in which government agencies let employees “double dip” by collecting both a pension and a salary.

The suit also accuses Coleman of violating the city’s Cyber Security Policy by insisting that Marin write on a piece of paper all passwords to the SCI’s computer network.

The cover-up complaints came after El Lakkis called the FDNY in November 2023 to report that SCI was storing excessive ammo in a room with technical equipment and batteries, creating a potential fire hazard.

When FDNY inspector John Delaney visited on Nov. 21, 2023, a closet holding the ammo was locked, and El Lakkis had no key. The inspector left without looking inside.

Soon after, SCI Chief Investigator Michael Bisogna phoned Delaney to tell him that the office had 80 to 90 rounds of ammo in storage — a blatant lie, the suit alleges.

The city fire code requires a permit to store more than 200 rounds. The SCI had no permit.

SCI’s First Deputy Commissioner Daniel Schlachet later told the Law Department that SCI did not distribute any ammo to investigators after November 2023

But smoking-gun emails sent to the Law Department and inadvertently released to the whistleblowers told a different story.

In them, SCI gun custodian Joseph Piwowarski informed Bisogna and SCI deputy chief Jeff Anderson that he had divvied up 114 boxes of .9mm and .38 caliber rounds among nine investigators on Nov. 30, Dec. 5, and Dec. 6, 2023.

Each box had 50 rounds, making a total of 5,700.

Each investigator received eight to 13 boxes, or 400 to 650 rounds apiece.

A photo inside the tech-room closet shows stacks of boxes, most labeled PMC Bronze and American Eagle, two ammo brands.

When interviewed by the Law Department, El Lakkis also furnished security-camera videos showing Piwowarski handing large file folders filled with boxes of bullets to SCI investigators. The Law Department refused to question those investigators, the whistleblowers complained.

“The city is responsible if anyone is injured by those bullets,” Marin told me. “They never tried to recover the ammunition after we complained about the giveaway.”

Piwowarski told the Law Department he distributed ammo for “pistol qualification.” But SCI investigators need only one box each to qualify, the suit says.

SCI investigators are not required to carry guns on duty. Of about 30 staff investigators, fewer than five are peace officers who can carry firearms to officiate their duties, including making arrests. Others can carry concealed weapons as former or retired cops.

A teacher I told about the ammo stash was incredulous: “Who knew all these school investigators were running around with loaded guns? It’s not like SCI goes to schools to protect students and staff. Even our safety agents are unarmed.”

My search of news reports over several decades found none in which an SCI investigator brandished or fired a weapon on the job.

On Nov. 7, 2024, the Law Department gave El Lakkis a final report deeming his complaints of unsafe storage and unlawful distribution of ammunition “unsubstantiated.”

Inexplicably, the report contained an appendix that included Piwowarski’s emails detailing the ammo giveaway.

On Nov. 12, 2025, Marin submitted a whistleblower complaint to the Department of Investigation alleging that the SCI and the Law Department had concealed evidence corroborating El Lakkis’ ammunition safety complaint, and failed to report misuse of city resources.

The DOI has refused to acknowledge receipt of his complaint, Marin said.

On June 21, 2025, SCI suspended Marin. As a union member with civil-service protection, Marin has remained on the city payroll pending a hearing on disciplinary charges including “improper surveillance” of his bosses and removing the hard drive from his office computer. The hearing has not yet occurred.

On July 1, 2025, SCI fired El Lakkis on similar charges.

In response to the suit, SCI spokeswoman Anna Correa said, “SCI does not comment on ongoing litigation.”

The city Law Department filed a motion last week to dismiss the lawsuit. It says officials did act in response to the complaints, but that the plaintiffs cannot ask the court to dictate how the city conducts investigations or what they must conclude.

Lawyers for the whistleblowers asked the judge to disqualify the Law Department from defending the city agencies in the suit because it is also a defendant in the suit, posing a conflict. They asked the court to appoint an independent counsel to review the complaints.

An explosion at a Queens elementary school has led the School Construction Authority to conduct a citywide safety review of nearly 700 active construction sites, officials say.

Three firefighters and two workers suffered non-life threatening injuries in the Sept. 22 blast at P.S. 41 Crocheron in Bayside, QNS reported.

The SCA, which has a safety division, would not say what caused the explosion or provide a report on the incident involving agency contractors.

But an FDNY insider told me plumbers renovating a restroom at the school apparently left a leaking tank of acetylene — a highly combustible chemical compound used in a torch to solder pipes — inside a storage box. A fire alarm sounded at 5:49 p.m.

When firefighters tried to force open the box, it exploded.

The three firefighters and two civilians were taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries, officials said. The 448-student K-5 school opened the next day.

The incident occurred under the watch of SCA’s newly appointed president and CEO, Celeste A. Ramirez, appointed in June by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Ramirez has fired several top executives in an overhaul of the multi-billion dollar agency, I’ve reported.

The new SCA chief “is committed to ensuring that all construction sites follow required safety protocols,” spokeswoman Shoshana Khan said in a statement in response to my questions.

“Following the September 22 incident, out of an abundance of caution, the SCA immediately halted work at the site and launched a citywide review of nearly 700 active construction projects, with 584 reviews completed to date.”

Khan added that site safety requirements at P.S. 41 were also strengthened to include updated fire protection plans and end-of-shift checklists for tanks on construction sites.

Work at P.S. 41 remains partially suspended pending the SCA review, she said.

“We deeply regret the injuries resulting from this incident and are taking every necessary step to ensure the safety and security of our worksites before construction activities fully resume.”

Daniel V. Rodriguez, a 53-year-old Queens man who taught English as a second language, direct-messaged a guy named “Trey” on the gay dating site Grindr.

