March 28, 2006

KPMG EXEC PLEADS GUILTY

A high-ranking partner at accounting giant KPMG pleaded guilty to helping fabricate $11.2 billion in fake tax shelters so America's wealthiest families could beat income taxes. The guilty plea yesterday...

SMART CALL ON STARTUP

Highly regarded venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, an early backer of Internet darlings Google and Yahoo!, has pumped more than $2 million into a new Web-based phone company that claims...

J.P. MORGAN DINED HERE

STATE tax agents have shuttered the 14 Wall Street restaurant in the 31st-floor penthouse of 14 Wall St., the landmarked, 1 million-square-foot office tower that Shaya Boymelgreen and his partners...

MORGAN MAIL CALL - AXED WHISTLEBLOWER SPILLS NOTES IN $20M SUIT

A former Morgan Stanley technology executive at war with the firm over an alleged improper dismissal from his $500,000 a year job has produced what he claims are smoking gun...

MOGULS ARE SITTING ON PILES OF $ILVER

As silver soared yesterday to new highs, some investors wondered whether Bill Gates and Warren Buffett - America's two richest men - could face a silver-bullet fate like that of...

MEMO TO CONDÉ: BOYS DON'T SHOP, CARGO TO CLOSE

Condé Nast Publications yesterday shut down its slumping men's shopping magazine, Cargo, after just two years. The magazine employed about 75 to 80 people and most of them are likely...

LOWE TAKES BLOW IN INTERPUBLIC HOUSECLEANING

Interpublic Group unveiled a turnaround plan yesterday that includes closing more than half the offices of its struggling creative agency Lowe Worldwide. The move is a start, but the daylong...

MONEY TO BURN - BUYOUT FIRMS' RETAIL DEALMANIA RAISES QUESTIONS

When the Jones Apparel Group became the latest clothing manufacturer to put itself up for sale last week, some industry executives and investment bankers were left scratching their heads. "It...

SEC SEEKS GRADIENT CONTACTS

A March 10 SEC subpoena to Gradient Analytics demanded the research shop provide records of all e-mail and phone contacts Gradient has had with approximately eight financial reporters. Part of...

TROUBLING TIMES - PROXY REPORT SHAMES PAPER OVER EXEC PAY

The whopping stock grants given to New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and President and CEO Janet Robinson last year were blasted by a proxy watchdog service, which gave...

BEAUTY HAS DIRTY SECRETS

IS your makeup as dirty as the bottom of your shoe? Not exactly, but it's pretty close. Brushing on bacteria, "double-dipping" into contaminated containers and patting on mold has become...

STAR WARS - CALLS JOY 'B-WORD' DURING PHONE FIGHT

STAR Jones and Joy Behar were at each other's throats again on yesterday's "The View" - and Jones wasn't even in the studio. It eventually got so bad that one...

'IDOL' FOR STUPID PET TRICKS

EVEN elephants will get a shot at Simon Cowell's new NBC talent show, "America's Got Talent" - but only if they have star quality. "Now we've opened the show up...

STARR REPORT

Anyone home? More ratings woes for David Lee Roth, who replaced Howard Stern on the train-wreck now known as Free FM (92.3). According to preliminary winter ratings, Roth's February Arbitron...

CAPTAIN CROOK - [****] (FOUR STARS) 'THIEF' SMART AND COMPLEX

By the second episode you will understand that they have four more episodes to pull off a very nasty $40 million heist MOVE over Jack Bauer - here comes Andre...

MONKEY BUSINESS HITS HOME SCREENS

PETER Jackson's "King Kong" arrives on DVD today. Here's a breakdown of the surprisingly huge number of "Kong" films now available. * KING KONG (1933) [****] (Four stars) (Warner, $29.98)...

ROOT, ROOT, ROUTE - WHERE TO CELEBRATE BASEBALL RIGHT NOW, BOTH HOME AND AWAY

WHAT'S not to love about our great American pastime? It has photo-finish plays at home plate in the bottom of the ninth. Base-clearing grand slams with two outs and two...

