Preservation advocates and elect- ed of\ufb01cials were especially thankful on Thanksgiving week that the City Planning Commission has begun the process to prevent out-of-scale devel- opment on six threatened blocks in the West Village.

The commission last week announced that it would soon propose a change in development rules for the blocks between Greenwich and

The area, which is within the Greenwich Village Historic District, is now a C6-1 zone, which has no height limits on new construction and allows a development bonus for commercial projects, including hotels and commu- nity facilities, like dormitories.

The proposed new C1-6A zoning would impose height limits on new construction and eliminate the bonus

A City Planning spokesperson issued a statement Monday saying, \u201cThe proposed contextual district would signi\ufb01cantly reduce the amount of \ufb02oor area that could be built for commercial purposes, including hotel use, while allowing a minor increase in the amount of \ufb02oor area that could be

The state last week adopted the harshest penal- ties in the nation for drunk drivers who operate vehi- cles with children in the car. The law\u2019s passage was largely due to pressure from

a group of hardy local advo- cates spurred to action fol- lowing a tragic crash that took the life of a young Chelsea resident.

\u2018Leandra\u2019s Law\u2019
is a reality, thanks
to dad\u2019s crusade

More than 1,000 homeless New Yorkers enjoyed a delicious three-course meal Monday at the Great Thanksgiving Banquet at New York City Rescue Mission, at Lafayette and White Sts. Miss America, Katie Stam, second from right, was honorary event chairperson. As well as handing out the hearty fare, Stam also signed autographs. A bevy of local politicos, of\ufb01 cials and personalities also helped at the dinner, including Councilmember-elect Margaret Chin, former Mayor David Dinkins and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

It was going to be a day Fernando Bermudez and his attorneys had waited for \u2014 or just another in a long series of disappointments. About 75 people waited in Judge Jonathan Cataldo\u2019s courtroom at 111 Centre St. for a decision on whether he would overturn Bermudez\u2019s nearly 20-year-old homicide conviction.

\u201cThere are more law- yers here than in the Gotti case,\u201d said Mike Gaynor, a former New York Police Department homicide detec- tive who investigated the case pro bono.

The city was focusing on the latest Gotti trial. But a crowd including a half- dozen attorneys gathered in this courtroom to \ufb01nd out

whether a state judge would throw out Bermudez\u2019s 1991 homicide conviction for the shooting of Raymond Blount on 13th St.

Bermudez had been sen- tenced to 23 years to life after teenagers picked his photo in connection with the crime. But since then everybody who picked the photo recanted. Voluminous evidence not only pointed to someone else, but to the fact that the main witness repeat- edly told police and prosecu- tors before the conviction that someone else commit- ted the crime. Prosecutors never pursued that lead.

To lawyers, the Innocence Project, investigators like Gaynor and many others,

Freeing Fernando;
Conviction in \u201991
killing overturned

CARRIE FISHER
SERVES UP
MORE DISH

\u2018Police Blotter\u2019
old-school
style, p. 17

of the new Trump Soho International Condo and Hotel at Dominick and Varick Sts. recently, and looking in some curious, little, slit windows there, when a worker gave us the scoop. The ground-\ufb02 oor corner space, he said, will be a \u201ctiki bar.\u201d We have no word on whether it will include actual burning tiki torches \u2014 which would be golden, of course. (We just suggest thatTiki

worker said the entire \u201ccondotel\u201d should be open in a couple of months... A few days before, we were checking out the newly opened sidewalk on Varick St. beside the Donald\u2019s Downtown skyline dominator, the construction shed recently having been taken down. We were brooding about how the neighborhood is going to change with all the glitzy types who will soon be \ufb02 ocking to Trump\u2019s towering edi\ufb01 ce complex \u2014 how it will be feeling like Madison Ave. down here, and how, well, we really liked it the way it was... . Right then, a big strapping guy clamped a paw on our shoulder and with a friendly grin said something we couldn\u2019t hear. Removing our MP3 earphones, it became apparent he was saying, \u201cCarpet, right?\u201d Nope, we said, we\u2019re not one of the guys installing carpeting in the place, though it\u2019s \ufb02 attering to be associ- ated with such a \ufb01 ne, upstanding trade. But we get the point: The \ufb01 nishing touches \u2014 and perhaps the gilded tiki torches \u2014 are being put on Trump Soho, and things will soon be changing a lot around here.