“Technically, I’m 13. I’m about to be 14,” Trey told him

Rodriguez, an ESL instructor at Sunnyside Community Services, then sent the boy three photos of a nude, erect penis, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. See criminal complaint below.

“Bottoms who can’t take it and say no stop, it kills the mood,” Rodriguez texted the youth. “I just want to make sure you’re going to be into this. I am trying to raw dog it. We can try that later. It’s not my goal to make you bleed.”

The language is graphic. “Raw dog” is slang for sex without a condom. “Bottoms” refers to partners who receive anal penetration from “tops.”

Rodriquez dubbed himself “TOP in Queens” on Grindr, and falsely gave his age as 36.

After a quick chat that Sunday, Sept. 27, Rodriguez set up a rendezvous with “Trey” under the famous clock in the middle of Grand Central Station’s historic concourse.

But when Rodriguez waved an arm to identify himself, two men approached. One yelled at the top of his lungs amid the crowded terminal: “Excuse me everybody! This man right here came to meet a 13-year-old for sex!”

“Dan, it’s all over,” John Dorsey of Manhattan told Rodriguez.

It was the latest sting conducted by Dads Against Predators, a national vigilante group whose controversial ambushes have sparked the arrests of hundreds of suspected child molesters. In a notorious New York case, they caught a Bronx assistant district attorney waiting to meet a 13-year-old boy at a Target in Mount Vernon. While not charged with a crime, the prosecutor resigned from his job.

Dorsey and Joshua Mundy, founder of Dads Against Predators, proceeded to videotape an awkward confrontation in which a stunned and rattled Rodriguez gave his name and real age, fearing he was under arrest.

“Why are you here, man? Mundy asked.

“Because I was lonely,” Rodriguez replied. He denied searching “only for children.”

“I was hoping to find somebody nice.”

The activists alerted the MTA police at Grand Central Station. Officers put Rodriguez in handcuffs.

After confiscating his phone and examining the texts, MTA police charged Rodriguez with 3rd degree attempted rape, a felony, and attempted endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

Arraigned on Sept. 28, Rodriguez pleaded not guilty and was released on his own recognizance. He’s due back in court on Nov. 24.

Sunnyside Community Services on Queens Boulevard, a non-profit with a $16 million budget heavily funded with government grants, did not return a call for comment, but put a statement on Instagram referring to Rodriguez as a “former temp employee.”

“This person is no longer employed with SCS. The person identified did not work in any of our youth programs, and staff in those programs go through extensive background checks and clearance.”

Sunnyside Community Services is a major city vendor for the departments of education, youth and community development, aging, social services, and health and mental hygiene. Overall, NYC has paid the agency $23.5 million over the past two years.

The New York State Education Department certified Rodriguez as a Pre-K to Grade 6 teacher from September 1998 to August 2003, when his license expired.

On his Linkedin page, Rodriguez lists nearly nine years, from 2015 to 2024, as an elementary/middle school teacher in China, Vietnam and Kuwait. In the video at Grand Central Station, the dads accuse Rodriguez of boasting about sex with a 15-year-old boy in Vietnam.

Rodriguez also lists jobs with Zoni Language Centers, the American Language Communication Center, CUNY’s Hostos Community College, and the Harlem Center for Education.

Reached via message, Rodriguez first agreed to speak to me, but then backed out, saying, “I need to consult with my lawyer first. I will let you know when I'm ready. Sorry.”

CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FILED BY THE MANHATTAN DA'‘S OFFICE:

Defendant(s)

1.

Rodriguez, Daniel (M 53 )

Detail

Charge Type

Felony

ADA

Claudia Khoury-Yacoub

Deponent/address

Kyle Kelly, Shield 3441 of the MTA District 5

Occurrence Date, Time

9/27/2026 , 12:25:00

Occurrence Location

inside 89 East 42nd Street;, NEW YORK

Screening Charges

PL 110/130.30(3)

Attempted Rape in the Second Degree
(1 count)

PL 110/260.10(1)

Attempted Endangering the Welfare of a Child
(1 count)

Language

Statutory Language

the defendant, being eighteen years old or more, attempted to engage in anal sexual contact with a person less than fifteen years old ; the defendant knowingly attempted to act in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental and moral welfare of a child less than seventeen years old and directed and authorized such child to engage in an occupation involving a substantial risk of danger to his or her life and heath;

Complaint Language

I am informed by an Individual of an address known to the District Attorney’s Office (Informant 1) that he created a profile on the ‘Grindr’ dating app. I am further informed by Informant 1 that the defendant messaged the above-described ‘Grindr’ profile for the first time on September 27, 2026.

I have reviewed text messages between Informant 1 and the defendant and observed Informant 1 stated to the defendant in substance on September 27, 2026:

“Technically, I’m 13 I’m about to be 14.”

I further observed the defendant send three photos of a nude, erect penis to Informant

I further observed the defendant state in substance to Informant 1 on September 27, 2026: “Bottoms who can’t take who can’t take it and say no stop, it kills the mood. I just want to make sure you’re going to be into this. I am trying to raw dog it. We can try that later. It’s not my goal to make you bleed.”

I further observed the defendant and Informant 1 agree to meet in Grand Central Terminal located in New York County, NY.

I am further informed by Informant 1 that the defendant arrived at the above-described location and that Informant 1 confronted the defendant about the above-described conversation.

I arrested the defendant and learned he was born on October 30, 1972.

Upon receiving a complaint from Jewish anti-hate groups, the DOE immediately removed Meera M. Mangaroo from her classroom at the Bronx Writing Academy, a 188-student middle school in the South Bronx, pending a probe.

