Good Morning, Brooklyn: Wednesday, October 19, 2022

October 19, 2022 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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MAN WANTED IN FORCIBLE TOUCHING INCIDENT IN BENSONHURST: The NYPD seeks the public’s assistance in finding the assailant in a forcible touching incident in front of a store at New Utrecht Avenue and 77^th St., within the 62^nd Precinct, last Tuesday night, October 11. The male assailant approached the victim, a 28-year-old female and grabbed her breasts before fleeing on foot southbound on New Utrecht Avenue.

Call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) if anyone knows about the incident or has seen the unidentified male, with light skin complexion, and approximately in his 40s, 5’3″ tall, and 180 pounds and last seen wearing a black sweater, dark pants, gray sneakers and multi-color winter hat.

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MAN WANTED IN GROPING, PUNCHING INCIDENT: Police ask the public’s help in seeking a man who assaulted a 19-year-old woman in front of a store at 182 Smith Street in Boerum Hill, within the 76^th Precinct, last Tuesday, October 11 just after midnight. The unidentified male individual approached the victim from behind and touched her buttocks and, after an exchange of words, punched the woman on the left side of her face, causing swelling and pain.

Anyone who can identify or locate the individual, described as follows, can call NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477): dark skin complexion, approximately in his 30s, medium build, 6’0″ tall and last seen wearing all dark clothing, white sneakers, a dark colored hat and carrying a black bag.

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CONVICTED IN MURDER-FOR-HIRE CONSPIRACY AGAINST HIS FATHER: Following six weeks of trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn today convicted Anthony Zottola, Sr. and Himen Ross of murder-for-hire conspiracy and murder-for-hire in the October 4, 2018 killing of Anthony’s 71-year-old Sylvester Zottola as he waited to pick up a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-thru in the Bronx. They face mandatory life terms for Sylvester Zottola’s death and the attempted murder of Anthony’s brother, Salvatore, who testified at the trial.

Sylvester Zottola controlled a residential real estate portfolio consisting of multi- family rental properties that was valued at tens of millions of dollars at the time of his death, and which his son, defendant Anthony Zottola helped manage as part of the family’s business and wanted to control.

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CHARGED IN GLOBAL SANCTIONS EVASION AND MONEY LAUNDERING: Five Russian nationals and two oil traders were charged today in Brooklyn federal court, for their roles in a global sanctions evasion and money laundering scheme. The defendants, two of whom were arrested Monday in Europe, obtained military technology from U.S. companies, smuggled millions of barrels of oil and laundered tens of millions of dollars for Russian oligarchs, sanctioned entities and the world’s largest energy conglomerate.

The oil traders are charged with brokering illicit oil deals for Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, as part of the scheme.

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SENTENCED FOR HATE CRIME ATTACKS AGAINST WOMEN: An East Williamsburg man has been sentenced to 12 to 24 years in prison for a series of attacks on women in East Williamsburg, selecting his victims based on their gender and skin color, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced today. The defendant, Khari Covington, 31, residing in an East Williamsburg transitional housing center, had pleaded guilty in September to third-degree burglary as a hate crime, second-degree attempted strangulation as a hate crime and third-degree assault as a hate crime.

The defendant was deemed a mandatory violent persistent felony offender.

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GUILTY PLEA AND SENTENCING FOR COMPANY THAT AIDED FOREIGN TERRORIST GROUPS: Lafarge S.A. (Lafarge), a global building materials manufacturer headquartered in France, and Lafarge Cement Syria, S.A. (LCS), a Lafarge subsidiary headquartered in Syria, pleaded guilty today in Brooklyn federal court to a one-count criminal information charging them with conspiring to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF), both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. Immediately following the defendants’ guilty pleas this morning, United States District Judge William F. Kuntz, II sentenced the defendants to terms of probation and to pay financial penalties, including criminal fines of $90.78 million and forfeiture of $687 million, totaling $777.78 million.

For many years, LaFarge had a location on 25^th Street on Sunset Park’s waterfront. The site was since acquired by another company.

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UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE SYSTEM UPGRADES ACCESS SECURITY: A new multi-factor authentication (MFA) initiative is now in use throughout the unemployment insurance (UI) system to provide top tier cyber protection for New Yorkers, the New York State Department of Labor announced today, in concert with October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month. MFA is an increasingly-used security technology that requires multiple methods of authentication, such as a code sent via text message or as a push notification on a mobile app, to verify a user’s identity for login purposes.

This new security measure, which provides added protection against criminals seeking to defraud the UI system, will keep users’ information secure; but the new policy could become an additional obstacle for those who do not have mobile devices or text message services.

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DIGITAL GIRL’S NEW TECHNOLOGY HUB UNVEILED: Digital Girl, Inc., a Brooklyn non-profit with a mission to empower inner city youth — especially young girls — to pursue careers in STEM, has unveiled its new technology hub in Crown Heights. The project was completed with the support of a $250,000 donation from the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, both of which have a long-standing relationship with Digital Girl, and Webull, the official jersey partner for both basketball teams.