I'M WITH STUPID - IN HOLLYWOOD, THE SMART MONEY PLAYS DUMB; STRAIGHT DOPE

AMERICA has fallen - hook, line and Pickler. The line: A former cheerleader who works as a roller-skating waitress at the carhop drive-in chain Sonic in a small town called...

THE DREAM THEME - HOW TO UNCOVER THE SECRETS OF YOUR SLEEP

LATELY, I've been having this recurring dream where I'm alternately beating up and making out with Jonathan Safran Foer. In the dream, we are standing in a small, sunlit room....

KAREN, OH! - THE YEAH YEAH YEAHS' FOXY LADY EXPLAINS THE BAND'S NEW SOUND

KAREN O is bi and loving it. Bi-coastal, that is. The 27-year-old frontwoman for the decidedly New York band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs moved to the anti-N.Y.C. to be with...

POSH 'PIRATE' HEADS TO BRIG

Randolph Hobson Guthrie III, the high-living expatriate son of wealthy New York bluebloods, has been sentenced to five years in prison for video piracy. Federal Judge Louis Guirola, in Hattiesburg,...

THIS ARTFUL DODGER IS ALL OVER THE MAP

THE loyalty of Brooklyn hood Thomas Galpine could never be questioned. But his geography stinks. Galpine, 49, told Judge Jack Weinstein and the court how, from the age of 17,...

DEFIANT KT HOLDS HER 'FIRE'

ALBANY - Hapless U.S. Senate hopeful Kathleen "KT" McFarland defiantly insisted yesterday that she won't fire campaign adviser Ed Rollins - despite a call from the state's top Republican that...

MAYOR'S S.I. 'ROAD MAP'

Driving on Staten Island will soon get a little easier, thanks to a comprehensive plan to improve traffic announced by Mayor Bloomberg yesterday. "Staten Island is our fastest-growing borough, and...

FERRY CAPT. STARTS SOFT JAIL TIME

The snoozy skipper who crashed a Staten Island ferry, killing 11 passengers, began his 18-month sentence yesterday at a cushy "Club Fed" in Massachusetts that boasts views of golf greens...

IMMIGRATION POLITICS: CYNICAL DEMS

DEMOCRATS often complain that their party leaders don't plan strategically. They worry that Republicans like Karl Rove think in terms of what their party will need decades hence while leading...

25 YEARS FOR KILLER BOXER

LOS ANGELES - Boxer James "The Harlem Hammer" Butler pleaded guilty in the bludgeoning death of a New York sportswriter pal, and will spend at least 25 years behind bars,...

$10M SUIT IN L.I. JAIL SEX ABUSE

A Long Island woman who says she was one of at least six jail inmates sexually abused by a physician's assistant filed a notice yesterday to sue Suffolk County for...

TOP JOB FOR MAYOR'S DEM BOOSTER

Former City Councilwoman Margarita Lopez - one of Mayor Bloomberg's most enthusiastic Democratic supporters in last year's mayoral race - is about to land a $168,932-a-year job in the cityadministration,...

HEARTBREAK'S IN THE MAIL: WTC KIN TO GET 911 TAPE

A grieving family will get to hear its loved one's haunting last words today after city officials agreed to a request for a recording of a 911 call made from...

THRUWAY MOM OUT OF HOSP

A Queens mom seriously injured in a Thruway crash that killed her daughter and left her son with broken bones was discharged from the hospital yesterday. Karen Lao left Westchester...

TAPE CATCHES RIKERS COVER-UP

A city correction officer was arrested yesterday for allegedly turning off a surveillance camera so it wouldn't capture images of a Rikers Island guard beating an inmate. Nicholas Zito, 33,...

POPS 'N' 'ROBBERS' PUP SAFE

A dognapper who snatched a puppy from a Long Island pet store - using his toddler daughter as an accomplice - was busted after his mom saw a surveillance video...