“Hate has no place at New York City Public Schools, and we stand against all acts of antisemitism and discrimination of any kind,” DOE spokeswoman Onika Richards said in a statement.

Mangaroo’s removal comes on the heels of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s release of a report, “Tackling Hate: The Mamdani Administration’s Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.” The citywide plan covers the public schools.

On the TikTok post, Bxgirlteach listed several “minority owned ice cream places to go to.”

When another TikTok user noted “Jewish is minority owned,” Bxgirlteach replied, “Yeah we don’t support Jews here.”

“This allegation has been reported and referred for investigation,” the DOE said, adding that “the views described are diametrically opposed to the values of New York City Public Schools. We expect all staff to maintain learning environments that are respectful, inclusive and free from bias, and we will take appropriate steps to ensure those standards are upheld.”

Moshe Spern, president of United Jewish Teachers, praised the DOE’s swift response.

“To say ‘we don’t support Jews here' is pretty bad,” Spern said. “That’s not Zionists. That’s not Israel. That’s Jews.”

But Eric Nadelstern, a former DOE deputy chancellor who is Jewish, cautioned against going too far to restrict free speech: “The comment was not made in a school or directed at students or others affiliated with the school community,” he said.

Several people gathered at a rally at the DOE’s downtown headquarters this morning to protest the comments.

The state licensed Mangaroo to teach grades 1 to 6 in September 2012, after a prior conditional license expired in 2007. Her salary in 2024, the latest posted on seethroughny.net, was $108,501.

The DOE assigned Mangaroo to a district office pending the investigation.

Athena Gonzalez, the former PTA president at P.S. 166 Henry Gradstein in Astoria, agreed to repay the $55,233.98 she stole from the parents group to spend on luxuries for herself, including cosmetics, travel, gambling and booze.

Gonzalez, who was charged in October 2024, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the top charge of grand larceny, a felony.

Under a plea deal, she received a conditional sentence requiring her to “make full restitution” in the next 30 months — 2.5 years. She has paid back $5,000 so far, the DA’s office said.

“If she fails to do so, she faces one to three years in prison,” a spokesperson said.

The DA originally charged Gonzalez with stealing “more than $41,000.” Further investigation found additional PTA funds stolen.

Elected PTA president in July 2023, Gonzalez began putting money raised by PS 166 families to help the school and its 823 students into her personal checking account.

She used the stolen cash to pay for personal trips to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey and Kalahari Resorts in Pennsylvania, the DA found. She spent it on smoke shops, nail salons, Starbucks, Sephora, Total Wine, Petco and other businesses.

She also spent the money on gambling apps, Airbnb reservations and identity theft protection.

She used a PTA debit card to charge $1,236 for medical treatment for her pet at a Nassau County veterinary clinic.

After discovering the missing funds, PTA members noticed Gonzalez on social media boasting about vacations and a new car.

They alerted the NYPD, but turned detectives themselves to crack the case by tracking the debit payments to Gonzalez’s vet.

Gonzalez resigned as PTA president on September 27, 2024, when fellow parents accused her of stealing the money.

Facing a federal lawsuit alleging improper payments, conflicts of interest and student safety concerns at the School Construction Authority, Mayor Zohran Mamdani named Celeste Ramirez the new SCA president and CEO on June 12 without mentioning the woman he replaced, Nina Kubota.

The transition wasn’t pretty.

Kubota, a longtime SCA staffer promoted by Mayor Bill de Blasio to the top job in 2021, was formally “removed” on July 13. So was her wife, Keyla Kubota, who was promoted to Senior Manager of Operations for Human Resources in July 2025.

The SCA’s then-two board members, schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels and newcomer In Cho, voted to oust Nina Kubota. By law, the agency must have three board members to act, but the SCA has violated that rule before. Later, however, Mamdani appointed a third board member, Minelly De Coo.

Besides Nina and Keyla Kubota, Ramirez has dismissed six other top executives.

The bloodbath comes in the wake of a bombshell federal lawsuit accusing the agency, an arm of the city Department of Education, of failure to properly manage and account for multi-millions of dollars.

The whistleblower suit, first filed in October 2023 by one ex-employee, was sealed for two years. Three other current and former staffers joined an updated suit, which a judge made public in December 2025. The case is monitored by the federal and state governments, which can step in if warranted.

The suit alleges the SCA used inflated or excessive project costs; and made duplicate and other wrong payments to contractors, including for work that wasn’t performed or left unfinished with dangerous conditions. It also describes favoritism toward politically connected contractors, and conflicts of interest between SCA employees and contractors.

What’s worse, the suit accuses SCA’s Office of Inspector General of failure to investigate complaints of waste, fraud and abuse, instead acting to shield the agency from scrutiny.

The SCA has an operating budget of about $281 million and a five-year capital plan exceeding $20 billion —more than any other city agency.

In another major personnel change on Aug. 20, Ramirez removed Nadine Rivellese as vice president of human resources. Rivellese was appointed to that post on May 15, while keeping the job she held for five years as SCA’s general counsel, leading the legal, labor and real-estate departments.

HR personnel escorted Rivellese out of the building, co-workers said. The general staff received no explanation for her abrupt and unceremonious departure. Five other SCA executives got the boot this month

It was Rivellese who promoted Keyla Kubota, to senior manager of operations in human resources, in July 2025. Before that, Keyla was an HR Manager for years. Her last salary in that position was $135,603. An SCA spokesman would not say what salary increase she received with the promotion.

Some SCA staffers grumbled that Nina Kubota influenced her wife’s SCA career.

Keyla Kubota obtained “a higher position without the background or qualifications for such a leadership position,” an anonymous SCA staffer commented on Leonie Haimson’s blog in February. Haimson, who founded Class Size Matters, has critiqued SCA’s lagging efforts to build enough new classrooms to comply with a law that limits the number of students in each.

