Bronx Contractor Building His Pockets Instead Of Homes
Bronx – The Bronx District Attorney’s office announced today the arrest and indictment of a contractor who allegedly failed to either make repairs or begin home improvement jobs for clients who made down payments totaling more than $142,000.
A grand jury indicted John Arceri, of Huntington, New York, on one count of Grand Larceny in the 2nd degree, ten counts of Grand Larceny in the 3rd degree, three counts of Grand Larceny in the 4th degree, two counts of Scheme to Defraud in the 1st degree, and one count of Petit Larceny. Arceri is facing a maximum sentence of up to 15 years imprisonment if convicted of the most serious charge, Grand Larceny in the 2nd degree, a Class C felony offense.
Arceri was arraigned before State Supreme Court Justice John Byrne who released the defendant on his own recognizance even though the People had argued that bail be set in the amount of $100,000.
It is alleged that Arceri stole $142,300.00 from 22 Bronx homeowners during a six month period from June 1, 2006 through November 30, 2006. The defendant allegedly saturated Bronx neighborhoods with advertising for his Long Island based business, J. Arceri Home Improvements, Inc.
Once prospective clients inquired about available services, Arceri would meet with them to discuss the work to be done, negotiate contract terms and require clients to make large down payments. It is alleged that Arceri would then disappear for months without doing any of the work for which his company had been paid.
Nearly 4,000 Returns Filed, $5.4 Million in Refunds Since Program Started in 2004; CheckSpring Bank to Host Program, Offers Help to Unbanked and Underbanked.
NEW YORK, Jan. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Starting today, Ariva, a Bronx-based non-profit organization providing wealth building knowledge and tools, is providing tax preparation and financial literacy classes to low and moderate-income Bronx area residents. The Ariva program will be hosted at CheckSpring, 69 East 167th St., Bronx, NY.
Ariva will provide over 60 free tax-prep sessions at CheckSpring’s location Mondays through Thursdays from 4-7:30 p.m. and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturdays through mid-April 2008. Ariva also be providing 30 mobile tax preparation days at sites in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn with the partnership of Signature Bank, Fifth Avenue Committee, Mosholu Preservation Corp, Asociacion de Tepeyac, Ridgewood Savings Bank, Community Board 12, Bronx House, and Parkchester Enhancement Program for Seniors (PEP).
After receiving assistance with their taxes, Ariva customers will be eligible to open accounts with CheckSpring, which works closely with community organizations in supporting financial education and providing products and tools needed to manage financial resources. The CheckSpring Access Account provides tax filers with an account for direct deposit of refunds so you can get an electronic payment from the IRS. When combined with E-FILE, customers can expect to receive refunds more quickly (IRS processing times may vary). The Access Account provides an ATM card used to withdraw money for free from MoneyPass(R) ATM’s. The card can be used for Point of Sale and Cash Back transactions or at any ATM.
Ariva has partnered with New York Cares to recruit some 80 dedicated and talented volunteers who undergo extensive training to be certified by the IRS. The total volunteer effort will be over 2,000 hours this tax
season.
Members of the local and financial news media are invited to observe a Free Tax Preparation Day, and speak with Ariva and CheckSpring representatives on February 23, 2008 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
In partnership with the Internal Revenue Service, ARIVA’s Tax Assistance Center is a free tax assistance and preparation site for people who cannot afford professional assistance. ARIVA helps prepare basic tax
returns for taxpayers with low-to-middle incomes, including persons with disabilities, limited-English proficiency, and elderly taxpayers. Since 2004, Ariva has facilitated the filing of 3,990 tax returns yielding $5.4 million in refunds.
ABOUT ARIVA
In 2007, Ariva completed 2,102 tax returns and helped taxpayers receive over $3,037,736 in refunds from the IRS and New York State, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) geared to moderate- and low-income
households. Now, Ariva is stepping up its commitment to promoting individual wealth and economic development in underserved communities with improved access to financial services and education. For more information
about the Ariva free tax program and workshops, call Kelly Dillon or send an email to kdillon@arivaonline.com. More information about Ariva also is available on the Web at http://www.arivaonline.com.
ABOUT CHECKSPRING
CheckSpring inaugurated the first Branch of its new Bank on November 5, 2007. As the first bank founded in the Bronx in over 25 years, CheckSpring Bank is making a strong commitment to the community CheckSpring thrives
with “unbanked” communities with a niche focus; that goes much farther than check cashers by providing check cashing customers with the ability to establish bank accounts. CheckSpring has created a unique and cost-effective approach to banking inner-city communities and clientele. CheckSpring is currently adding services and is focused on identifying additional locations to provide its services.
