B'klyn yeshiva leader suspected of abusing male students grilled by cops

A Brooklyn yeshiva leader today was being grilled by cops who suspect him of having sexually abused three male students at the religious school where he worked, sources said.

The 34-year-old suspect allegedly brought two students from the ultra-Orthodox school to motels for sexual liaisons. Law-enforcement sources said he allegedly sodomized one boy at a motel, but another fled the motel room after the suspect started rubbing his back.

The suspect allegedly rubbed a third victim’s groin through his pants with one hand while masturbating with the other while the pair was in the suspect’s car on the way to school, officials said.

The victims were all 12- to 14-year-olds.

“There’s a fourth possible victim out there that they haven’t spoken to yet,” a source said.

Sources said the school leader was arrested and was being questioned at the 79th Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Charges were pending.

He worked at Ohr Hameir, a school for Satmar teens. Officials said the encounters took place between March of last year and last week.

The private Borough school has been closed since the end of last year because of a financial dispute.

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Mompreneur jumps into the ‘Shark Tank’

It all started with a 4 a.m. email nearly a year ago: “Do you think a baby bib could change the world? I do...”

Then Susie Taylor included a link to her website, bibbitec.com, and off it went to Shark Tank, the popular ABC television show where entrepreneurs pitch their companies to investors on the show — and by extension, 7 million viewers.

Four months later, as the “mompreneur” was leaving her Biscayne Park home to pick up her kids from school, she got a call from the show asking her to pitch on the spot. Driving with her phone on her shoulder, she told the Bibbitec story.

Shark Tank bit. After a few more back and forths, her segment was filmed last summer.

Friday night, Taylor is scheduled to be on the show pitching Bibbitec’s main product, “The Ultimate Bib,” a patented generously sized, stain-resistant and fast-drying child’s bib made in the USA — Hialeah, to be exact. Bibbitec’s $30 bib can be a burp cloth, changing pad, breast feeding shield, full body bib, place mat, art smock and more, Taylor says.

We won’t be getting any details on what happens Friday night when she and her husband, Stephen Taylor, get into the tank with Daymond John, Mark Cuban and the other celebrity sharks; Taylor has been contractually sworn to secrecy. But whatever the outcome, she believes it will be worth it for the marketing pop.

Taylor was inspired to create her bib after a long and very messy plane ride with two young sons and started her company in 2008. She and her team — her husband is CFO, her sister, Heather McCabe, handles sales and marketing, her uncle, Richard Page, is in charge of production, and her aunt, Marcia Kreitman, advises on design — have expanded the line to include The Ultimate Smock for older children and the Ultimate Mini for babies. Coming soon: a smock for adults.

Taylor already got a taste of what a national TV show appearance can do for sales. In September, Bibbitec’s sales jumped 40 percent after she was on an ABC World News "Made in America" segment. “Within 30 seconds, we started getting sales from all over the country and they didn’t even mention our name on the air,” Taylor says. She said that confirmed her belief that a Shark Tank appearance would be worth it.

Plus, Taylor has been hooked on Shark Tank since the first time she watched it in 2008 as she was developing her product. Trained in theater, she admits she didn’t know much about business and learned from the show. She would practice how she would answer the questions.

“I’m all about empowering women who are sitting on the couch watching, because that’s what I was four years ago,” says Taylor. “All I wanted to do was to be on Shark Tank because I believed if I got on Shark Tank the world will see what I am trying to do and that’s all I need. I know it’s a great product.”

Will that theater training come in handy Friday night? Stay tuned. Shark Tank airs at 9 p.m. on ABC and Taylor hopes viewers will join in on Twitter using the hashtag #sharkbib.

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South Miami police supplier hires chief's son

The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics said last week that the South Miami Police Department can continue to purchase equipment from Lou’s Police Distributors, a company that recently hired the police chief’s son.

“The son has no direct or indirect financial ownership in the company and will not be involved in the local contract, or profit from it,” the commission on ethics said in a press release.

Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro had asked for the opinion.

The opinion comes at time when a majority of the commission wants Martinez de Castro out of a job. The chief has a case pending with the commission on ethics, after investigators reported finding evidence there were a few transactions involving the police department and his wife’s business. Also, Mayor Philip Stoddard has been accusing the chief of breaking state rules when he signed off on a $9,998 gun repair expense that used state forfeiture funds to pay for gun repairs at Lou’s Police Distributors.