Asked about the staff removals, SCA spokesman Kevin Ortiz gave a statement:

“In her eight weeks in the position, President and Chief Executive Officer Celeste A. Ramirez is undertaking a series of organizational changes to strengthen the School Construction Authority and ensure it is positioned to meet the needs and expectations of the students, families, elected officials, and the communities it serves. Her priorities are clear: greater accountability, stronger oversight, and to ensure school construction projects are delivered safely, and on time.”

On the federal lawsuit, Ortiz said, “I cannot comment on pending or potentially future litigation.”

Upper West Side principal Bridget Garzaniti showered a guidance counselor on her staff with taxpayer-funded favors while they lived together with their child.

The City Charter bars public servants from using their positions to financially benefit themselves or people they have personal relationships with,

Garzaniti has agreed to pay a $7,500 fine, and guidance counselor Curtis Williams, her domestic partner, will pay $4,250, according to “settlements” released this week by the city Conflicts of Interest Board.

They face “no further action.”

The case exemplifies New York City’s light discipline of school leaders found guilty of misconduct.

“It’s a complete lack of professional judgment as well as a conflict of interest,” a veteran of NYC schools said. “They should be moving to terminate.”

Garzaniti and Williams moved in together in June 2017 and had a baby that August, the COIB documents state.

Williams joined the High School of Arts and Technology, a 393-student school in the Martin Luther King, Jr. complex, in October 2019.

Garzaniti, an assistant principal at the school, was promoted to principal in July 2023.

Over the following year, Garzaniti supervised Williams and granted him financial benefits.

She approved 199 hours of overtime work for Williams, totaling more than $12,000 in extra pay.

She gave Williams the top job rating, “satisfactory,” and “highly” recommended that he get tenure.

“He has been a valuable asset to our school and has made a significant impact on the lives of our students and staff,” Garzaniti wrote to the superintendent.

Based on her recommendation, the city Department of Education granted Williams tenure, which bestows career-long job protections and other professional benefits.

In March 2025, after a complaint about their relationship, Williams was transferred to the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice — another small school located in the same building on Amsterdam Avenue.

Garzaniti was not moved.

Under the settlements, Garzaniti, who made $207,819 in 2024, and Williams, who makes $96,124, will pay a total $11,750 in fines.

Garzaniti did not respond to a request for comment. The DOE did not comment except to note that Williams was transferred.

After a nine-day trial in August, the six-member Kings County panel found the city Department of Education 100% responsible for the abuse by failing to act on prior complaints that the same teacher —a “serial sexual predator” — had molested other boys.

“The school knew about the danger and failed to protect him,” said attorney Jeff Herman, whose law firm represents the survivor, Antonio Vargas.

It’s the second jury verdict in NYC under the state Child Victims Act, passed in 2019, which lifted the time limits on filing sex abuse lawsuits. Most cases have settled before trial.

In the first verdict in June, another Brooklyn jury ordered the DOE to pay $18 million to a 66-year-old man, also represented by Herman’s firm, who accused a music teacher of sexually abusing him in elementary school 55 years ago.

The city is asking the judge to slash that verdict as “excessive,” and considering whether to appeal the second verdict, a Law Department spokesman said.

Vargas, a self-described shy, skinny kid, went to I.S. 111 Enrico Fermi Junior High School on Starr Street in Bushwick, where Norman Brown, an art teacher who also ran the after-school center, was a non-stop creep.

According to Vargas and three former students who testified at the trial, Brown freely touched and hugged boys, called them nicknames like “Sweet Cheeks” or “Big Dick” while licking his fingers, and held sexualized parties at his home where he plied the middle-schoolers with marijuana and booze.

During class one day in 1969, the teacher tapped Vargas on the shoulder, saying he needed help cleaning a closet. Inside the storeroom, the teacher told Brown to climb a ladder to reach boxes higher up.

Suddenly, Brown closed the door and grabbed the boy’s crotch. “He pulled out my penis, squeezed it first so I could shut up … performed oral sex … and he really enjoyed himself,” Vargas said in pretrial testimony.

He emerged from the closet “in shock,'“ he recalled.

Vargas, who lived across the street from the school, looked out the window and saw his dad working on a car: “I couldn’t tell my father. I was afraid of what he might do. I had to keep it to myself.”

Vargas never told anyone at school about the abuse in embarrassment and fear that his dad would find out.

From then on, he steered clear of Brown. He pulled away when the teacher grabbed his arm and tried to talk to him. He stopped going to the after-school center, where Brown hovered around the pingpong and pool tables.

Vargas also dropped out of Brown’s art class, even though he liked to draw.

“I had a little skill. If I would’ve continued, I would’ve become good,” he said. “He (Brown) killed it after what he did. I stopped going there.”

Vargas graduated from I.S. 111, despite cutting classes to hang out in a park. He didn’t go to high school.

Calling himself “lucky,” he married and raised three children, while keeping the memory of Brown’s abuse festering in his mind.

“I suffered, man. Holding that inside was tough. And it built up.”

The city DOE could not produce a single document on Brown’s tenure as a teacher, or his record at I.S.111. It’s unknown how long he worked for city schools.

Brown is believed to be dead, but lawyers found nothing to prove it. All the school’s administrators at the time have also died.

To corroborate Vargas’ complaint, his lawyers scoured I.S. 111 yearbooks in search of classmates who witnessed or experienced Brown’s dangerous misconduct.

They found three former students, now ages 69 to 71, who testified that Brown had repeatedly sexually molested them and other classmates — well before Brown abused Vargas in his 6th-grade art class.