Vandam St. last Friday afternoon, noticing the impressive convoy of parked movie trailers for \u201cWall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.\u201d Speaking of sleeplessness, the new Oliver Stone \ufb02 ick later on would be doing an all-night exterior shoot on Charlton St., surely keeping awake neighbors. Suddenly, a cab pulled up and out hopped a slight, smallish young man in jeans along with a red- headed woman in a thigh-length white coat. \u201cShy just got here,\u201d a production assistant murmured discreetly into his walkie-talkie, referring to none other than Shia LaBeouf, one of the movie\u2019s stars. The woman, we later found out, was Carey Mulligan, who plays Winnie Gekko, estranged daughter of the ruthless Gordon Gekko. We\u2019re told by one of our sometime-paparazzi photogra- pher friends, that Mulligan is also LaBeouf\u2019s babe in real life. As they hustled toward their trailers, LaBeouf handed off to the P.A. a little blue bag, which looked like it was from the Metropolitan Museum of Art or maybe MoMA, and said, what to us sounded like, \u201cDo you like massages?\u201d We didn\u2019t hear any answer from the P.A. We can only assume that either LaBeouf is studying shiatsu or, probably more likely, that he hired a professional mas- seuse to help him loosen up before the shoot. The \ufb01 lm has been shooting on location all over Soho and Hudson Square.

went to press this week on Monday, a day early due to our print- er\u2019s Thanksgiving week schedule. But Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, gave us the heads up on the Board of Standards and Appeals vote set to occur Tuesday on a variance for theRomanoffs\u2019 planned building in the Meatpacking District. According to Berman, the B.S.A. was \u201cexpected to approve greatly reduced variances for the extra-large glass tower and retail space at 437 W. 13th St.\u201d Berman said the B.S.A. \u201cmade absolutely clear at the review ses- sion\u201d Monday what their vote would be. In short, he explained, \u201cwhile the plan started at 250 feet tall, 8.33 F.A.R., and triple the allowable retail space, or 66 percent larger than allowed by zoning, the \ufb01 nal approved version will be 175 feet tall and 24 percent larger than allowed by zoning \u2014 a 30 percent reduc- tion in the height of the building, and a 64 percent reduction in the amount of extra bulk.\u201d The variance for retail that will be approved has also been cut to double what zoning allows, a 50 percent decrease, the society\u2019s director assured. Berman point-

edly stated that while City Councilmember Tony Avella and the Department of City Planning had called for a rejection of the original bulk and use variances, no local elected of\ufb01 cials did, though \u201csome expressed some concerns about some aspects of the variances.\u201d \u201cCommunity Board 2\u2019s Zoning Committee origi- nally approved variances for increasing the size of the tower and its retail space,\u201d the preservationist pointed out. \u201cThough after we showed up in force at the C.B. 2 full board meeting, that position was partly reversed, with the board rejecting the bulk variances while supporting variances for doubling the allowable size of retail.\u201d In seeking the original variances, as well as those that will be approved, the Romanoffs have contended that having the High Line running over a large part of their property created an economic \u201chardship,\u201d making it more costly to develop the site. However, Berman scoffed: \u201cThe notion that the High Line \u2014 a world-class attraction which no doubt has exponentially multiplied the value of this property and will multiply the value of any new development upon it \u2014 is anything but a boon to this developer is ludicrous, and it is simply ridiculous that the B.S.A. would endorse this \u2018Alice in Wonderland\u2019 logic.\u201d