Stoddard said that the police department broke Florida rules of use, because the purchase was an operating expense and it was not part of an “extraordinary” program.

Meanwhile, the chief’s eldest son, Christopher Martinez de Castro, is the new vice president of international sales at Lou’s Police Distributors, which has been a South Miami supplier for about two years, has contracts with many departments in Miami-Dade County and also sells weapons and tactical equipment in Central and South America.

“It’s an entirely different department. Where the city will piggyback on a bigger contract to get a better deal, I work with clients from around the world,” the chief’s son said. “I have nothing to do with sales to South Miami – absolutely nothing. It is just being brought up because they [commissioners] want to attack him.”

Stoddard and his supporters have been poring over public records related to the chief’s use of public funds. Most recently, Stoddard threatened to file a lawsuit against the city, after Maj. Ana Baixauli refused to release records related to ongoing criminal investigations, which are exempt from the state’s public records law.

Commissioners have accused the chief of abusing his position to target those who oppose him, after two commissioners’ friends were arrested — including Commissioner Bob Welsh’s friend who was a homeless Canadian undocumented migrant with a criminal record.

Commissioner Walter Harris said Martinez de Castro has continued to show a special interest in cases involving politicians’ friends and family. The chief has said that his officers have only been doing their job when the politicians’ friends and family have broken the law, because “any special treatment” would mean breaking the law.

On Jan. 5, Harris’ wife, Eda Sagi Harris, who has been active in South Miami politics for years, damaged a parked silver Honda Odyssey while backing out of a parking space at the Dadeland Station Mall garage in Southeast Miami-Dade. She was driving the commissioner’s blue Toyota Corolla and told police that she “scratched” the car but left the scene, because she didn’t “hit it.”

Several cars from Miami-Dade police and South Miami police showed up at her home, after surveillance video identified her. Miami-Dade police cited her for “leaving the scene of an accident,” which is a misdemeanor. The police reports referred to the incident as a hit-and-run and estimated the “minor” damage at $500.

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RIM faces its day of reckoning with BlackBerry 10 launch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The innovative line of BlackBerry smartphones that Research In Motion Ltd will formally unveil on Wednesday has already succeeded on one crucial count – getting RIM back in the conversation.

The new BlackBerry 10 has created a buzz among technology watchers and financial analysts, thanks to nifty features that may set it apart in an overcrowded smartphone market. RIM stock has almost tripled over the past four months on hopes the devices can restore RIM to sustained prosperity.

Reviewers like the browser speed and the intuitive keyboard on RIM’s new touchscreen. A feature called BlackBerry Balance, which keeps corporate and personal data separate, could help RIM rebuild its traditional base of big business customers.

It’s a welcome start for RIM, the smartphone pioneer that has teetered on the brink of irrelevance. But success will come only if consumer and business customers embrace the new technology in the weeks and months after CEO Thorsten Heins takes the wraps off the phone at a glitzy New York launch.

RIM is gambling its survival on the much-delayed BlackBerry 10, hoping to claw its way back into an industry now dominated by Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s Galaxy.

The timing may be just right. The new phone hits the market just as the iPhone’s remarkable run is showing some signs of slowing.

“I really do believe that the consumer market as a whole is ready for something new,” said Kevin Burden, head of mobility at Strategy Analytics, an industry consulting firm.

“I have to believe that there is some level of user fatigue that plays into the longevity of some of these platforms,” he added, referring to Google Inc’s Android and Apple’s iOS, which are both more than five years old. “RIM is probably timing it right.”

U.S. BATTLEGROUND

To be sure, RIM shares are about 90 percent below a 2008 peak near $ 150 a share and the company still has a tough fight ahead. It may take investors some time to determine whether RIM’s big gamble on an untested technology has paid off.

RIM’s market share collapsed in the three years ahead of the launch. Strategy Analytics data shows RIM’s global share of the smartphone market was about 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter, down from around 20 percent just three years ago.

While RIM has done well in developing markets, it has hemorrhaged customers in the United States, a market that sets technology trends. RIM’s fourth-quarter North American market share fell to 2 percent from more than 40 percent three years ago.

Acknowledging that it is crucial to win back U.S. customers, RIM will hold its main BlackBerry 10 launch in New York, although there are simultaneous events in six cities across the globe.

Underscoring the point, RIM is splurging on a costly Super Bowl ad to tout its new devices and attempt to brighten its faded image in the U.S. market.

BIG QUESTIONS

Over 150 carriers already have tested the new devices and RIM has said the launch will be the largest ever global rollout of a new platform.