One student, who I will identify by his initials, W.B., testified that Brown lured other kids into the closet. “Everybody saw it.”

As a 7th-grader, W.B. said, Brown grabbed and massaged his genitals in the hallway under the pretext of breaking up a fight.

W.B. said he told the dean about the hallway incident as well as the closet abuse. He testified that school officials never contacted his parents. Brown stayed at the school, returning after a brief rumored “transfer,” W.B. added.

A.J. testified that Brown openly carried a paddle around the school, “hunting” for boys and whacking them on the butt.

Brown once came up behind A.J. while he urinated and tried to put his hand down the back of his pants, he testified. When A.J. knocked Brown’s hand off, Brown accused him of assaulting a teacher.

A.J. told the dean that Brown had tried to molest him. But the dean looked at A.J “like I was crazy,” and disciplined him instead of Brown, who went on to verbally harass A.J. “until I graduated.”

A third former student, W.D., testified that Brown started complimenting his art work and rubbing his body in front of other kids. Brown then repeatedly had W.D. removed from his homeroom, for “private art lessons.” Brown took him into the closet, performed oral sex on the boy and made him touch Brown’s genitals, he testified.

The trauma led to 156 absences, he said. The school summoned his mother, but never explored what caused his change in behavior.

“Nothing will ever make up for what was taken from our client,” said Ameer Benno, who tried the case for Vargas. “But this jury’s verdict finally holds the NYC Department of Education accountable for its failures. As a child, our client was not given a voice. He has one now.”

The city Department of Education has abruptly removed a Queens principal after a three-year investigation of improper school purchases.

Aneesha Jacko, principal of PS 35 Nathaniel Woodhull, got the boot on Thursday — the first day of the school year for NYC students.

District Superintendent Robin Davson announced the “leadership transition” to faculty at PS 35, a Hollis elementary with 642 students in grades Pre-K to 5. Assistant Principal Kendra Dib is taking over pending Jacko’s replacement.

“A large majority of the staff is overwhelmingly relieved and excited for the change in leadership,” a faculty member who requested anonymity told me. “We look forward to moving the school forward with a real administrative team.”

Jacko is the second Queens principal the DOE has removed in less than three months.

In June, the DOE yanked Simone A. Nicholas, the principal of PS/MS 43, “The School by the Sea” in Far Rockaway with 581 students in 3K to 8th grade. The DOE said she was “reassigned for a pending investigation and reporting to a central office.”

The Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools has had Jacko under scrutiny for more than three years. Two SCI agents went to PS 35 on June 16, asking Jacko and aides for purchasing records.

Whistleblowers told investigators that Jacko has spent tens of thousands in taxpayer funds to buy books and clothing sold by friends, hired other associates as consultants, and splashed their logos on a sprawling lobby mural.

Jacko’s closest associates included Damon Dash, Jay-Z’s ex-business partner and co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, and Dash’s wife Raquel Horn. The principal has bought hundreds of copies of children’s books published by Horn.

Jacko, who collected $204,907 in salary last year, faces a disciplinary trial, which can result in termination.

New York City has a basement version of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Underground at the 9/11 Museum, long rows of wooden cabinets hold some 10,000 unidentified and unclaimed human remains of people killed on September 11, 2001.

Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian, 28, one of 343 FDNY firefighters lost in the terror attacks, believes the victims and heroes of 9/11 deserve a more dignified resting place.

Sally and her husband Albert, a retired NYPD detective, have never received any of their son’s remains to bury.

“I have gotten calls from my son’s fellow Marines on the West Coast, telling me they’re coming to New York and asking where his site is because they wanted to visit his grave,” she said.

“I had to say that he doesn’t have one.”

The families of 1,099 people killed in the WTC attacks, about 40 percent of all 2,753, have never received remains to bury because the crushing collapse of the burning towers left them fractured and unrecognizable.

A group recently wrote to President Trump, pleading for the federal government to take control of the 9/11 Memorial site and build a stately, above-ground repository to serve as a monument.

For more than a decade, the small but fiercely determined group has protested the city’s placement of remains in the 9/11 Museum, which charges admission to the general public.

“I have no words for the lack of respect,” said Maureen Santora, whose son Christopher, 23, a probationary firefighter and former Queens teacher, died on 9/11 — among all 15 firefighters of Engine 54/Ladder 4 lost that day.

Maureen described the “Family Reflection Room” — off-limits to museum visitors — where next of kin can see where the city Medical Examiner stores the remains in adjacent eight-foot-high closets.

“It is a little room, with a bench in front of a big, big window. You look into this window, and see rows of kitchen cabinets down a hallway.”

Relatives who she and husband Al have brought to the room to honor Christopher are “horrified,” Maureen said. “I have to explain that behind the cabinet doors are numbered bags.”

Long before the 9/11 Museum opened in 2014, the family group begged Mayor Michael Bloomberg not to store the remains underground.

“Put them in a repository at street level,” Maureen said, “to give people who have had no recovery a place to go and maybe lay a flower, say a silent prayer, just touch the stone and know that their loved ones are somewhere inside.”

Bloomberg, who still dictates policy as museum chairman, didn’t budge.

Other families backed the decision, including Monica Iken, a 9/11 Memorial and Museum board member.

She said the museum is a “perfect” place for remains, including any of her husband Michael, a 37-year-old bond trader. “I want him right there because I know he’s safe.”

After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the museum built the cabinets above the floor to prevent damage from possible flooding.

“Nobody gawks at them. Nobody can get in if they’re not family, and the family can go there anytime they want,” Iken said.

The Medical Examiner’s Office continues to retrieve remains from the closets to examine in its labs.

