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Mexican Mafia grows in Staten Island BY CARRIE MELAGO AND JOSE MARTINEZ New York Daily News NEW YORK - (KRT) - At the foot of the Bayonne Bridge, in the Staten Island neighborhood known as Little Mexico, crime is down - falling by more than 6 percent this year. But troubling signs remain.Fights regularly break out in the Port Richmond neighborhood's Latino nightclubs, and even more unnerving are the graffiti scrawlings for M13, a street gang with ties to the notorious Mexican Mafia."We've got a lot of problems right now with the gangs," said a 28-year-old Mexican man who ran...

N.J. Rescue teams planned to resume their search Monday morning for the body of a boy scout who fell off a whale watching boat this weekend and is presumed drowned. Nicholas Johs, 14, of Boy Scout Troop 26 of Staten Island, N.Y., fell off the Whale Watcher II at about 2 p.m. Saturday. At the time, the 90-foot boat was about 200 yards off Cape May Point, and the crew encountered some rough seas. Witnesses told police that despite several warnings, Johs and some other troop members were jumping up and down in the front of the boat in time...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — State Democratic Chairman Herman Farrell made an impromptu appearance on a radio talk show Wednesday to heatedly berate its host over a news story about the impending birth of a child to the party leader's girlfriend. The host of the show on WROW-AM in Albany is Fred Dicker, the New York Post's state editor. "I just came in to let your radio listeners know what a piece of slime that you are," Farrell declared in the Post's state Capitol office where Dicker was broadcasting his morning show. "You're a bully." Dicker defended his handling of the...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- International Speedway Corp. has paid $100 million to buy land in Staten Island to build a New York City track.  The company, which owns or operates 11 of NASCAR's major tracks, hopes to build a $600 million facility on dormant industrial land. Officials said Wednesday it could represent the largest construction project the motorsports giant has undertaken, nearly triple the amount it spent to build tracks in Kansas City, Kan., and the Chicago area.  Lesa France Kennedy, president of the family-controlled ISC, said the company has to complete a feasibility study before deciding whether to...

A Colombo crime-family associate who arranged union jobs for sons of mob bosses also arranged them for the son of the Staten Island borough president, court documents obtained by The Post reveal. Ralph Garguilo, a master mechanic for Local 14 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, was cooperating with the prosecution in a sweeping racketeering case involving organized-crime control of Locals 14 and 15.

It is not often that an incumbent with 24 years in office loses a primary. But Assemblyman Robert A. Straniere of Staten Island did just that on Sept. 14, raising questions about tensions within the Republican Party in the borough, and about voter dissatisfaction with Albany. Mr. Straniere, who was about to become the most senior Republican member of the Assembly, confronted two of the rarest circumstances in New York City politics earlier this month: a hotly contested Republican primary and an incumbency lost in a Republican bastion in New York City. Mr. Straniere said his defeat was as unanticipated...

<p>Prosecutors will unseal an indictment against the captain and pilot in last year's Staten Island ferry (search) crash on charges that include 11 counts of manslaughter, law enforcement sources said Tuesday.</p> <p>Richard Smith (search), an assistant captain who piloted the Staten Island ferry that crashed last year and killed 11 people, is expected to plead guilty Wednesday, when prosecutors announce the results of their 10-month investigation.</p>

[SNIP]Racing promoters have held preliminary discussions with economic officials in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration about constructing a NASCAR track on Staten Island, The New York Times reported Friday. NASCAR has looked at various locations in the region since plans to build a speedway at the Meadowlands in New Jersey foundered, said David Talley, a spokesman for the International Speedway Corporation, which owns 13 tracks nationwide. [SNIP]

HOUSTON — One evening two winters ago, a man in Staten Island, N.Y., absent-mindedly flipped through his mail. Inside one envelope was a stack of fake documents, including United Nations (news - web sites) and Defense Department identification cards, and a note: "We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands."

When Representative Vito J. Fossella strode into a Staten Island senior center on a recent snowy afternoon, he was greeted as something of a conquering hero. After entering the dining area, he was introduced by the center's director, who mentioned that he was a possible candidate for mayor. "Maybe he'll run for mayor and we can get rid of Bloomberg," the director said. With that, the group of about 50 people erupted with wild cheers and sustained applause. It is not uncommon these days for Mr. Fossella, a Republican from Staten Island, to be described as a possible challenger to...

