Another twist in the murder case of Queens dentist Daniel Malakov: The sister of his ex-wife - who remains in jail for plotting to kill Malakov - was arrested for threatening Malakov's brother. Natella Natanova was arrested yesterday after apparently approaching Gavriel Malakov in Queens and saying, "You do know if you talk, you will be the next to go," on Monday morning. The brother is a potential prosecution witness and Queens DA Richard Brown......

The father who wanted to give up his 6-month-old baby out of desperation has told the police he wants to surrender. Carlos Rodas, 27, was overwhelmed when his 14-year-old girlfriend and the mother of the baby left him to care for their daughter, so he, his sister, and her boyfriend, a livery cab driver, worked out a plan for the driver to leave the baby at a Queens fire house. The story of the......

Yesterday, the Post reported City Councilman Dennis Gallagher, the Queens politican accused of raping a woman last summer, was offered a plea deal that would "keep him out of jail and off the sex-offender registry" and possibly force him to resign office. Gallagher, who has maintained the sex (which occurred in his Queens offices) was consensual, was indicted by a grand jury last summer, but the indictment was dismissed last month, because the judge felt......

Photograph of protesters outside the Sean Bell shooting trial in Queens by Gary He/AP; the protesters are holding signs counting down the 50 shots fired Under intense scrutiny from the community and media, the trial of three police officers in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man started today. Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora face manslaughter charges while Detective Mark Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment in the 2006 death of Sean Bell,......

The badly injured survivor of the incident where a garbage truck ran onto a Midtown sidewalk, killing a vacationing British couple, figures his New York instinct to bypass slow-moving tourists ultimately saved his life. Hollis resident Abayomi Henderson told the Daily News he had just finished working out at a nearby gym when he saw Jacqueline Timmins and Andrew Hardie (pictured) on West 35th St. near 6th Ave. Tuesday night. The British tourists were in......

The Queens DA's office and NYPD revealed new details about the killing of a Queens dentist. and why his estranged wife was arrested for murder and conspiracy. Daniel Malakov, who had been fighting with wife Dr. Mazultov Borukhova over custody of their young daughter, was gunned down at a playground last October when taking the 4-year-old to his wife for visitation. Borukhova was arrested Thursday night, months after her uncle by marriage, Mikahil Mallayev, was......

Three and a half months after Queens orthodontist Daniel Malakov was gunned down at a Queens playground in front of his young daughter, his estranged wife was arrested for his murder. Dr. Mazoltuv Borukhova was charged with murder and conspiracy and taken to a precinct house from her Forest Hills home. Malakov's mother told the Daily News, "They're dirty...her whole family, mother, sisters, all of them are animals. They committed such a dirty act, and......

The family and friends of slain dentist Daniel Malakov yelled at murder suspect Mikhail Mallayev (pictured) in a Queens courtroom yesterday. Malakov was gunned down last year when he was dropping off his daughter to his ex-wife at a Queens playground. His brother yelled, "Hang him up!" as other yelled "Shoot him!" and "Take off his head!" when Mallayev left. Malakov and his ex, Dr. Mazeltuv Borukhova, were embroiled in a bitter custody dispute over......

Slowpokes and procrastinators beware: Late fees from overdue library books in New York could be costing you points off your credit score. The New York Times has an article today that describes how the The New York Public Library and the Queens Public Library have been using a private company named Unique Management Services, which is a collections agency that library late fines are referred to when not paid by book borrowers. One rabbi in......

The Queens Library system apparently loves Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, because it's distributing fliers touting their praises. Quinn recently championed a Council bid to prevent members from using taxpayer funds to self-campaign, but one can't always control fans one has in the library system. From the NY Sun:Sensitivity to the use of public funds to promote elected officials is high at City Hall, with the council approving a new set of rules......

Since we don't get out to Red Hook Ballfields that much, taquerias are always squarely in the sights of our foodar. The Queens nabes of Corona and Elmhurst almost never fail when it comes to fulfilling a taco craving. So when we walked by a brand new spot called La Casa Del Idolo, Gothamist immediately made a note to come back and sample its fare, particularly since they seemed especially proud of their barbacoa......

On November 25, 2006, groom-to-be Sean Bell and his friends were leaving the Kalua nightclub in Queens when undercover police confronted them. In the confusion that ensued (the police thinking the men were armed or were going to the car to retrieve a gun, uncertainty over whether the police identified themselves leading Bell and his friends to think they were being carjacked) five undercover cops fired 50 times at Bell's car. His friends Joseph......

The Department of Education is charging a temp with stealing $50,000 in fake overtime. The tip off? When Tyrone Avila would claim he was working 85 hours a week - when he really supposed to work less than 40 hours a week. The Daily News reports that Avila had been temping as budget analyst for the DOE since 2001, but "he didn't start padding his time sheets until 2005 when his mother-in-law developed mental problems......

Last night at City College, it was Gotham Girls Roller Derby fever. The two-time defending champions the Queens of Pain faced off against the Bronx Gridlock to decide who would reign supreme for the 2007 season and take home a pretty sweet trophy. Raymond Haddad was on the scene for the championship match and took some amazing pictures. He reports, "The Queens of Pain made a ferocious comeback [apparently 31 unanswered points', led by......