ARIEL'S PARTY FALTERS - STILL EXPECTS VICTORY IN ISRAELI ELECTION TODAY

JERUSALEM - Israeli voters head to the polls today to select a new parliament - with Ariel Sharon's prevailing Kadima Party sliding in popularity. Led by interim Prime Minister Ehud...

HILL'S RIVAL TAPS APPLE DONOR BANK

The man often touted as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's top Democratic 2008 presidential rival, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, is moving in on her home turf with a fund-raiser next...

NYPD DAILY BLOTTER

BROOKLYN * Two thugs were arrested after they beat three workers at a Bath Beach clothing store and stole merchandise, authorities said yesterday. A manager saw Michael Neglia, 38, and...

BARDOT IN LAST STAND - PLEADS TO SAVE SEALS

She's frail and ravaged by pain, but that didn't stop Brigitte Bardot from bravely jetting from France to Canada to make a dramatic and tearful plea to the government to...

ART TRANSPLANT - RECIPIENT THANKS DONOR'S MA FOR NEW HEART - & NEW TALENT

William Sheridan was never much of an artist. The most he could manage with a pencil were a few stick figures, and the lines weren't even straight. But a strange...

JFK-WALL ST. CHOPPER BIZ TAKES OFF

Helicopters began shuttling business travelers between lower Manhattan and Kennedy Airport yesterday, but some critics complain that taxpayers are stuck footing the bill for security. The new $159 one-way service...

TEEN: LOCK UP RAPIST & LOSE KEY

A teenage rape victim was so overcome while facing her convicted attacker in a Queens courtroom yesterday that she could barely speak. Visibly shaking, the unidentified petite young woman, who...

NURSE HOME COST BURDEN

New York's nursing-home costs are the highest in the country - double the national average and more than many of the Big Apple's posh hotels, a survey released yesterday found....

SLAY SUSPECT EATS CROWE

The only suspect in the grisly ritual slaying of a Juilliard student was sentenced yesterday to three months behind bars for an unrelated misdemeanor assault - despite his lawyer's argument...

CITY PAYS TO GUARD STAFF CREDIT INFO

The Health Department is shelling out about $50,000 to provide all of its employees with identity theft protection after a laptop containing personal information was stolen, The Post has learned....

SON CHARGED IN DAD'S SLAY

A son who told cops that he had stumbled upon the bludgeoned body of his 61-year-old father in his dad's Queens apartment last month has been arraigned on murder charges....

ETHICS WATCHDOG UNLEASHED ON MTA

After years of boondoggles and financial finagling, the MTA has decided to buy some integrity. The agency hired an "integrity monitor" to help weed out corruption and other malfeasance on...

MY LIFE AS 'DOER' FOR THE MOB - FLUNKY SAYS HE GAVE COP CASH

An ex-gofer mob rat yesterday detailed how he once helped move his boss' daughter, now a Manhattan judge, into her college digs - the latest oddball tidbit of testimony in...

'WE NEED FOOD' - SISTER'S PLEA FOR 'STARVED' SIBLINGS

One of three youngsters allegedly starved and abused by an upstate couple once made a heart-wrenching wish list in a bid to save the lives of her brother and sister...

IMMIGRANTS CAN BE BOOM OR BU$T

WASHINGTON - A major debate is raging among leading economists over proposals to legalize thousands of illegal immigrants with little consensus emerging over whether the move would lead to economic...

THUG GUILTY OF GAY-HATE ATTACK

A member of the Crips street gang was convicted yesterday for a savage attack on a gay man. A Brooklyn Supreme Court jury found Steven Pomie, 25, guilty of assault...

'JUDGE LAURA' THUG GUILTY

A man once set free by controversial Justice Laura Blackburne was convicted yesterday in Queens Supreme Court of shooting a cop, resisting arrest and a host of other charges that...

'DUBAI' BIG LOSES BUSH NOD

WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday yanked the nomination of a top Dubai Ports World executive to be the top maritime official in Washington. Bush had nominated David Sanborn, who headed...

TAXPAYING ALIEN HOPES TO STAY - AND MAKE IT LEGAL

"Bridget" - an illegal immigrant - works 12-hour days as a nurse's aide. She rents an apartment in The Bronx and owns a home in Connecticut. She says she voluntarily...