<p>NEW YORK (CNN) -- Michael Gansas, captain of the Staten Island ferry that crashed into a pier in October, has been fired by the New York City Department of Transportation for not cooperating with investigators.</p> <p>In a statement released Wednesday, the DOT accused Gansas of "failure to cooperate with National Transportation Safety Board and city investigations into the October 15 tragedy of the Andrew J. Barberi."</p>

Staten Island Democratic Association's meeting this week featured "guest of honor" criminal defense lawyer Lynne Stewart, a former Islander who is facing charges of terrorism. Ms. Stewart keynote address updated the group on the government's case against her. Ms. Stewart, a former Stapleton resident who graduated from Wagner College, was arrested in 2002 for allegedly providing material support for terrorism, among other charges. New charges have just been filed against Ms. Stewart charging her with conspiracy to commit terrorism by using convicted World Trade Center bomber Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman as "personnel" to carry out her acts. Additionally, she is...

NEW YORK (AP) -- There was no evidence that the pilot at the controls of a ferry that crashed last month had taken prescription drugs, a city official said Saturday, a day after federal prosecutors took over the investigation. Assistant Capt. Richard Smith said in the hours after the crash that he had taken blood pressure medication earlier in the day and slumped over the controls. However, a city official familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that blood tests showed the pilot had not taken prescription drugs during the 12 to 14 hours before the...

<p>Ten current and former Staten Island Ferry workers say last Monday was the first time the city ever notified them of a rule requiring the captain, rather than the assistant captain, to be in the dockside pilothouse every time the boat lands - a rule the city says Capt. Michael Gansas broke during the fatal ferry crash two weeks earlier.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) - The captain of a Staten Island ferry that slammed into a pier last month, killing 10 people, repeatedly invoked his right against self-incrimination Thursday under questioning by federal investigators, sources familiar with the proceedings told The Associated Press. Capt. Michael Gansas, 38, arrived at the Coast Guard station on Staten Island accompanied by his lawyers for a court-ordered meeting with National Transportation Safety Board investigators. Once inside, he invoked the Fifth Amendment time and time again during the proceedings, said two sources familiar with the proceedings. Both spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity; one...

<p>A mate aboard the ill-fated Staten Island Ferry that smashed into a pier last month told investigators that the boat's pilot was "standing erect during the entire incident" and never slumped over the controls, city officials said yesterday. City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo said Robert Rush told probers that he alone was in the wheelhouse with the pilot, Assistant Captain Richard Smith, "and that nothing unusual transpired in the approximately 90 seconds before the crash."</p>

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- Some 40 legal claims have been filed against the city in the wake of last month's Staten Island ferry accident.</p> <p>The notices of claim, which notify the city of an intention to file lawsuits, seek a total of about $1.3 billion in compensation on grounds ranging from wrongful death to emotional trauma.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) - The captain involved in last week's Staten Island Ferry crash that killed 10 people will be suspended for refusing to cooperate with the federal investigation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday. The captain, Michael Gansas, sent a letter to city officials saying he was refusing to talk, Bloomberg said. "It's an outrage that somebody who can give us information to perhaps find out how we can improve service refuses to talk," said Bloomberg. "A person like that has no business working for the city, and we will take every legal action we can to get his testimony."...

<p>If anything.</p> <p>Mayor Bloomberg has an affirmative obligation - to the 70,000 commuters who use the ferries each day and to the survivors of the 10 victims who were laid to rest yesterday - to answer those questions. Today.</p> <p>As unambiguously as possible.</p>

MOMENTS AFTER Wednesday’s fatal Staten Island ferry accident, high school students who regularly shuttle across New York Harbor for classes raced toward a friend of mine — a public school teacher they recognized in the ferry terminal, which is adjacent to the stadium of the minor league Staten Island Yankees. At that very moment, the Red Sox and Yankees were duking out Game 6 at the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. But terrorism, of all things, had quickly replaced the American League Championship Series as the first thing on these teenagers’ minds. “They bombed the boat!” they cried to my...