The two big questions the market expects RIM to answer on Wednesday are when the phones – a full touch-screen device and one with a traditional physical keyboard – will hit store shelves, and how much they will cost.

The company is expected to unveil specifics on pricing and availability in different regions at the launch.

“The Street is expecting mid-February for a launch. Anything earlier than that is a positive, anything later will be viewed as negative,” said RBC Dominion Securities analyst Paul Treiber.

That said, there are few mysteries to be cleared up on Wednesday. Leaked photos and specifications of the devices have been splashed across the tech world.

“We’ve had the beta devices for a few weeks and in terms of the devices, they are right up there with the competition,” said Andy Ambrozic, head of IT Infrastructure at Ricoh Canada. “The Balance feature is crucial for corporations that are becoming increasingly concerned about data security.”

Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou feels RIM has a good chance of a comeback. He says the new BB10 operating system outpaces Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s market-leading Android system in every category except app selection and content.

“There is, we believe, huge potential for the platform and devices to bring people back to BlackBerry or draw entirely new users into the platform,” said Papageorgiou, who has a “sector outperform” rating on the stock.

BlackBerry 10 will not be able to compete on the number of apps, but RIM says its operating system will have the largest application library for any new platform at launch, with more than 70,000 apps available.

It has already gathered big-name music and video partners for its BlackBerry 10 storefront, including Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, Universal Music and Warner Music Group.

Wireless carriers already report strong demand for the new devices. Rogers Communications Inc, Canada’s top wireless carrier and the first globally to take pre-orders for the new devices, said orders are already in the thousands.

“Our customers are excited,” said John Boynton, Rogers’ head of marketing, adding that some users are holding off on upgrades in anticipation of the BB10 launch.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty, Janet Guttsman and Andre Grenon)

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Rocsi's Behind the Scenes of Super Bowl Media Day

ET's Rocsi Diaz caught up with both teams at Super Bowl Media Day in New Orleans, getting up close and personal with the players, who let their hair down for Rocsi's camera phone footage.

RELATED: Inside Beyonce's Super Bowl Rehearsals!

Rocsi's Nokia Lumia 920 captured the gridiron warriors of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens trying to stay relaxed before Sunday's big game.

Click the video to see what the players were willing to do for an ET bead necklace. Super Bowl XLVII airs February 3 at 3:30 p.m. PT/ 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS.

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'Fake lawyer' arraigned after allegedly representing clients with no degree

The bi-polar, heroin-using son of a prominent Albany lawyer walked into a Manhattan courtroom at least three times last year, facing judges and representing a paying client despite having no law degree, according to the charges in a bizarre attorney-imposter case.

Terence Kindlon, 42, just wants to be a real attorney, his defense lawyer argued today. Unfortunately, "He does not know at times when he is taking over another character," said the lawyer, Stacey Richman. "Sadly, he is an extremely intelligent person."

Making the case still more strange is that Kindlon is the defendant in two open burglary felonies in the same Centre Street courthouse.

The mentally-troubled Kindlon most recently played criminal lawyer on Nov. 29 in Manhattan Criminal Court, prosecutors say. Court records show he returned there the very next day, Nov. 30, to face another judge upstairs as a defendant in his two felony burglary cases, one charging he stole a bicycle and another charging he stole a motorcycle.

"The defendant has shown the utmost contempt of the courts -- pretending to be a lawyer in the same courthouse where he has two open cases," the Manhattan DA's rackets bureau chief, Daniel Cort, said at Kindlon's arraignment today.

Kindlon didn't stop there, additionally holding himself out as a lawyer to a small landscaping business in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island, prosecutors say -- sticking to his "I'm a lawyer" story even as cops questioned him there two weeks ago.

"I am the in-house counsel for Rocco's Landscaping," Kindlon asserted, according to police statements released today.

Kindlon, who prosecutors described as an apparent heroin user, never saw the criminal case -- described only as involving a misdemeanor mischief charge -- through to disposition, and allegedly did even less work for Rocco's Landscaping.

"He left those people high and dry… while representing them on six civil cases," Cort said. "He took [their] money and never came to court."

Kindlon "lawyered" using the name of an actual Manhattan attorney, James David O'Brien, and the ruse was exposed when prosecutors in the misdemeanor case reached the real O'Brien by telephone, prosecutors said. O'Brien did not immediately return calls seeking comment yesterday.

