Volume 16 • Issue 35 | January 30 – February 05, 2004
Police blotter
Manslaughter charge at I.P.N.
The death of James Capobianco, 46, whose body was found in his Independence Plaza apartment at 310 Greenwich St. on Sept. 10, was first classified as due to natural causes but reclassified as a homicide during an investigation of checks that were stolen from the apartment, police said.
Lamont Sanders, 19, of 230 Willis Ave., the Bronx, was arrested on Fri., Jan. 23, and charged with second degree manslaughter, burglary and grand larceny in connection with the case. Police said Sanders told them the victim died of asphyxiation during sex and admitted that he was involved in the act. Sanders is also charged with stealing checks from the apartment and cashing them after Capobianco died.
Guilty plea
Beatrice Kaufman, 69, pleaded guilty to third degree grand larceny and fraud on Wed. Jan. 28 in connection with the World Trade Center disaster. The plea, entered the day her trial was to begin, was part of a deal that gets Kaufman a sentence of 52 weekends in jail in addition to paying restitution and fines totaling about $255,000. She remains free on $15,000 bail until her sentencing March 25.
Kaufman admitted she got more than $58,700 from Chubb Insurance Co, and more than $8,000 each from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red cross and nearly $10,000 from Safe Horizons by falsely claiming the terror attack forced her out of her $5 million Downtown residence and office where she ran an employment agency.
Kaufman admitted that on the morning of the attack she was in her summer home on Long Island and that she had no intention of returning soon to her Downtown office and home, which was being renovated.
The plea requires Kaufman to make restitution to Chubb, FEMA and the charities and to pay fines of $162,520.
—Albert Amateau
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