Department of Transportation is \ufb01 nally replacing the danger- ously wobbly paving stones at crosswalks along Spring St. in Soho. Those uneven pavers, as seen above, were always serious accidents waiting to happen, in our view, posing a risk to trip pedestrians right in the path of speeding cars. The new pavers are much smaller by comparison \u2014 only about 3 inches by 3 inches \u2014 and look like they are being packed together care- fully with concrete, so hopefully they won\u2019t become loose and dilapidated like the larger ones did. A D.O.T. worker at one of the crosswalks last week, told us that the surfaces were being \ufb01 xed because they were \u201cunstable.\u201d

lishment Internet pioneer, told us he will, in fact, respond to the city\u2019s request for proposals for a partner to run .nyc. However, he said it\u2019s clear \u201cthe \ufb01 x is in\u201d for another group, Dot NYC LLC, to win the bid, since the city is now saying the partner must have $5 million in funding available to cover operating costs for the \ufb01 rst \ufb01 ve years. Garrin created .nyc in 1996 and claims ownership of it, having continuously operated the top-level domain on a so- called alternate root for the past 13 years.

plus a congenital heart condition. The Villager regrets the error \u2014 which was based on what the reporter was told by a Westbeth resident, though the resident now claims not to have said it. Regardless, it should have been checked before going to press. As for Shami Chaikin\u2019s condition, Miriam said, \u201cShami is holding her own. Her condition remains critical.\u201d ... Also, the article on former City Councilmember Miriam Friedlander\u2019s memorial at City Hall in last week\u2019s issue misquotedSusan

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in a \u201cWaterford-and-wood-
buring-fireplace\u201d setting; add in
\u201caccommodating\u201d staffers who
\u201cpour a great Guinness\u201d and the
\u201cwhole is definitely equal to
more than the sum of its parts.\u201d

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the conviction never passed the common- sense test. I wrote an article in the early 1990s for The Villager dubbed \u201cThe Wrong Man... .\u201d Scott Christianson put Bermudez on the cover of his book \u201cInnocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases.\u201d The New York Times ran a front-page article; Court TV aired an hour-long show. The Innocence Project \ufb01led an amicus brief. And a pro- cession of pro bono attorneys looked at the facts and concluded the same thing: Bermudez was innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt. And yet nearly 20 years after his conviction, Fernando Bermudez, now age 40, was about to be brought into the court- room in handcuffs.

\u201cWhy are we even still going through this?\u201d Lawrence Darden, one of Blount\u2019s friends, who was feet away from him dur- ing the shooting, asked weeks ago at Justice Cataldo\u2019s hearings. \u201cHe\u2019s not the individual.\u201d

Bermudez\u2019s attorneys argued the only evidence came from witnesses who picked his photo and soon recanted. Yet despite these witnesses\u2019 contention that the wrong man was convicted, Fernando Bermudez remained in jail at Elmira, Shawangunk and then Sing Sing. Gaynor, a hard-boiled homicide investigator, sent him occasional letters with the words \u201can innocent man\u201d on envelopes. The truth was the case had crumbled almost immediately after a brief trial. The witnesses who identi\ufb01 ed Fernando Bermudez\u2019s photo soon said it was obvious he wasn\u2019t the killer: Bermudez is 6 feet 2 inches tall, while the killer was far short- er. You couldn\u2019t tell his height in a photo: Lineups were done with Bermudez seated.

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe he was that big,\u201d Frank Marchany, who was at the shooting and later picked Bermudez\u2019s photo before recanting, said after seeing Bermudez standing. \u201cThe dude I remember wasn\u2019t that big.\u201d

But Bermudez remained behind bars, get- ting a college degree, earning the nickname The Professor, marrying a woman who saw a TV segment about him and watching years waste away. The case became Kafkaesque to the point where it would have been comic, if it weren\u2019t so tragic. The worst thing \u2014 or best for Bermudez \u2014 was that Efraim Lopez, a.k.a. Shorty, who got into a \ufb01 ght with the murder victim hours before the shooting, had repeatedly told police someone named \u201cWool Lou\u201d or \u201cLuis\u201d was the killer. He even gave police Wool Lou\u2019s address \u2014 about a hundred blocks north of Bermudez\u2019s. And there was a video of it. But Lopez then struck a deal with the District Attorney\u2019s Of\ufb01ce to identify Bermudez at trial in return for not being charged. And that identi\ufb01ca- tion somehow had been ignored by courts for decades. Wool Lou somehow vanished into the mist.