The eldest of seven siblings, Kindlon attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan twenty years ago, passed the New York State Bar Exam within the past year and has worked as a paralegal, his father, also named Terence Kindlon, told The Post.

"I'm going to be upfront about this -- he has severe emotional problems," said the dad, a respected, 35-year veteran of the bar and founding member of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"The DA nows that they are shooting fish in a barrel here -- but it's their barrel. Unfortunately, it's also my fish," he said, giving a small, grim laugh.

"It's a very upsetting situation," the dad said. "But there's a very powerful explanation for why this took place."

Manhattan Criminal Court Justice Richard Carruthers set Kindlon's bail at a whopping $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash.

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Marlins hire new PR firm

Maybe a new slogan will help?

The Miami Marlins on Tuesday announced the hiring of a new public relations firm to help with the team’s battered image on the heels of jettisoning star players and renewed backlash against tax dollars used to build the team’s new baseball park.

Miami’s Jeffrey Group won the account. The company replaces RBB and founding partner Bruce Rubin, a longtime friend of owner Jeffrey Loria whose Coral Gables firm represented the team since it won the World Series in 2003.

“The client engagement is over,’’ Rubin said Tuesday. “I never discuss why a client engagement ends.”

The PR switch comes after a bruising debut season for the Marlins in the new $640 million ballpark. The team’s manager caused an international uproar when he declared his admiration for Fidel Castro, management slashed payroll by jettisoning star players, and now the Marlins’ stadium deal with Miami-Dade is under fire again as the Miami Dolphins use it as a foil for the subsidies they want for Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens. At a recent debate on the Dolphins plan, one county commissioner cited a “stench” that lingers from the 2009 Marlins deal, where taxpayers borrowed about $560 million for the project.

Mike Valdes-Fauli, president of the Jeffrey Group, declined to get into the details of the planned strategy for reviving the Marlins’ image. But he conceded his firm of about 100 employees has some work to do with their new client’s messaging.

“Definitely the Marlins are cognizant of how important it is moving forward that they communicate better with fans and stakeholders across the community,’’ he said. “I think it will be important for the Miami Marlins to communicate their point of view on a whole host of issues, including on the upcoming season, some of the challenges they’ve faced in the past, and even the current comparisons with the Miami Dolphins.”

DOUGLAS HANKS

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Related developers find themselves in court over tactics

His company on trial over its tactics in a controversial condo project, Jorge Perez, the celebrated developer, found himself on the witness stand Monday answering to an unexpected foe: Jorge Perez, the author.

Perez, the chairman of the Related Group, testified in the trial of a lawsuit brought against his company by The Vizcayans, a fundraising and support group for the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. The Vizcayans have accused Perez’s company of secretly manipulating the zoning process at Miami City Hall to win approval in 2007 for a three-tower condo project next to Mercy Hospital in Coconut Grove — forcing the Vizcayans to spend more than $1 million in legal fees in its successful effort to kill the project.

The Vizcayans, who objected to the project because it would have intruded on the views from the historic property, have also accused the developers of quietly buying the approval of two local neighborhood associations by offering them $8 million in exchange for their support.

William Davis, a lawyer for the Vizcayans, questioned Perez about the arrangement by citing passages from Perez’s 2009 book, Powerhouse Principles: The Ultimate Blueprint for Real Estate Success in an Ever-Changing Market (foreword by Donald Trump). In the book, Perez discussed his efforts to build the Mercy Hospital project, and said his team decided to keep the payments to the neighborhood groups secret because “we gave them a lot of money,” and he feared other groups would ask for more if they got wind of it.

Perez sheepishly conceded that he didn’t exactly write his book — it was the work of a ghostwriter with whom he worked. “They were my thoughts interpreted by a person that was writing,” he said.

Davis also tried to hoist Perez on one of his powerhouse principles from the book: “neutralize the opposition.” He suggested that Related sued the Vizcayans seeking public records in an effort to harass them. Perez denied the allegation and said he had no recollection of that lawsuit.

Perez insisted that there was nothing sinister about the deals with the neighborhood groups; he said the payments to the groups were simply a routine practice his firm follows when it seeks community support for its projects.

“I’m doing that on probably 10 projects right now,” Perez said.

Yery Marrero, the president of the Natoma Manors homeowners’ association, told jurors that her group supported the condo project not because of the promise of money, but because they thought the condos would prevent Mercy Hospital from expanding and bringing even more traffic to their already congested neighborhood.