“They go there at night and take out a couple at a time. They leave, and bring them back in the morning,” Iken said. “It’s a sacred process.”

Rosemary Cain, mother of FDNY Ladder 7 firefighter George C. Cain, 35, doesn’t share the same confidence. “If we have another major storm, God only knows what’s going to happen down there.”

She hates a plaque in the museum stating, “Reposed behind this wall are the remains of many who perished at the World Trade Center site on September 11, 2001.”

“They certainly shouldn't be treated as part of a museum. It makes me sick to my stomach,” Cain said.

When families visit the “bare, stark” private room, they can only look through glass at rows of cabinets. “That’s where our loved ones are,” she added. “They’re in a file cabinet.”

Asked whether the Medical Examiner could continue its efforts to ID remains kept above-ground, a spokesperson did not comment on the family request, but said the office “will continue to uphold the promise to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to identify the victims.”

The museum’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.

The families’ recent letter to President Trump asked that he keep his campaign promise in 2024 to make Ground Zero a national monument run by the National Park Service.

The letter asks Trump to help move the remains to “a respectful above-ground repository” while also giving the Medical Examiner’s Office access to the fragments for lab tests in its ongoing identification efforts.

In response, a White House spokeswoman said Trump “will remember those killed at the hands of evil terrorists, honor their loved ones, and pay tribute to the brave first responders who put their lives on the line to rescue fellow Americans.”

Officials did not address the transfer of remains, saying only “the White House has received this request.”

Retired FDNY Lt. Jim McCaffrey, whose brother-in-law, FDNY Battalion 7 Chief Orio Palmer, 45, died after climbing to the 78th floor of the South Tower to reach those trapped, told me the family group is disheartened. But they still hope Trump will back their quest for a fitting repository on the Memorial Plaza for all to see and pay their respects.

“That is the least that those precious souls and their still grieving families deserve after 25 years of pain and heartache,” he said.

The city’s storage of nearly 3,500 personal items found in the World Trade Center rubble has renewed question about what has become of the unidentified possessions.

A decade ago, the NYPD revealed it held a remaining 3,483 bar-coded plastic bags filled with personal belongings recovered from Ground Zero — but couldn’t determine who they belonged to.

The items included 374 pieces of jewelry and watches, many broken, and 3,109 things like wallets, keys, clothing and an odd array of objects that adorned offices and desks.

They were the remnants of an original 26,000 “invoices,” bags containing one or more related items. Most were identified and returned to next-of-kin. In 2013, DNA helped identify the owners of a bracelet and a ring, which the NYPD delivered to their widows.

In 2016, the NYPD property clerk showed me a sample of unclaimed items, including a softball with illegible autographs, a brass bull paperweight, a brass frog, car keys on a holder, an empty black wallet, an ornamental two-headed eagle, a metal bust of a woman with one wing, and a silver desk clock.

In 2019, I received a last update from a friendly cop in the NYPD’s press office:

“It has always been the goal of the NYPD to return as much property from the 9/11 disaster as possible,” she said. “We have returned 87 percent of the property to the rightful owners. There have been no additional items returned to families.”

This week, days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the NYPD and City Hall ignored my request to explain what became of the 13 percent remaining: whether they kept them in storage or transferred them elsewhere.

Spokespersons for Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch did not respond to repeated inquiries.

The lack of answers angers Debby Jenkins, whose older brother Joseph Jenkins, 47, an office relocation manager for AON Corp., died on 9/11.

“We need to get them back,” she said of the items. “They shouldn’t be holding them. It's almost criminal. They’re keeping property that doesn’t belong to them.”

Jenkins and other relatives of 9/11 victims have long urged the city to show the items on a private website, listing each piece of property with photos, or physically display them, to help families identify their loved ones’ possessions.

“Put it somewhere in the museum, or put the pictures where we can see them,” said Monica Iken, a board member of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

Her husband of 11 months, Michael, a bond trader on the 84th floor of 2 WTC, was killed at age 37. She has never received any of his remains or personal possessions, including his wedding ring. She has sent the NYPD a description and photo of the ring, without success.

“It’s somebody’s stuff,” Iken said of the unidentified possessions.

“I don’t understand why they’re holding on to something for 25 years. That makes absolutely no sense.”

New York City has a stash of $332 million to handle claims in anticipation of possible new lawsuits stemming from the Ground Zero cleanup.

The fund — with $332,195,989 as of June 30 — holds what remains of the $1 billion grant that New York’s congressional delegation delivered after the terror attacks to protect the city against liability for injuries and illness.

The WTC Captive Insurance Co., a non-profit run by the city, was formed to manage the fund and respond to lawsuits.

With Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s release Tuesday of 170,000 pages of long-withheld documents on the city’s early response to health concerns and air quality in downtown Manhattan, questions about liability have re-emerged.

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani said at a news conference at City Hall.

Asked whether it was “a cover-up,” Mandani replied, “This was multiple mayoral administrations refusing to release documents that New Yorkers were owed.”

The city’s history of withholding the documents suggests that officials hid what they knew about health risks from the beginning. They include the so-called “Harding Memo,” sent to then-Deputy Mayor Robert Harding in 2001, which warned of liability due to toxic exposure and inadequate safety.

“Could there be lawsuits relating to the release of the documents? Sure, but that's not a reason not to release the documents,” NYC Corporation Counsel Steven Banks said at the press conference in response to a reporter’s question. He did not elaborate, and the city Law Department had no further comment.

After a protracted court battle, the city tapped the $1 billion fund to settle a mass lawsuit by 10,000 Ground Zero responders in 2010, paying a total $705.3 million.