The Queens DA's office is allegedly split over how to handle a Halloween night fight in Howard Beach. A fight erupted on the Cross Bay Boulevard between a group of white youths and a group of black and Hispanic youths. The white youths, after feeling intimidated by a black or Hispanic youth, threw eggs at him, and then a melee broke out when 30-40 others, some with sticks, fought the white youths. Five black and......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An armored robbery in Queens, a boat in distress east of the Steeplechase Pier in Brooklyn and a school bus accident in Staten Island. The bids are in for the West Side Yards, and the companies that submitted them are Extell Development Company, Brookfield Properties Developer LLC, The Related Companies, TS West Side Holding, LLC (A Joint Venture of Tishman Speyer and Morgan Stanley), and Hudson Center East LLC......

The libraries of the borough of Queens were announced as being the most utilized in the entire country. The Public Library Statistical Report just announced that Queens public libraries loaned 20.2 million items to residents in 2006, and the borough's on track to retain the top spot after loaning 21 million items in 2007. According to the 2000 federal census, Queens had 2.2 million residents, so that means the average person in the borough is......

Police believe that 14-year-old Mohammed Nasser acted in self-defense when he fatally stabbed his stepfather on Wednesday night. Nasser said, "Well, he threatened me and my family, so I had to do what I had to do to protect my brother and my mother and my other little brother." Newsday reports that Nasser's stepfather Arturo Moreno was drunk when he arrived at the Ozone Park home he shared with Nasser's mother, Arwa Moreno, Wednesday night.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a police-involved shooting at 149th St. and 3rd Ave. in the Bronx, an attempted sexual assault on 55th St. in Brooklyn, and a bank robbery on West 52nd St. between 7th and 8th Aves. Kenneth Eng, noted earlier this year for his controversial essay "Why I Hate Blacks", was arrested again by the Feds shortly after pleading guilty to harrassing his neighbors and threatening them with a hammer. The......

There was a fuss - and VitaminWater truck - at the FDNY's Ladder 20 Engine 13 firehouse on Lafayette Street. With good reason: Mets third baseman David Wright was filming a commercial for vitaminwater. Wright, New York's hottie come lately athlete, plays a vitaminwater delivery man - see how his uniform says "David"? Firefighters were taking photographs with their cellphones and Wright seemed to be having a good time. We just hope he's well-rested......

The police raided the office of Queens City Councilman Dennis Gallagher yesterday - and they were looking for DNA evidence of a sexual assault. The Juniper Park Civic Association President Robert Holden told the Sun he saw police officers taking evidence, "They just had boxes they were carrying. Bags and boxes of their tools." The Post got details of the alleged crime: Gallagher met the woman at Danny Boy's, a bar where he's a regular,......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at Tremont and University Aves. in the Bronx, a person pinned by a bus on the upper level of the Queensboro Bridge, and a car overparked into a storefront at 258th St. and Riverdale Ave. in the Bronx. The Queens mother of a kidnapped soldier in Iraq hopes that her son is still alive, even though her son's ID and other effects were found in an al......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Canal St. between Baxter and Perry Sts. in Manhattan, a separate bank robbery on West 6th St. and Neptune Ave. in Brooklyn, and yet another amputation (that's the third reported this week!) on Gardener Ave. in Brooklyn. The Queens man, who drove his known-suicidal wife to the edge of an upstate cliff and then watched as she drove the minivan containing their two children over......

Holy Cow! We actually didn't even know that VitaminWater was made in Queens until Coca-Cola decided to buy the company for $4 billion. The Queens-based owners weren't the only people getting a fat pay-out from the purchase. David Wright, the Mets third baseman who endorses the product, accepted a small slice of equity in the company in lieu of payment last year. Now Wright's small stake in the company is worth $20 million.Days after inking......

The fight between boys at a Queens public school that led to a Sikh classmate's hair being cut off was classified as a hate crime by the authorities. The Queens DA's office and the NYPD gave a few more details. The NY Times reports that 17-year-old Umair Ahmed, a Pakistani student, and Vacher Harpal, a 15-year-old Sikh, "had had an argument and that Vacher had made derogatory comments about Mr. Ahmed’s mother." And though Vacher......

A Lower East Side woman was charged by the Queens DA's office for not delivering English bulldog puppies after customers paid for them. The Queens DA's office believes that Janet Goris never actually had any puppies when she advertised on various websites that she was looking for to find puppies a "loving home" and requested that interested parties only pay the shipping costs. Of course, the shipping costs were $300-400 a pop. The Sun has......

The barter system is thriving when it comes to payments to off relatives. An Astoria man who has been serving a drug-possession sentence at Rikers was charged with conspiracy to commit murder after he tried to hire a hit man last week to kill his mother. And how was Joseph Salvio, who was actually a few days from release, going to pay for the hit? By using three of his mother's fur coats, worth $10,000,......

The Queens DA's office has charged a man in the murder of 20-year-old Natasha Ramen. And it turns out that Hemant Megnath had raped Ramen in 2005; police believe the Megnath slashed Ramen's throat last Thursday to keep her from testifying about the rape. In May 2005, Ramen had been apartment-hunting and was introduced to a fellow Guyanese immigrant, Megnath, who had been working for a broker. Megnath took her to his Brooklyn apartment and......

Yesterday, a grand jury decided to indict three detectives in the shooting of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man who had been celebrating the night before his wedding day at a Queens nightclub. The charges were manslaughter for Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver and reckless endangerment for Marc Cooper. Isnora fired the first shot, one of 11 he eventually fired, while Oliver fired the most, 31 rounds. Cooper fired 4 times; in total, the......

The first day of grand jury deliberations in the Sean Bell shooting case ended without a verdict, but a new witness may have emerged. A janitor who went to a Queens police station house yesterday claims to have seen police shooting of three unarmed black men - and says he saw a "fourth man. The NYPD had always claimed there was a fourth person with a gun that made Bell and his friends "targets"......