“Our issue in our neighborhood is traffic,” Marrero told jurors. “Per day we have so many cars going through there.”

The Vizcayans’ lawyers have portrayed the payments as part of a larger scheme to win over the Miami City Commission, which had to endorse zoning and land-use changes for the condo project. They have accused Related’s staffers, lawyers and lobbyists of working behind the scenes to essentially rig the commission vote.

In one January 2007 e-mail, a Related vice president told Perez that they had confirmed the votes of three commissioners in favor of the condo deal — days before the first public hearing on the project.

The city commission ultimately approved the project in a 3-2 vote. But following a suit from The Vizcayans, an appeals court later overturned the decision, finding that the city ran afoul of state zoning laws and that then-Mayor Manny Diaz had improper contact with Perez during the veto period after the vote. Diaz is expected to testify Tuesday.

Related’s lawyers, John Shubin and Israel Reyes, have asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Daryl Trawick to throw out the case, saying The Vizcayans have failed to prove that the developers set out to deliberately harm the nonprofit.

The developers’ lawyers also called Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado as a witness Monday. Regalado, who was on the commission at the time of the 2007 vote, said he never heard anything suggesting that the developers were trying to harm The Vizcayans.

Shubin said the Vizcayans are wrongly seeking to punish the developers for simply petitioning the government for a zoning change.

“This is all about petitioning activity,” Shubin said. “They can’t even cite to you a case that looks remotely like this one that has been brought.”

Perez took his day on the witness stand with good humor. “I’m glad someone is reading my book,” he said when his testimony ended.

The trial, now in its fourth week, is expected to end this week.

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What the ‘Bqhatevwr’ Did Scott Brown Tweet?

What do politicians do after losing their re-election bids? Take to Twitter, of course. Former Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts has been doing just that.

Brown has been tweeting about his everyday life post-politics, posting blurbs about house chores, football, and his family, but Brown’s tweets are somewhat less refined than those tweeted by his skilled staffers when he was serving in Congress.

On his verified Twitter account on Friday morning, the former senator tweeted about seeing his daughter, Ayla perform at Pejamajo Café in Holliston.

“Yes. Get ready.” The tweet read, but without the finesse of Brown’s tweeting staff, one of his followers misunderstood the message.

“Oh we are. You have no idea how ready #MaPoli is to vote to keep you in the private sector & out of #MASen” @MattinSomerville tweeted back.

Brown responded with a series of three tweets delivered after midnight.

“Your brilliant Matt,” he first tweeted.

“Whatever,” followed.

And finally Brown tweeted, “Bqhatevwr.”

Though he deleted his tweets, “Bqhatevwr” trended on Twitter nearly as quickly as #eastwooding.

The trending typo drew both bipartisan support and mockery. Some taunted the former senator for his late night slip-up, creating Internet memes and “Bqhatevwr” quips, while others defended Brown, saying that he is just an average Joe who committed a typical Twitter faux pas.

But what most Twitter enthusiast failed to recognize what that Brown’s first “Your brilliant” tweet was grammatically incorrect, too.

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Father 'proud' of son who stood up to alleged molester

I'm proud of him, the dad testified today of a brave nine-year-old boy who stood up to an alleged sex-molesting school aide at the Upper West Side's PS 87 last year.

The boy had taken the stand Friday to describe the alleged abuse at the hands of aide Gregory Atkins, 56, angrily confronting the defense attorney during cross examination by shouting, "Stop being a bully!"

In his own turn on the stand today, the kid's father, an educator, described to jurors how his son complained to him of Atkins on the night of the alleged abuse in a manner largely consistent with the kid's witness stand account a year later.

The troubled child had needed counseling three times a week after the incident, but now, "He is doing better than he's ever done before," the dad told a Manhattan Supreme Court jury, where Atkins is fighting first degree sex abuse and felony child porn possession charges.

"He's very extroverted, very curious," the dad told jurors of his son. "I'm very proud of him," testified the dad, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the child.

Of the family's $3 million claim against the Board of Education, the dad said that should a lawsuit be pursued, any money damages would be the child's. But another motivation of filing suit would be to prompt the BoE to improve background checks on staff, he said.

Atkins was hired at the high performing school despite a history of being reprimanded verbally for inappropriate sexual behavior toward another boy student at his prior school -- including giving that child inappropriate gifts including a jock strap.

"I've always said he's a significant improvement on the prior generation," the dad beamed to reporters, speaking of his son after court. "He's a great guy."

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