Apartment Choice

Saying they were there to do work, the four talked their way inside the apartment. They walked around, as if inspecting the place, but provided only vague answers to the residents’ questions before one stranger turned to the others. “Do you want to do this now or another time?” he asked. “I’m ready,” another said. With that, they attacked — the beginning of 11 terrifying hours for a family tied up and held captive overnight in their Silver Spring , Md., apartment, according to court documents filed in Montgomery County. Police say five intruders entered this Silver Spring apartment building Aug . 1 and held a family captive all night. The family was targeted, police say, because at least one of the intruders knew that a woman at the apartment worked at a check- cashing store; holding her at knifepoint, the intruders demanded she turn over store keys and an alarm code. On Monday, the final suspect charged in the home invasion — the four initial attackers allegedly were join...

view slideshow (4 images) PREV         NEXT A couple who owns a small plot of farmland on Park Avenue near the Lincoln Tunnel alleges that the Township of Weehawken has blocked their efforts for 15 years to clean up their property and develop it into luxury apartments. Konstantinos and Helen Natsis, who have fought numerous court battles against Weehawken over their property at 353 Park Ave., have also leveled allegations of political retaliation in recent media interviews . The troubles began around 2004, when the Superior Court of New Jersey ordered the township to perform a slope stabilization project on the Natsises’ property. That project was done to bring the slope in line with the town’s steep slope ordinance . The ordinance limits development on the Palisades Cliffs to protect its structural integrity and the integrity of properties above it. The town’s work included repairing pipes and installing fencing to avoid rock slides . The town also worked on a leaking clay...

Jim Pantaleo’s phone winked out sometime after 6:00 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2012. The last message he sent before it died was to his wife, Allison. “Love you forever,” it said. And then, nothing. Jim had spent the day before writing and drinking, slowly. From his perch at the corner of an L-shaped bar at a pub in Toronto’s east end, he tapped away at his laptop. He sipped beer and he did shots of “liquid cocaine,” a mix of Jagermeister and Goldschlager schnapps. Jim had arrived at the pub, Rails and Ales, at about 3 p.m. “He seemed very normal,” says Len Grammenopoulos, the bar’s owner. He ate some food. He joked around. Sometime after midnight, he sent his mother an email with seven letters inside. At about 2:30 a.m., he paid his tab — maybe $60, $70. He high-fived Len and he walked out. “I remember him saying ‘I’m gone,’” Len says. “And that was it.” Jim was gone. When Jim and Allison Pantaleo first met — as coworkers at a pub called Gabby ’s on the Danforth — it was something close to ...