Queens Crap

Estelle Cooper, 82, allegedly stole thousands of dollars from a conservancy organization she ran -- and that's on top of her $100k, taxpayer-funded salary..

While many 82-year-old Queens women opt to spend the winter months in places like Florida, there's a chance one of the borough's former parks commissioners will be spending hers in the hoosgow -- where she could potentially be spending the next 15 years.

The Queens District Attorney's Office announced this afternoon the indictment of Estelle Cooper, 82 -- who until December served as the commissioner of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and executive director of Unisphere, Inc., a nonprofit conservancy group that she helped establish and which funds activities at the park -- for allegedly stealing money from the conservancy.

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Aubrey Lee Price

The United States Attorney's Office has filed charges against a Georgia man for allegedly embezzling more than $17 million from the bank he manages. The problem, however, is that he's now missing -- he's also apparently suicidal.

Aubrey Lee Price has been missing since June 16, after he was last seen boarding a ferry in Key West, Florida, bound for Fort Myers. Prior to his disappearance, he told friends that he'd "lost a lot of money through trading activities and that he planned to kill himself."

According to a criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York, Price became a director of the southern Georgia bank after PFG LLC, a company he controlled, bought a controlling portion of the bank's stock in December 2010. 

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Fake lawyers really suck.

A Manhattan woman who posed as an immigration attorney to scam a Chinese immigrant is heading to the hoosegow.

Jennifer Lam, 39, pleaded guilty in March to one count each of grand larceny in the third degree and unadmitted and unregistered practices as an attorney for scamming the immigrant out of more than $100,000. Today, Lam was sentenced to nine months in jail.

"Con artists who pose as fake attorneys and target our immigrant communities will be punished," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance says. 

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It seems Thomas Parkin has seen Psycho one too many times.

A Brooklyn man who dressed up as his dead mother to commit real estate and social security fraud was in court this afternoon where he was sentenced to some rather lengthy prison time after getting found guilty last month of multiple dressing-as-your-dead-mother-to-scam-people-related crimes.

Parkin, 51, was sentenced to a total of 13 2/3 to 41 years in prison for a scam in which he attempted to convince the government that his mother was alive so he could regain ownership of her home, which was sold at auction after Parkin was unable to pay the mortgage.

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Renata Shamrakova is on the hook for bilking her former boss, Nicky Hilton's Ex-Hubby Todd Meister -- out of more than 900,000 bucks, and she has just been indicted in a Manhattan court.

The 27-year-old personal assistant is said to have made unauthorized charges on her employer's credit card and bank accounts, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

From what the D.A. says, it sounds like Shamrakova had quite a bit of fun with Meister's Amex. From March 2011 to January 2012, she added her name to his credit card, and then opened a platinum account in her own name. She then used the plastic to pay for trips Aruba, Canada, Italy, India and France, cops say.

She also had a lot of food delivered to her with one of these accounts.

The charges include grand larceny in the second and third degrees, identity theft in the first degree, and possession of stolen property in the fourth degree.

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A thieving trio busted into Time Pieces, an antique watch and clock store, at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, robbing the clerk at knifepoint before macing the victim and running off with the costly chronometers, cops say.

The suspected perps fled the shop, located at 115 Greenwich Avenue, on foot.

Nobody was hurt.

Cops describe one of the suspects as between 21 and 25-years-old, with a medium build. He was wearing a white baseball cap, dark jacket, blue jeans, and dark sneakers.

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It sure looks like a good way to be a criminal in this town is to pretend to be a cop.

Cops say these men pulled up to a Rosedale Pay-O-Matic check cashing store at 247-12 South Conduit Avenue around 8:10 a.m. on Tuesday, identified themselves as detectives, and made off with cash. Then, they hit the road in a late 1990s Ford Expedition with a "broken rear passenger window that was covered by black plastic and secured with silver-colored duct tape." (Classy.) The truck might have had Virginia license plates.

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Cops want your help finding two men who robbed at gunpoint a cell phone store Friday.

The NYPD says that the suspects, pictured here, busted into the Metro PCS at 350 East 14th Street, demanded money from an employee, and then fled the store with an unknown amount of cash.

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Three of the men who stand accused of breaking into fellow Amish people's homes in Ohio at night and cutting off their beards and hair have been arrested. Members of the tiny, weirdo Bergholz Clan, helmed by the unbelievably-named Sam Mullet, are suspected in the hair/beard attacks. Two of Mullet's sons and another man have been taken into custody.

Apparently the attacks were "meant to humiliate and punish those Amish whose faith, according to some, has weakened."

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FBI

​The latest bandit in town is the "One Glove Bandit," named thusly because his gimmick -- and every criminal needs a good gimmick these days -- is that he wears a single glove, à la Michael Jackson. So far, he's robbed three NYC banks, the latest being a Chase Bank in Flushing yesterday morning at gunpoint. He and his gloved hand made off with a "large amount of money." The OGB is described as a black Hispanic male, 5'8", last seen wearing a blue Yankees hat, black sunglasses, and a blue and black long-sleeve plaid shirt. He's also believed to have robbed the same Signature Bank in Brooklyn twice, on May 6 and July 1. The FBI describes his robberies as "increasingly violent." Anyone with information is asked to call 212-384-1000. [FBI / Gothamist]

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