'HUMBLE' SERVANT - SECRET GREEN MEMO: I'M NOT ARROGANT, I'M GOOD

ALBANY - A secret "talking points" memo from Mark Green's attorney-general campaign dumps on "lightweight" Andrew Cuomo - and instructs supporters how to defend against oft-heard charges that Green is...

LITTLE UNIT - YANKEE LOVE CHILD SHOCKER; RANDY'S LOVE KID

Yankee superstar Randy "Big Unit" Johnson has a secret 16-year-old love child with whom he's never spoken - but he's demanding to be repaid nearly $100,000 in day-care costs from...

BORDERING ON SOLUTION - SENATE PANEL OK ON CITIZEN PROPOSAL

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee last night approved election-year immigration legislation that could open the door for more than 11 million illegal aliens to seek U.S. citizenship without leaving...

ZAC ADMITS 9/11 MISSION - TO CRASH FIFTH JET IN D.C.

Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui declared yesterday in a stunning new version of his terror mission that he was supposed to fly a fifth plane into the White House on...

LILLO'S 'DWI' EX IS FREE - NO BAIL AFTER MA'S RANT

The ex-gal pal of sleazy "Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato - and the daughter of his alleged cop-killing cohort - was finally freed without bail last night after her weekend DWI...

SLAIN MAN AIMED GUN AT US: COPS

An ex-con shot dead by Queens cops over the weekend had his loaded 9mm handgun aimed pointblank at a police lieutenant's face, authorities said yesterday. "Shoot him!" the threatened officer...

PASTOR MURDERED - THUG STABS BELOVED MINISTER

The longtime pastor of a Harlem church was found fatally stabbed inside his apartment yesterday, police said. The Rev. Philip Mann, 68, of the Blessed Sacrament Baptist Church, was discovered...

HARLEM PASTOR SLAIN - KNIFED IN HIS HOME

The longtime pastor of a Harlem church was found fatally stabbed inside his apartment yesterday, police said. The Rev. Philip Mann, 68, of the Blessed Sacrament Baptist Church, was discovered...

SHE'S READY FOR A BRAND NEW BEAT

You're probably too young to remember the hit song "Dancing in the Streets," but now, singer Martha Reeves is singing the tune of councilwoman. Martha Reeves was born on July...

'DWI'S MOM A WHINE-O - COURT DELAY FOR BRANCATO EX

The ex-gal pal of sleazy "Sopranos" actor Lillo Brancato - and the daughter of his alleged cop-killing cohort - was slowly being processed on a weekend DWI charge yesterday as...

SUV IN HOLE LOTTA TROUBLE - WOMAN RESCUED IN B'KLYN

A woman driving her SUV along a Brooklyn street early yesterday plunged into a cavernous sinkhole caused by water leaking from an underground main. Nancy Batista, 46, of Florida, survived...

ZACARIAS' HIJACK MISSION - TO PILOT FIFTH JET ON 9/11

Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui declared yesterday in a stunning new version of his terror mission that he was supposed to fly a fifth plane into the White House on...

THE HEARTBREAK'S IN THE MAIL: 9/11 KIN TO GET 911 TAPE

A grieving family will get to hear its loved one's haunting last words today after city officials agreed to a request for a recording of a 911 call made from...

JAROMIR ON THE MARK(S) - TIES RANGER GOAL, POINT RECORDS

SHOOTOUT: Rangers 5 - Sabres 4 The Rangers were using the occasion of Henrik Lundqvist's night off to take one, too, before Tom Renney put a rest to the idea...

'OTHER 4' HIT STAGE AT GARDEN

NIT PREVIEW With the eyes of most of the sports world fixed on Indianapolis and the Final Four, the other four basketball teams still playing will meet at the Garden...

DOWN WITH DOMES! - HUGE VENUES HELL ON 3-POINT SHOOTING

MINNEAPOLIS - This NCAA Tournament has magnified my love-hate relationship with the NCAA. I love the fact the NCAA gave George Mason an at-large berth out of the Colonial Athletic...

