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CITY NEWS A16, A17 | FOOD & DRINK A18 | HEARD & SCENE A19 | SPORTS A20
A legal challenge looms
WSJ.com/NY
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CITY NEWS | A16
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
A Relationship Turns Deadly
Police say ex-boyfriend
gunned down woman
near Brooklyn bus stop;
couple had violent past
BY PERVAIZ SHALLWANI
L-R: THOMAS MACMILLAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; SONJA SHARP FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Michelle Marks finished her
shift at a waterfront pizzeria
in Brooklyn Bridge Park,
walked out to the street and
called her boyfriend to tell
him she had missed the bus
home and would have to catch
the next one.
As Ms. Marks waited at the
bus stop, the conversation
took a disturbing turn: “He is
here and he has a gun. Call
911,” she told her boyfriend,
Samuel Hall, authorities said.
Mr. Hall heard a man say, “I
just want to talk,” authorities
said. Then the phone cut out.
Ms. Marks, 23 years old,
was found dead a few minutes
later from an apparent gunshot wound to the back of the
head, police said.
The homicide Monday was
the first in the park, a relatively crime-free area that attracts both New Yorkers and
tourists because of its panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline, police said.
On Tuesday afternoon, investigators arrested Lamont
Wright, an ex-boyfriend of Ms.
Marks; she had filed harassment complaints against him,
including one on Sunday, authorities said.
Mr. Wright, 53 years old,
has a criminal history that includes two stints in prison, the
first starting in 1990, and is
currently on probation, authorities said. In 2007, he
pleaded guilty to a charge of
TM
third-degree rape in a case in
which he admitted having consensual sex with a 16-year-old
girl he met on a chatline, authorities said. He was sentenced to six months in prison
and 10 years probation.
Family members said Ms.
Marks had planned to use her
day off Tuesday to seek a restraining order against Mr.
Wright. The two had dated on
and off until about two weeks
ago when she ended the relationship, they said.
The woman’s mother, Pauline Marks, said that in the report her daughter filed on
Sunday, she told police Mr.
Wright had a gun and she was
afraid of him. Police said she
made no mention of a gun in
the handwritten statement
and subsequent interview.
Pauline Marks said that
same day, the ex-boyfriend
knocked her daughter to the
ground in the hall outside
their Albany Houses apartment, and that it was the second time in about two weeks
he had hurt her badly enough
to warrant a police report.
Police have received three
domestic complaints involving
Mr. Wright and Ms. Marks, officials said.
The first was filed by Mr.
Wright after Ms. Marks allegedly refuses to let him pick up
his clothes, officials said.
The second came after Ms.
Marks spotted Mr. Wright in
the hallway as she was leaving
her apartment, slammed the
door on him and called police,
officials said.
Ms. Marks made no mention of a gun in any of the
complaints, officials said.
Pauline Marks said she was
Please see DEATH page A16
SPORTS | A20
Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | A15
New Jersey Voters Have Their Say
JUSTIN LANE/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
RAL/OLIVER’S/ODA
Towers in Park
Minor League,
Major Problem
BALLOT CAST: A woman leaves a voting booth in Hoboken on
Tuesday as New Jersey and five other states held primaries. A17
Five Officers
Are Found Guilty
In Rikers Assault
BY CORINNE RAMEY
Pauline Marks, with a photo of her daughter, Michelle
Marks. Left, police officers at the crime scene Tuesday.
Senate Moves to Void City Bag Fee
In the final days of New
York’s legislative session, state
lawmakers advanced a bill on
Tuesday to override New York
City’s planned 5-cent fee on
paper and plastic bags at most
stores.
The state legislation—sponsored by Sen. Simcha Felder, a
Brooklyn Democrat who votes
with Republicans, and Assemblyman Michael Cusick, a
Staten Island Democrat—
would forbid cities from imposing taxes or fees intended
to discourage the use of plastic bags.
On Tuesday, the Senate
passed the bill 36-22. The Assembly has yet to take it up
but may do so before the session ends next week.
The city bill was contentious in its own right. It
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passed last month 28-20, an
unusually slim margin, after a
debate that touched on income
inequality and environmental
policy.
Asked about the Senate
vote, a spokeswoman for City
Council said it plans to work
with the state Legislature in
the coming months to implement the city’s 5-cent fee on
bags.
Following approval of the
city legislation, the state bill
gained backers, many from
New York City, including Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican, and Sen. Tony Avella, a
Queens Democrat. In recent
days, it has gained momentum
in Albany as the session winds
to a close.
The bag fee, Mr. Felder said
during the Senate’s debate,
would unfairly tax most New
Yorkers.
“New Yorkers do not like
being manipulated, they do
not like being aggravated and
they do not need government
to irritate them” into changing
their behavior, Mr. Felder said.
The state bill, however, has
its detractors. “Who are we to
tell a local municipality that it
can’t address a pressing problem,” asked Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat.
Mr. Hoylman said tensions
have run so high over the
topic, “you’d think the apocalypse is about to dawn on us.”