The lawsuits have slowed to a trickle since the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund reopened in 2011. (For instance, one cancer-stricken FDNY firefighter won a $2.5 million settlement in 2022).

The VCF has doled out more than $16.8 billion — and counting — to some 71,000 sickened 9/11 first-responders and survivors, including those who lived, worked and went to school downtown. Claimants must waive their right to sue.

But the WTC Captive Insurance Co. has not shut down.

“It has to stay in existence because there may well be other people down the road who, unfortunately, will experience health symptoms they believe are associated with 9/11,” Margaret Warner, a Washington-based lawyer for the fund, told a town-hall meeting with Ground Zero workers in 2010.

Under the grant agreement with Congress, the Captive can use the $1 billion to insure the city for “an initial period of up to 25 years,” starting in 2004.

That means it can remain in business until 2029, at least. Disease triggered by building materials like asbestos — which documents show was prevalent around Ground Zero — can take decades to incubate.

John Feal, an advocate for 9/11 responders, has blasted the Captive for “wasting money,” and called on it to transfer any remaining money to the VCF or other program to help ailing responders and survivors.

Ben Chevat, executive director of 9/11 Health Watch, told me the Captive should give the remaining funds to the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides free medical monitoring, testing and treatment for illness linked to the terror attacks.

The city has said it won’t give up its legal nest egg without a guarantee of immunity from further liability.

While earning interest on the remaining funds, the Captive’s operating expenses include an executive director, several staffers and office costs. It also pays for accountants, lawyers and other consultants.

The FDNY’s Memorial Service on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 is on deck at a Staten Island ballpark.

The department is set to hold its annual service for the families of 343 firefighters killed in the 9/11 attacks and 604 who have succumbed to World Trade Center-linked illness on Wednesday, Sept. 9 (rain date Sept. 10) at FerryHawks Stadium, home to an independent professional baseball team.

The outer-borough location does not hit a home run for all. Some FDNY members grumble that Staten Island is too far from Ground Zero, a hassle to reach, and lacking the gravitas the occasion merits.

The FDNY held prior memorial services at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but this year deemed it too small because many more 9/11 firefighters and EMS workers have been dying of cancer and other diseases triggered by their search and rescue work at the toxic WTC site.

Some 2,000 guests have confirmed attendance so far, but many more are eligible. Each of the 947 FDNY families can bring as many guests as they want. In addition, all active and retired FDNY members can attend in formal uniform. With seats on the field, FerryHawks stadium can hold up to 7,500 people.

So, why not hold the event at more prestigious Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center?

“They can bend over backwards for Taylor Swift, but we get put in an outdoor minor league baseball stadium!” a firefighter complained.

“Staten Island doesn’t have the proper indoor venue worthy of such an important ceremony. All of our 9/11 and post-9/11 families deserved the best venue possible,” another said.

However, cost was a major factor. MSG and Barclays each told the FDNY they would charge about $400,000 to use those arenas, officials said. Reps for the Manhattan and Brooklyn venues did not return requests for comment.

Billionaire businessman John Catsimatides, who owns the FerryHawks baseball team, donated the stadium free of charge.

The FDNY did not set aside funds for the memorial. Instead, the department received $408,000 in City Council funds, thanks to Queens Council member Joann Ariola, who told me she diverted a grant unused by a volunteer fire and ambulance company.

“It was important to me and our public safety committee to make sure that all the planned 9/11 memorial services would happen,” she said, adding her approval of the Staten Island site: “This location has a view where everyone can see the Freedom Tower.”

While FerryHawks will not charge a rental fee, major expenses include the hiring of a production company, Pro Sho Sound Services, to install the stage along with audio/video equipment. Retired Fire Lt. John Leary III, a Staten Island-based events producer, is a subcontractor, officials confirmed.

Other costs include box lunches with sandwiches from a local deli, chips and water bottles for family members and their guests; several FerryHawks employees to serve food and provide security; flowers, and decorations including banners and a red carpet with the FDNY logo, officials said.

Excess costs will be covered by the FDNY Foundation, the fire department’s non-profit arm, which collects donations.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani was scheduled to lead the speeches at FerryHawks, but this week decided to simply sit near the stage. Mamdani did speak this week at an FDNY ceremony adding 36 names to a memorial wall honoring those who have died from 9/11-related illness.

That Mamdani will not address FerryHawks relieved FDNY brass and organizers who feared that audience members would boo or turn their backs on the Muslim mayor.

In July, some families started on online petition to oppose Mamdani’s planned appearance at the 9/11 remembrance ceremony at the WTC site on Sept. 11, citing his alleged affiliation with people accused of being anti-American, including his father. Mamdani says he will attend. No politicians will speak.

Speakers in Staten Island include FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore, Chief of Department John Esposito, and two FDNY chaplains. The FDNY choir will sing the National Anthem and America the Beautiful.

A video screen will display the name and photo of each of the 947 FDNY members who have perished.

Something went wrong.

“It seems increasingly likely that something unexpected happened with the scoring of the reading tests last year,” says Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

His comments on the sharp decline in New York student literacy scores came after I learned that the state education department and its test publisher NWEA, under a five-year $50 million contract, tweaked the scoring of the 2025 tests.

Last year, Kathleen Moore of the Times-Union and I reported evidence that the state had lowered the passing benchmarks for some grades on the exams, raising doubts about claims of eye-popping academic progress.

After the state released this year’s scores, I asked Fred Smith, a researcher and former DOE testing specialist, to scrutinize NWEA’s 2025 technical reports, which provide detailed data on the scoring of its English Language Arts (ELA) exams. He confirmed our news reports.

Scores in several grades rose sharply in 2025.

