Buttock Pinch Without Consent Is Ruled a Crime in New York

Pinching or touching the buttocks of a person without that person’s consent is a crime in New York and punishable by a jail term, a Manhattan Criminal Court judge has ruled.

“If the alleged occurrence had in fact taken place in an area where the social mores condone the unconsented touching or pinching of the buttocks – rumor has it that Italy may be such an area – perhaps the defendant’s position could be sustained.”

Sexual abuse in the third degree is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in jail.

Excerpt from Tom Goldstein New York Times Nov 19, 1977

Motorists to Be Allowed to Park at Most of 14,000 Broken Meters

Nearly one-fourth of New York City’s 65,000 parking meters are not working because they have been vandalized or broke through normal use, city traffic officials said yesterday. The smashed, headless or missing meters have cost the city $1.4 million in lost revenue durig the first 10 months of 1977. A four month contract dispute has slowed repair work.

One block where the parking meter problem was evident yesterday was West 72nd Street between Broadway and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan, where more than a dozen consecutive meters were without heads.

Excerpt from New York Times Nov 17, 1977

A Tenant Checks Out, Leaving 7000 Library Books

A Queens building superintendent, himself a former librarian, yesterday reported finding “over 7,000, maybe 10,000” costly technical books from public libraries in shopping bags and piles in the otherwise nearly bare apartment of an absconded tenant.

Excerpt from Wolfgang Saxon Aug 29, 1977 New York Times

Marijuana Smokers Hold Village Rally

There was something in the air besides springtime yesterday as several thousand marijuana enthusiasts and the merely curious gathered for a peaceful smoke-in in Washington Square Park.

Some handfuls of free marijuana cigarettes were passed among the crowd by followers of the Youth International Party which sponsored the rally and a sidewalk march up Fifth Avenue to Central Park.

An eight-foot mock-up of a marijuana cigarette hovered over the crowd like a lumpy white zeppelin.

Dana Beal, a Yippie leader, presented a set of demands. These included not just decriminalization but free, legal marijuana with “a guaranteed weekly one-ounce stash for every head for 40 years, to match the length of time the substance has been illegal here.

In a brief incident an apparent dissenter from the activities threw a punch at Mr. Beal on the speaker’s platform but he was quickly pummeled and kicked to the ground and before long released.

Excerpt from Judith Cummings May 15, 1977 New York Times

Cultist Who Tried for 60 Days in 76 To Revive Follower Jumps to Death

Oric Bovar, the cult leader who was arrested Dec. 8th when he was found trying to revive a follower who had been dead two months, jumped to his death yesterday morning shortly before he was to appear in court on a charge of failing to report a death.

The 59-year-old mystic and astrologer jumped from his 10th-floor apartment at 817 West End Avenue , at 100th Street, leaving a note, the police said. Mr. Bovar was arrested in December with five of his followers who had been praying over the dead member’s body. Mr. Davis said he knew of no basis for reports that Mr. Bovar had asserted that he could jump out of a window and come back without falling.

Mr. Bovar and his friends were arrested in the apartment of Alexandros Hatzitheodorou, 29, at 60 Riverside Drive, at 76th Street. Mr. H had been dead since Oct 9th, the police said, and the group maintained a constant prayer vigil in the expectation that he would revive. Mr. Bovar at one time had 200 followers, including well-known entertainment personalities Bernadette Peters and Carol Burnett have acknowledged knowing Mr. Bovar but they said they had broken off contact with him.

A man of compelling presence to many, Mr. Bovar was said to have undergone a personality change – an emotional breakdown, according to some – about two years ago. When he began telling followers he was Jesus Christ and when he began his attempt at resurrecting Mr. H, some followers left.

The bizarre story of Von Mierers, whose death last year from AIDS spared him a likely prison sentence, brings to mid the even weirder story of Bernadette Peters's guru. In the seventies, Oric Bovar, who was renowned in Broadway circles for his uncannily accurate astrological charts and prescribed meditations that brought inner peace to such disciples as Peters, Carol Burnett, the ever-seeking Marsha Mason, and Neil Simon, became convinced that he was Jesus Christ and claimed that he could endure a year without going to the bathroom. One follower became convinced that Bovar was indeed divine when, during their first telephone conversation, he received an electric shock. On Christmas Eve 1975, Bovar instructed his followers to look up at the sky, and they saw him create a star.
As Bovar went bonkers, some of his followers dropped off, but not Peters. In the summer of 1976, he announced that Christmas would now be celebrated on his birthday, August 29. He began arranging marriages for his devotees--"Someone would come into the room and he would say, 'This is your husband--you must marry him,'" one recalls--and spent his free time watching The Exorcist. He put his followers on strict diets and forbade them to have sex.
Bovar's greatest feat was to have been the resurrection of twenty-nine-year-old Stephanos Hatzitheodorou, a disciple who died of cancer in his New York apartment in the fall of '76. After covering the body with a shawl, Bovar and five disciples kept a vigil over the corpse, chanting, "Rise, Stephan, rise, rise, rise." It was only then that Peters, whom the New York Times called one of Bovar's most loyal devotees, jumped ship. For two months, the group changed over the body, until a woman who identified herself as Mary Magdalene called the cops. His arrest for violating the health code by keeping a decaying corpse in the apartment marked the beginning of the end for Bovar, who was now referring to himself as "my son, Oric Bovar." Hours before he was to answer his doubters, he jumped out a window, intending to appear in resurrected glory in court.