STARTING TO CLICK - ONE BAD OUTING WON'T SEND METS OFF TRACH

Dodgers 12 - Mets 3 PORT ST. LUCIE - Steve Trachsel allowed six hits and six runs in the fourth inning yesterday, the nadir of a brutal outing against the...

EIGHT AIN'T ENOUGH - NETS LOOKING TO EXTEND VICTORY TOUR

Rarely do the NBA schedule-makers devise a more diverse - even sadistic - back-to-back scenario than the Nets encountered this week. On Sunday, the Nets were in Detroit for the...

WORLD OF SUCCESS - YANKS DIDN'T SUFFER DAMAGE FROM WBC

ORLANDO - I want to assure you that I checked for damage everywhere in and around Legends Field in Tampa before making the drive here for last night's game between...

WAGNER TO PITCH 1 MORE

MET NOTES PORT ST. LUCIE - It's possible that Billy Wagner's next game could be right before the Mets fly home to New York. Wagner, who is battling tendon sheath...

PECORA, HOFSTRA HUDDLE

As Seton Hall waited in the wings yesterday, Hofstra coach Tom Pecora had productive talks with his current athletic director, Jack Hayes, and school president Stuart Rabinowitz regarding a contract...

DERECK: WATCH OUT FOR MASON

Dereck Whittenburg has been there before. And he thinks it could happen again. Twenty-three years ago, Whittenburg's N.C. State squad shocked the favored "Phi Slamma Jamma" crew from the University...

PAVANO SET TO THROW ONE INNING TONIGHT

YANKEE NOTESBraves 5 - Yankees 4 ORLANDO - The Yankees have a great deal (Great deal? That remains to be seen) invested in the one inning Carl Pavano is scheduled...

WHAT A LAUGHER! - NETS' 9TH IN ROW A REAL SUN-BURNER

Nets 110 - Suns 72 Net coach Lawrence Frank kept looking up at the Meadowlands scoreboard in the third quarter last night, trying to determine if reality and his calculations...

DANGER ZONE DEAD AHEAD FOR DEVS

DEVILS at SENS - Tonight 7:30 - MSG; WFAN (660 AM) Their meeting was supposed to foster team unity. It may have put a few Devils' noses out of joint....

GEORGE THE GIANT PROVES THEM ALL WRONG

LAMAR Butler, a smooth guard from Maryland, four years ago decided to attend Virginia's largest state university, and at the time made a vow: He would help take George Mason...

BRO DEBUT - PEYTON AND ELI SQUARE OFF IN SEASON-OPENER

This was going to be too good to wait and too intriguing to keep isolated in New York and Indianapolis. And so it makes complete sense that Eli and Peyton...

COACH MANGINI JETS A LEG UP

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - In time Jets fans, you're going to get to know Eric Mangini and you're going to like him. He just has to come out of...

FINE WITH NINE - NETS SCORCH SUNS, EXTEND STREAK

Nets 110 - Suns 72 Nets coach Lawrence Frank was running out of fingers and toes. He kept looking up at the Meadowlands scoreboard in the third quarter. "I was...

LEE KEEPS GRIP ON GATORS

Before facing the Timberwolves, Knicks rookie David Lee spent Saturday with his former Gators teammates in a Minneapolis hotel, as they prepared for an Elite 8 showdown vs. Villanova. Lee...

BLUESHIRTS GEAR UP FOR STRETCH RUN

The Flyers, for two months looking slow and beat-up and ready to be beaten early in the playoffs, have won four in a row and five of six to inch...

ISLES: DON'T TRIP

ISLES at CANADIENS - Tonight 7:30 - FSN; WBBR (1130) Some are comparing these desperate attempts to acquire points on a nightly basis to Game 7 of a playoff series....

WEIRD BUT TRUE

A new art exhibit is making people hungry - it's a coat made of steaks and a tent made of bacon strips. "I loved to create something that will be...