LI CRIME BRIEFS

NEW YORK CITY / Court upholds no-scarf rule for jail photo

An arrested Orthodox Jewish woman did not have a constitutional right to keep her head scarf on while she was being photographed at the New York City jail, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that it was reasonable for officials at the Rose M. Singer Correctional Facility to require that prisoners be photographed without head coverings so that they could be easily identified.

The plaintiff in the case, Elizabeth Zargary, was arrested in Brooklyn and charged with grand larceny, forgery, and other offenses in 1999, according to court papers. She sued the city.

"The policy is reasonably related to the city's unassailable interests in identifying prisoners and maintaining prison and prisoner safety and security," the court said in a summary order affirming a lower-court ruling in favor of the city in Manhattan federal court.

- JOHN RILEY

HEMPSTEAD / Man stabbed to death at bar identified

Police said Tuesday they have identified a man fatally stabbed in a December fight at a Hempstead bar.

The victim is Plutaco Galindo, 23, of Westbury. Nassau police said no one has been arrested in the Dec. 23 stabbing outside the El Pacifico Bar on North Franklin Street.

Police said they believe the stabbing was gang-related. Galindo was one of two men police said were stabbed. The second victim, whose identity has not been released, suffered "nonlife-threatening" injuries.

Following the stabbing about 2:40 a.m., police said, Galindo and the other victim raced to a hospital in a car driven by a third man, but crashed into a taxicab from the El Salvador Taxi Company. Debris from the accident struck a nearby pedestrian.

Galindo died at 3:51 a.m. at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, police said. Police said the accident did not contribute to Galindo's death.

The cabdriver and his passenger had nonlife-threatening injuries and the pedestrian had minor injuries, according to police.

The stabbing was being investigated by the department's gang suppression unit and homicide detectives, Nassau police homicide squad commander Det. Lt. John Azzata said after the stabbing.

The attackers thought Galindo and three friends were members of a gang known as "18th Street," which the four men denied, Azzata said.

Azzata said a man was drinking beer with three others at a bar near North Franklin and Jackson street when another accused Galindo and his friends of being members of the 18th Street gang.

- ZACHARY R. DOWDY

SANDS POINT / Hearing to weigh house sale by ex-Islanders exec

A former New York Islanders executive charged with fraud faces a hearing next month on who's entitled to $4 million in proceeds from the upcoming sale of his house in Sands Point.

Stephen Walsh had his assets frozen when he was charged in 2009 in an $150 million fraud involving his trading firm, WG Trading, and was also sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

The case still hasn't come to trial, but a court-appointed receiver has found a buyer for Walsh's house.

Walsh is entitled to the first $900,000 under previous rulings, but the government claims the rest can be connected to the fraud charges, his lawyer, Mark Flessner, told U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum on Tuesday.

Walsh has argued that he needs the money to pay legal fees. Cedarbaum set a March 28 hearing on the issue.

Walsh, 66, served as a co-chairman of the Islanders from 1991 to 1998, when his ownership group was bought out by Charles Wang. His co-defendant in the criminal case, Paul Greenwood, 63, of North Salem, also a former Islanders executive, pleaded guilty last year.

- JOHN RILEY