But this year, all the gains evaporated. In NYC, scores fell an average 6 points in grades 3 to 8. But they plummeted nearly 14 points in third-grade, 6 points in fourth grade, and 13 points in fifth grade.

The state stands by the disturbing data, insisting it shows a real slide in reading proficiency from 2025 to 2026.

Some experts don’t buy it.

“The proficiency rates in NYC and the state as a whole look like they really haven’t budged since 2024,” Pallas told me.

Here’s what Smith found in the 2025 technical reports, which the state released months after students took the exams:

– In Grade 3, the state lowered the raw points that students needed to reach Level 3 — “proficiency” — to 20 out of the total 33, down from 21 in 2024. That meant the percentage of correct answers needed to pass dropped from 63.3% to 60.6%.

– In Grade 4, the state lowered the raw points needed to reach Level 3 to 22 out of 37, down from 25 in 2024. The percentage needed to pass dropped from 67.6% to 59.5%.

– In Grade 6, the state lowered the number of raw points students needed to reach Level 3 to 24 out of 40, down from 27 the prior year. So the percentage needed to reach Level 3 dropped from 67.5% to 60%.

In Grades 5 and 8, the raw points needed to pass stayed the same. In Grade 7, they increased slightly.

The state uses four levels of achievement: Level 3 indicates proficiency, and Level 4 excelling.

State education official say the tweaking resulted from a scientific determination that some items on the 2025 exams were more difficult than those in 2024, so they lowered the raw points needed to pass the exams to make them equivalent.

But the sharp rise and fall of reading scores raised much alarm in NYC, which has undergone sweeping changes in literacy instruction under “New York Reads,” a citywide program launched under Mayor Eric Adams and continued by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The DOE has mandated new reading curriculums and a shift to phonics-based teaching for the youngest learners.

“What causes controversy is that scores went down,” said Howard Everson, a top testing researcher and professor at CUNY’s Graduate Center.

“There was no controversy when the scores went up — everyone was happy with it.”

Everson notes that student performance on ELA in 2026 has returned to 2024 levels.

“That tells me the anomaly is 2025,” he said. “They attributed (the increase) to the improvement in teaching and instruction. I don’t know if that’s correct.”

Everson concedes a technical glitch may have occurred in the test scoring or “equating,” as economics professor Emily Oster, founder and CEO of ParentData, argues.

Other possible explanations include the shift from paper and pencil to computer-based testing.

Another key factor involves curriculums and teachers: “How well is the instruction aligned to what the test is measuring? That’s always a challenge,” Everson said.

The state Education Department insists no testing errors or scoring mistakes occurred, leaving only questions about faltering student achievement.

“The Department will conduct a detailed analysis to better understand where students are experiencing challenges, which student groups and communities have been most affected, and where additional support and resources are needed.”

The state pays more than $10 million a year to NWEA to develop and score the ELA and math exams.

The massive program “continues to generate systemwide data that are difficult to comprehend,” Smith said.

“Parents and educators should ask whether the hours spent by more than 300,000 New York City kids, in two testing sessions over two school days, yields meaningful information on student achievement as measured by very few test items.”

Leonie Haimson, an education activist who has monitored state testing for decades, said the “ups and downs” in New York state exams do not mirror the more reliable National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP, in which the federal government tests a sample of students in NYC every two years in 4th and 8th grade reading and math.

“The NAEPs have shown no significant change in the city’s 4th grade reading scores since 2003,” Haimson wrote.

Borrowing from Shakespeare, she calls the latest drop in state scores a case of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

A former Brooklyn school superintendent never told his latest employer — the Hackensack Board of Education — that he moonlighted as a consultant in NYC, the board’s lawyer says.

Thomas McBryde Jr. has collected $144,500 in dozens of payments from NYC schools since joining Hackensack as superintendent in January 2024 — including $100,499 after the board suspended him in June 2025 for alleged fraud, mismanagement and overspending.

The side gigs apparently violated his Hackensack contract, which pays him $263,000 a year.

The contract states he must “devote the superintendent’s full time, skills, labor and attention to this employment,” and “not take consultative work, speaking engagements, writing, lecturing, or other professional duties for compensation without written notice to the board.”

“I’m not aware of any written notice,” board attorney Jason Nunnermacker told the Bergen Record’s Megan Burrow this week.

The board first learned that the superintendent’s private firm, McBryde Consulting Group LLC, was collecting extra cash in NYC after my Substack article exposed the double-dipping, Nunnermacker told the Record.

The NYC Department of Education has not explained what type of consulting McBryde did, or why city schools continued to hire McBryde after Hackensack suspended and sued him for wrongdoing.

“We are looking into this,” a spokeswoman said last month.

The DOE did not return requests for an update.

McBryde worked for the city DOE for 11 years, as a principal, then as deputy superintendent of Manhattan’s District 4, and finally as superintendent of Brooklyn’s District 19.

About a year after leaving the city in 2021 for a top job in Norwalk, Conn., McBryde started collecting nearly $224,000 in 71 payments from NYC schools, continuing to cash in after taking over Hackensack schools on Jan 1, 2024.

Multiple District 19 schools have hired McBryde. The current superintendent, Tamra Collins, had served as the deputy under McBryde, who boosted her career, whistleblowers said.

After Hackensack officials discovered a devastating $17 million budget shortfall in January, the school board filed a lawsuit accusing McBryde and a business administrator of plotting to give no-bid contracts to vendors and pay them for services they did not provide. He also hired dozens of employees for newly created positions the district could ill afford, the suit charges.

“The board is going to fully investigate and bring whatever claims it believes it may have within the lawsuit,” Nunnermacker said.

Meanwhile, McBryde remains on a paid leave. His three-year contract in Hackensack expires on June 30, 2027.