A spokesman for Assembly
Speaker Carl Heastie and the
Democratic majority said the
issue is being discussed and
“nothing [is] yet resolved.”
Mr. Heastie indicated this
week that he remained open to
the bill because of “concerns
among the city members.”
New York City’s legislation,
which Mr. de Blasio signed
into law in May, requires
stores to charge customers at
least 5 cents for single-use
plastic and paper bags. Businesses are allowed to keep
that fee.
Noncompliant stores would
pay a $250 fee for a first offense and $500 for any additional one.
The measure is set to go
into effect Oct. 1, though fines
aren’t set to start until April 1,
2017.
Other cities have moved to
discourage the use of singleuse bags. In 2007, San Francisco enacted a limited ban on
plastic bags. In 2009, Washington imposed a 5-cent tax on
paper and plastic bags. Seattle
banned plastic bags and imposed a 5-cent fee on paper
bags in 2011.
Verdicts in the
bench trials of three
other officers are
expected on Friday.
According to prosecutors,
Mr. Perez said: “This guy
thinks he’s tough; when you
get him to the intake area,
take him to a separate pen and
knock his f—teeth out.”
Mr. Lightfoot, 31 years old,
suffered fractures to both eye
sockets, a broken nose and
other facial injuries, prosecutors said. The officers subsequently falsified reports and
claimed Mr. Lightfoot slashed
one of them with a piece of
metal, which they later produced, prosecutors said.
Mr. Lightfoot was convicted
of second-degree robbery and
released from state prison in
2014, records show.
Sanford Rubenstein, an attorney for Mr. Lightfoot, said
his client hoped the verdict
would prevent other inmates
from being assaulted.
“Let this verdict stand as a
message to correction officers
all over the country that if you
viciously beat an inmate you
can end up a convicted felon
yourself,” Mr. Rubenstein said.
Messrs. Perez and Vaughn
Please see JAIL page A16
Stuart Davis: Putting
A Pop in Abstract Art
BY SUSAN DELSON
Fifty-two years after his
death, Stuart Davis is having a
breakthrough moment.
Not that he isn’t already a
major figure in American art.
Acclaimed for his innovative
work of the 1930s, Davis has
long been hailed for his role in
keeping abstract art alive during the Depression years, a
time when realism dominated
the national art scene.
In “Stuart Davis: In Full
Swing,” the exhibition opening
Friday at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the focus shifts forward a few decades, making a compelling
case for him as a major postwar artist.
Almost half the work on
view was made after 1950,
said Whitney curator Barbara
Haskell, co-organizer of the
exhibition along with Harry
Cooper, head of modern art at
the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C., where the
show will appear next. It is
the artist’s first major New
York exhibit in almost 25
years.
Davis’s vibrant post-1950
work anticipated pop art, said
Ms. Haskell. The 1956-58 canvas “Pochade,” for instance,
“could be next to a [Roy] Lichtenstein painting and totally
hold its own.”
At the same time, she
added, “he’s doing geometric
color abstraction, absolutely
as strong as anyone else in
Please see ART page A19
ESTATE OF STUART DAVIS/VAGA, NEW YORK, NY
BY ERICA ORDEN
A Bronx jury convicted five
Rikers Island correction officers of assaulting an inmate
and trying to cover it up in a
case that has fueled debate
about the use of force against
prisoners at the New York City
jail complex.
The five convicted Tuesday—former Assistant Chief of
Security Eliseo Perez Jr. and
officers Alfred Rivera, Tobias
Parker, Jose Parra and David
Rodriguez—were part of a
group of 10 city Department of
Correction officers charged
with the gang assault of inmate Jahmal Lightfoot.
They are scheduled to be
sentenced on Sept. 6 in state
Supreme Court in the Bronx,
Justice Steven Barrett said
Tuesday. They face up to 15
years in prison.
Of the remaining five officers, three are receiving bench
trials and the judge is expected to deliver verdicts on
Friday. One is being tried separately and another, Jeffrey
Richard, was found not guilty
on Tuesday.
Renee Hill, an attorney for
Mr. Parra, said her client
maintained his innocence.
Lawyers for the other convicted officers couldn’t be
reached, didn’t return calls or
declined to comment.
Norman Seabrook, president of the union that represents correction officers, said
the verdict is an “absolute
travesty.”
“We wonder if it is even
possible for these officers to
receive a fair trial given that
the powers that be regularly
use correction officers as a
scapegoat for decades of mismanagement at Rikers,” he
said.
Bronx District Attorney
Darcel Clark, who has pledged
to prosecute crimes at Rikers,
said that having a “uniform
and a badge” doesn’t absolve
one from committing a crime.
Prosecutors said that on
July 11, 2012, Mr. Perez and
former Capt. Gerald Vaughn
ordered members of a division
called the Emergency Services
Unit to beat Mr. Lightfoot in a
small intake cell, which had no
video surveillance and was
covered by a sheet, at the
George R. Vierno Center, a jail
at Rikers. Mr. Vaughn is one of
those receiving bench trials.
Stuart Davis’s ‘Visa’ (1951), one of his ‘Champion’ paintings, is on view in the Whitney exhibition.