Long Island Crime Briefs
LONG BEACH / No bail for city official
A federal appellate court ruled Wednesday that a Long Beach financial manager must stay in jail while awaiting trial on charges that he threatened to kill a federal regulator.
Vincent McCrudden, 49, had appealed federal Judge Denis Hurley's decision denying him bail. Hurley had said the charges against McCrudden showed he could be a threat to society.
McCrudden's attorney, Bruce Barket of Garden City, expressed aggravation with the ruling.
"I'm not surprised by it, but I'm outraged by it," he said. "He's no threat to anyone."
The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment.
McCrudden is accused of encouraging others to hurt certain regulators in a Web posting, in addition to threatening to kill an official of the National Futures Association.
-- ANDREW SMITH
ISLIP / Alleged drunken driver in crash
An alleged drunken driver crashed into the back of a van on Sunrise Highway in Islip, pushing it more than 200 feet, flipping it and rupturing the gas tank, a Suffolk County Sheriff's Department spokesman said Wednesday.
Gilmer Maco, 58, was driving a Honda Accord at "a high rate of speed" at about 11 p.m. Tuesday on eastbound Sunrise Highway at Route 111 when he crashed into the Dodge van, a sheriff's spokesman said. The impact pushed the van more than 200 feet and wedged the car under the van, sheriffs said.
The driver of the van, whose identity was not released, was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore with neck and back pain.
Maco was charged with driving while intoxicated after he refused a blood test at Southside, authorities said.
-- JOHN VALENTI
MANHASSET / Handyman pleads guilty to murder
A Manhasset handyman has acknowledged he bludgeoned a 64-year-old woman to death with a hammer during an August 2009 break-in.
Keith Land pleaded guilty to murder Wednesday in Nassau County Court. He said he killed Ruthell Williams by repeatedly hitting her in the head with a hammer.
Land broke into her home on Aug. 23, 2009, demanding money and jewelry. When she refused, Land attacked, prosecutors have said. She later died from brain injuries.
Land faces a prison term of 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced June 9.
-- AP
BROOKLYN / FBI coercion alleged in bomb plot case
The father of accused subway bomb plotter Adis Medunjanin testified yesterday that months before his son's arrest in 2010, FBI agents tried to convince him to fire his son's lawyer and deal directly with the government.
Abidin Medunjanin, testifying at a hearing on a motion to suppress incriminating statements eventually made by his son, said the agents visited him at his workplace and told him the lawyer was too "expensive" for the family, and the FBI would give him a fair shake.
The defense claims that the FBI kept Medunjanin hidden from his lawyer for a day after his Jan. 7, 2010, arrest and used threats to get him to talk. The government says Medunjanin decided to talk without a lawyer because he was concerned about the cost, but the defense says it was pre-planned by agents.
After testifying, Abidin Medujanin asked permission through his Bosnian translator to go shake his son's hand. The judge allowed it, and outside Brooklyn federal court the father explained that jail meetings always are through a glass window.
"I want to shake hand because I love my children," he said. "Touch him because I (have) not touched him in maybe one year."
Medunjanin, 26, of Queens, is accused of plotting to bomb the city subways in 2009 with friends Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay. Both have pleaded guilty.
-- JOHN RILEY