But Lopez on video could still be heard telling police that \u201cWool Lou\u201d or \u201cLuis\u201d was the killer and giving police his address. Prosecutors didn\u2019t pay attention. Instead, they made a deal in which Lopez wouldn\u2019t be prosecuted in return for iden-

tifying Bermudez, whose photo had been picked, as the shooter. So Lopez went into court, saying \u201cWool Lou\u201d was simply the name he called Bermudez. The defense said Bermudez\u2019s nickname was \u201cMost.\u201d But the defense couldn\u2019t show who Wool Lou was. And so Bermudez was convicted after what a witness repeatedly said stood up in court, calling him by a name he had never heard. All of this might have been avoided if the defense had brought in the real Wool Lou. That didn\u2019t happen.

There are reasons the defense couldn\u2019t \ufb01 nd the real Wool Lou. Prosecutors gave written information regarding Wool Lou

to the defense about a day before trial. The video prosecutors gave the defense in which Lopez identi\ufb01 es the shooter as \u201cWool Lou\u201d and \u201cLuis\u201d was redacted: Wool Lou\u2019s address was removed. I have never under- stood a reasonable explanation for that. The D.A. argued Bermudez was Wool Lou. Why, then, remove Wool Lou\u2019s address \u2014 if they\u2019re the same person? The trial judge denied the defense\u2019s request for more time to \ufb01 nd Wool Lou. And so at trial, Lopez insisted Bermudez was Wool Lou and him- self was allowed to go free. Bermudez denied he ever heard the name, and insisted Lopez had implicated someone else. But with no one else to show as the real Wool Lou, Bermudez\u2019s denials didn\u2019t have much weight.

All statements the main witness made about Wool Lou as the shooter were used to impli- cate Fernando Bermudez, even though that simply wasn\u2019t his name. In retrospect, it all seems insane. But it happened.

Bermudez passed a lie detector test, had alibi witnesses, no motive and no connection to anyone at the scene \u2014 beyond the fact that a few picked his photo. But the fact that several people picked his photo was proof enough, especially when you had a main

witness who also said he was the shooter. Soon the witnesses who picked the photo came forward, saying they felt pressured to pick the picture. One witness only testi\ufb01 ed at trial after being arrested, handcuffed and taken to court \u2014 where he said he testi\ufb01ed as he was told. Other witnesses said other charges were dropped against them in return for their testimony.

Despite all this, the verdict stood. One reason is in New York State, cases return to the initial trial judge, who in this instance, repeatedly refused to consider recantations. He argued they were incredible since all witnesses recanted. That seemed absurd to me, because if one witness didn\u2019t recant, the judge could challenge the others, since one still implicated Bermudez. The cards seemed stacked against efforts to overturn a convic- tion. The facts really didn\u2019t matter.

\u201cI know who did it,\u201d the prosecution\u2019s main witness said in a Court TV show, when he thought the cameras were turned off. \u201cAnd it isn\u2019t Bermudez.\u201d

But the D.A.\u2019s Of\ufb01 ce seemed to accept guilt after conviction as an article of faith rather than considering facts. A federal judge \ufb01 nally granted a hearing, saying the state judge should have let witnesses go back into court to recant. The federal judge then handed off the case to a magistrate, who heard testimony and waited two years before issuing a brief

All statements the main
witness made about Wool
Lou as the shooter were
used to implicate Fernando
Bermudez, even though
that simply wasn\u2019t his

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