Poker loser threatened
The former owners of a glitzy supper club in Brooklyn were charged yesterday with threatening a man who owed them $70,000 from a high-stakes poker game, authorities said.
The victim had accused suspect Michael Mitselmakher, 40, of cheating during the two-day game of Texas Hold ‘Em at Rasputin in Brighton Beach last year.
When the victim refused to pay up, Mitselmakher and his brother Alex, 33, threatened to kill him, according to court papers.
John Marzulli
6 nabbed in pot scheme
They looked like ordinary row houses, but drug dealers had converted them into “grow houses.”
Six members of a marijuana trafficking ring, including a Brooklyn court officer, were arrested yesterday on charges they bought five houses in Brooklyn and used them exclusively for cultivating hydroponic pot.
Criminal Court officer Brian Hagen was busted as he left one grow house on Shore Parkway in Sheepshead Bay.
An informant had tipped off an NYPD cop to the large-scale operation. About 1,000 pounds of marijuana, $330,000 in cash and seven luxury vehicles were seized.
Oren Yaniv and John Marzulli
Mentors sought for kids
More than 400 city foster kids are waiting for mentors, Administration for Children’s Services officials said yesterday as they urged New Yorkers to step up and volunteer.
“This is needed so much,” former New York State First Lady Matilda Cuomo, who founded the group Mentoring USA, said as ACS kicked off its first Foster Care Mentoring Institute.
For more information on mentoring foster children, go to the ACS Web site at www.nyc.gov/acs.
Lisa L. Colangelo
Veteran narc sentenced
A former New York City narcotics cop who ripped off a drug courier for $169,000 was sentenced to 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years in jail as part of a plea deal in Queens Supreme Court yesterday.
Thomas Rachko, 48, of the Bronx, a 20-year veteran cop, and his partner, Detective Julio Vasquez, were caught on Nov. 26, 2003, robbing a courier wearing a black shoulder bag stuffed with cash as he was delivering the money to an undercover detective as part of a money-laundering sting in Jackson Heights. Rachko’s sentence will be concurrent with the seven-year federal sentence he is already serving in the case. Vasquez also pleaded guilty.
Source: https://www.nydailynews.com/2007/01/24/ny-minute-14/