At robotics team practice at Herman Ridder Junior High School, from left: Carl Jules, Azeem Yousaf, Gary Israel, Harold Smith and Sabrina Fletcher.
South Bronx School Kids Build Grades Like Lego Blocks
At the end of a distinctly pugilistic day of sixth grade, Abdoulie Lemon was escorted by a dean to the industrial-arts classroom that doubled as the detention pen. No sooner had he restlessly settled into his chair than he caught sight of a dozen students gathered in rapt attention around a table at the other end of the room.
Not being the obedient sort at this point in his scholastic career, Abdoulie left behind the dean and the chair to check out the hubbub, he recalled recently. He saw on the tabletop a sort of motorized cart made mostly of Lego pieces.
“I want to play,” he said, shifting from tough guy to eager child with no intermediate step.
“It’s not a toy,” one of the students at the table answered. “It’s a robot.”
The dean begrudgingly gave Abdoulie a five-minute parole to watch the robot scoot to and fro across the tabletop. And in those five minutes, Abdoulie’s life changed.
What he was seeing, he soon learned, was a practice session for the robotics team at Herman Ridder Junior High School in the Bronx. There was practice every afternoon, and more practice or a competition on most Saturdays.
By now, two years later, Abdoulie is a veteran of the team. Last year, he traveled with the Ridder Kids, as their matching T-shirts proclaim them, to a national Lego robotics championship in Atlanta. At the end of this April, the squad plans to go to Japan to participate in an exhibition.
Bronx Community Board meetings
COMMUNITY BOARD 1 (Melrose, Mott Haven) meets at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 31, at Lincoln Hospital, Conference Room 6, 234 Morris Ave., at E. 149th St. Call (718) 585-7117.
COMMUNITY BOARD 3 (Morrisania, Crotona Park and Woodstock) meets at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12, at CB3 Office, 1426 Boston Road. Call (718) 378-8054.
COMMUNITY BOARD 5 (Morris Heights, Fordham, Bathgate and Mount Hope) meets at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 27, at St. Simon Stock School, 2195 Valentine Ave. Call (718) 364-2030.
COMMUNITY BOARD 6 (E. Tremont, Belmont, Bathgate and West Farms) meets at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 13, at Belmont Library, 610 E. 186th St. Call (718) 579-6990.
COMMUNITY BOARD 8 (Riverdale, Fieldston, Spuyten Duyvil and Kingsbridge) meets at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12, at Riverdale Temple, 4545 Independence Ave. Call (718) 884-3959.
COMMUNITY BOARD 9 (Soundview, Clasons Point, Parkchester, Bruckner and Harding Park) meets at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 21, at CB9 Office, 1967 Turnbull Ave. Call (718) 823-3034.
COMMUNITY BOARD 10 (Throgs Neck, City Island, Pelham Bay, Co-op City, Zerega, Westchester Square, Country Club and Edgewater) meets at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 21, at Dreiser Loop Community Center, 177 Dreiser Loop, Room 2 - second floor. Call (718) 892-1161.
COMMUNITY BOARD 11 (Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Laconia and Van Nest) does not meet in January. Call (718) 892-6262.
While the Bronx has no shortage of famous writers - going back to Edgar Allan Poe and up to J.P. Donleavy, Don DeLillo and E.L. Doctorow - the next famous writers (and artists and photographers) might be getting their starts in a new literary magazine being launched in the borough.
They will, however, no longer be able to call themselves ink-stained wretches. The new magazine will be a cyber-age, online, digital publication.
The Bronx Council on the Arts, which is launching the new journal, to be called Cross Bronx, said the online publication will encompass the best writing, poetry, photography and digital art, with a primary focus on Bronx writers and artists.
The journal will be published three times a year, beginning in April, and feature BCA’s award-winning artists, alongside commissioned works, as well as submissions from both emerging and established writers and artists.
BCA said the new venture follows its Digital Matrix program, which provides an online exhibition space for artists working with new media, and continues the council’s ongoing commitment to the exploration of digital arts.
Cross Bronx editor Sonya Chung formulated the idea for creating this new project as part of her public service as a 2007 BCA Literary Fellow.
Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Crab Orchard Review, Sonora Review, Cream City Review and BOMB Magazine, among others.
She is also the recipient of the Charles Johnson Fiction Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination, and was a Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award finalist. She has recently completed her first novel and is at work on a second.
For consideration for publication the Council is seeking electronic submissions of previously unpublished short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and digital photography/art.
The deadline for all submissions is Tuesday, Feb. 12.
Preference will be given to Bronx artists. Submitted work must adhere to a specific set of guidelines, available by going to the BCA’s Web site at www.bronxarts.org
The program is supported with funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Greater New York Arts Development Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Times Foundation and the Scherman Foundation.
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