civil rights

Former Bronx Professor Gets Over 8 Years for Human Trafficking & Sex Crimes

By SÍLE MOLONEY
A 45-year-old Bronx man, Jorge Alberto Ramos, was sentenced on Thursday, Feb. 6, to over 8 years in prison for smuggling three female victims from El Salvador to the U.S., where he sexually abused them, federal prosecutors said. The man’s sentence was also for possessing child pornography. Danielle R. Sassoon, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl, who also presided over the defendant’s guilty plea.

Mayor Appoints Marjorie Velázquez to Tenant Protection Role

By DAVID GREENE
Embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams last month announced 17 new appointments and promotions within City government to fill various vacancies. The appointments come as the City Hall exodus continues, and amid a federal bribery probe into the mayor’s 2021 election campaign that continues to cast a shadow over his administration. The mayor denies any wrongdoing and his case is ongoing.

Op-Ed: What Went Wrong? Everything

By SILVIA BLUMENFELD
Americans have voted for Donald Trump again. Forty-five will become forty-seven come January and Donald Trump will again have the most powerful job on the planet. It’s a sobering, heartbreaking, but undeniable fact. The billionaires who enabled and engineered his campaign are celebrating.

UPDATE Various Parties React to Kimberly Hanzlik’s Release after 13 Years on Murder Charge

By DAVID GREENE
Nearly a dozen friends and family members were at the back of a Bronx courtroom on Tuesday, Nov. 26, when Administrative Judge Alvin Yearwood approved a request from the Office of Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark to vacate the 2011 second-degree murder conviction of Kimberly Hanzlik, 59, for her role in the 1999 killing of Joseph Brown. The victim was shot and killed inside a bar formerly known as Frenchy’s on East Tremont Avenue in Throggs Neck.