The new space will help Digital Girl serve the community through providing free access to technology and computer development classes to the public, including new desktop Macs, PC computers, and a 3D printer for the computer center.

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NEW REPORT: ONLINE PLATFORMS HAD MOTIFYING ROLE IN BUFFALO MASS SHOOTING: Online platforms played a key role in the tragic and racially-motivated Buffalo mass shooting that took the lives of 10 Black individuals earlier this year, according to a newly-released report from New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul. During the course of the investigation, OAG obtained and reviewed external and internal content and policies of several of the online platforms used by the shooter, fringe online platforms, like 4chan, radicalized the shooter; livestreaming platforms, like Twitch, were weaponized to publicize and encourage copycat violent attacks; and a lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability of these platforms allowed hateful and extremist views to proliferate online, leading to radicalization and violence.

The investigation has prompted Attorney General James and Governor Hochul to urge that federal and state reforms be made to combat online extremism and violence, including state legislation that would criminalize graphic images or videos created by a perpetrator of a homicide, penalize individuals who reshare or repost those same materials, and to hold the online sites accountable.

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AFTER LATEST BURGLARY, MALLIOTAKIS DEMANDS CHANGES TO BAIL LAW: After the burglary this morning of Lulianos Pizzeria in Bay Ridge — the latest in a series of thefts against merchants — U.S. Rep Nicole Malliotakis (R-11/southwestern Brooklyn) demanded that Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature fix the bail law. “This morning, a small business located one block from my office was targeted by a perp whom police tell us is a parolee with a criminal history,” said Malliotakis, who has introduced legislation (H.R. 8647, the Protecting All Communities Equally Act) that would hold states with lax bail laws accountable and require that bail laws provide judges with the discretion to set bail if the accused is considered a danger to society.

Three weeks ago, Malliotakis held a press conference calling on Governor Hochul and the State Legislature to fix the bail law and stop releasing repeat offenders and parolees back on the streets.

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CHILD CARE ACCESS WILL EXPAND AMONG SUNY, CUNY SYSTEMS: A $15.6 million state investment will expand child care access for students with dependents at the State University of New York and the City University of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul announced yesterday. The funding includes $10.8 million to address child care scarcities across SUNY campuses and $4.8 million to provide additional child care services on CUNY campuses. This is the second phase of a broader initiative to ensure that students, faculty and staff on all SUNY and CUNY campuses have access to high-quality child care centers.

At some State University of New York campuses, about 80 percent of students with dependents reported that they had trouble meeting their child care needs.

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NEW LAWS REINFORCE PROTECTIONS FOR DOMESTIC/GENDER ABUSE SURVIVORS: A comprehensive package of legislation will strengthen protections for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence by ensuring guns are seized from abusive partners and protecting the confidentiality of survivors. Among the bills: Legislation (S.7157-A/A.6207-B) requires utilities allow survivors of domestic violence to opt-out of shared contracts without penalty; and Legislation (S.7263-A/A.2519-A) requires health insurance companies give survivors of domestic violence the option to provide alternative contact information to access claims and benefits information.

Governor Hochul signed five bills into law alongside survivors, advocates and legislative champions at Union Settlement, a nonprofit providing resources to survivors in East Harlem.

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FRANCIS COLLEGE HOLDS INTERFAITH BREAKFAST: St. Francis College recently held its inaugural Interfaith Breakfast at its new Livingston St. campus Downtown Brooklyn. The keynote speaker was Dr. Farid Hafez, Teaching Fellow in Human Rights at St. Francis College and Class of 1955 Visiting Professor of International Studies at Williams College, whose expertise and research interests include Islamic political thought, migration and racism, human rights, theories of democracy, human rights and democracy, Muslim minorities in the West, Islam in the media, and religion, politics and society.

The event highlighted SFC’s Franciscan values in action, celebrated the rich diversity of faiths represented at the College and strengthened its ties with surrounding faith communities. It was held on the closing day of St. Clare & St. Francis Week, which recognizes the life and legacy of the two people who inspired a worldwide movement for good that has endured for more than eight centuries.

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‘THE RISE AND FALL OF PROTESTANT BROOKLYN’: The Center for Brooklyn History presents “Talks in the Othmer | The Rise and Fall of Protestant Brooklyn,” this Thursday, October 20, with historians Stuart M. Blumin and Glenn C. Altschuler. Their new book of the same title chronicles 19^th century Brooklyn’s domination by upper-class and middle-class Protestants with roots in Puritan New England, and it describes the unraveling of the control they wielded as more ethnically diverse groups moved into the “City of Churches,” during the 20^th century.

Center for Brooklyn History’s Fall series, Talks in the Othmer, is presented in partnership with New York University’s Brooklyn-based 370 Jay Project. Programs take place in CBH’s beautiful Othmer Reading Room at 128 Pierrepont St. Register via: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/talks-othmer-rise-and-center-for-brooklyn-20221020