LI CRIME BRIEFS

UNIONDALE / Man gets 20 years for strangling ex

A Queens man who pleaded guilty to strangling the mother of his child and then leaving her body next to an abandoned home in Uniondale will serve 20 years to life for his crime, prosecutors said Thursday.

Marvon Jemmott, 37, of Rosedale, was days away from going to trial in the death of his ex-girlfriend, Jamaica Smith, when prosecutor Michael Walsh said he got new evidence in an already strong case against Jemmott. Walsh would not elaborate.

Jemmott then pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 27.

"He killed the mother of his daughter to avoid child support payments that he wasn't paying anyway," said Walsh, of the district attorney's major offense bureau. "He left this girl without a mother."

Smith, 36, disappeared after dropping off her daughter at a school blocks from his home on the day before Thanksgiving in 2009, police said.

On that day, police said Smith and Jemmott argued over his "unwillingness to pay or his infrequent payments." After strangling Smith, Jemmott drove her body from Queens to an abandoned home in Uniondale, Walsh said.

Jemmott dumped the body at the side of the house, where it was discovered by a water-meter reader on Dec. 7, 2009. Jemmott was arrested the following day.

Jemmott's lawyer, Douglas Rankin of Brooklyn, could not immediately be reached to comment.

-- ANN GIVENS

QUEENS /Counterfeit checks seized at JFK

More than 1,900 counterfeit U.S. Postal money orders, MoneyGram checks and bank checks worth more than $2.4 million have been seized at Kennedy Airport by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, authorities said.

The shipments originated in Nigeria, Robert Perez, U.S. Customs director of field operations in the New York Field Office, said in a prepared statement Wednesday. A routine enforcement exam Tuesday uncovered the counterfeits in containers manifested as "documents," officials said.

A closer inspection of the checks revealed them to be "bogus," the statement said.

"The unlawful trade of counterfeit monetary instruments has adverse effects on our economy," Perez said, adding that the agency is "dedicated to protecting the U.S. economy while facilitating legitimate trade and travel."

-- JOHN VALENTI