Farnsworth Fowle April 15, 1977 New York Times

2 Holdup Suspects Are Chased Into Police Arms by Bar Patron

The police here (Hackensack NJ) made two easy arrests when an angry bar patron chased two suspected robbers into the arms of a group of patrolmen. Patrolmen Dennis Conroy, Kenneth Soranno and Joseph Furman were preparing to go on duty early yesterday when they heard someone out in the street screaming, “Help,help.” The officers caught Jessie Trusdale,20-years-old and Willie McCain,19, who were grateful to escape the wrath of Dominic Mangano, a Closter NJ contractor who does not like to be interrupted while having a quiet drink, the police said. The police said Mr. T and Mr M had walked into the Commodore Rest here flashed a knife and demanded money. Mr Mangano hit the two men and then cracked their heads together, the police said. With Mr Mangano hot on their trail, the two scrabbled out the door and into the arms of the police, authorities said.

Excerpt from March 19, 1977 New York Times

A Man Not in Blue (Or in Any Color) Steals Police Car

There are eight million stories in the naked city. This is one of them.

A blue and white police car sped through Central Park early yesterday morning, headed north. There was nothing unusual about it – except that the man behind the wheel had no clothes on. Close behind him came a lot of other police cars. Their drivers had all their clothes on, but they were as embarrassed as if they hadn’t. The naked man had stolen the car from two of their fully uniformed colleagues. It all started when Officers Francis Kitz and Reluardo Amaral came upon a man strolling through Greenwich Village completely naked. They stopped and ordered him into their patrol car, the man leaped from the rear seat to the front, engaged the gears and roared off. The two stranded policemen called the Sixth Precinct station house, on West 10th Street. In Riverside Park the man stopped the car and fled into the bushes where he was captured. For his court appearance the man was provided with a raincoat and a pair of old trousers, but no shoes. Officers Kitz and Amaral were provided with considerable amount of needling by their fellow officers. “They took some ribbing,” another police officer said.

Excerpt from March 19, 1977 New York Times

Two 14-Year-Old Boys Are Held After Police Blockade Halts a Stolen Greyhound Bus

A Sceni-Cruiser Greyhound bus was cruising up the avenue with a young boy at the wheel and another boy seated behind him. Neither wore Greyhound grey. Spotted by two cops at Madison and 116th – Detective Gilberti leaned out of the police car window and ordered the bus driver to pull over. Instead the boy stepped on the gas and steered the bus into 116th street, heading toward Fifth Avenue. The police chased him. The bus speeded down Fifth Avenue and continued into Central Park, with the police car in hot pursuit. Traveling wildly around turns at a speed of about 50 miles an hour, the bus emerged at 97th Street and went over to Amsterdam Avenue, with the police car still behind it. The chase continued uptown on Amsterdam, with pedestrians running to safety and motorists pulling over to curbs to avoid being hit. At 130th Street the bus turned left and sped onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. As it headed north on a parkway that only carries automobile traffic, Sgt Frank Krzyick commandeered a Sanitation Department garbage truck and used it to block northbound traffic at about 177th Street.

The boys, both 14 years old, were captured there. It was reported that the bus had been stolen by the boys from a Greyhound maintenance lot at 40th Street and 11th Avenue. One of the boys was said by the police to have escaped recently from the Manhattan State Hospital, a state mental institution. “He handled the bus like a pro,” said Officer Devlin later.

“We had no idea when it was stolen and didn’t know it was taken until the police apprehended the young men,” the spokesmen said. A guard is posted at the gate of the lot where the bus was parked, the spokesman said, but he apparently didn’t realize an unauthorized driver was at the wheel. “Obviously the guard would have reported it if he had seen it,” the spokesman said.

Excerpt from Emanuel Perlmutter March 3, 1977 New York Times