An offshoot of Occupy Wall Street is raising money to help alleviate consumer debt.

By Caroline Lewis

“Whoa, did you see that?” asked Annie Spencer, a professor at Hunter College and a member of the Occupy group Strike Debt. “The live ticker on the Rolling Jubilee website just crossed $200,000 being raised.” That was enough to purchase and abolish more than $4 million of debt.

It was hours before “The People’s Bailout,” a live fundraising extravaganza that would kick off the Rolling Jubilee at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village last Thursday, with help from a slew of comedians and alternative music icons.

Thanks, in part, to some unlikely praise from mainstream financial commentators, Strike Debt had already far surpassed their initial goal of raising $50,000.

The Rolling Jubilee is a project designed to put Occupiers in the same speculative secondary debt market as professional debt collectors. They will buy debt from banks for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolish it.

By Monday, the ticker on the group’s website counted more than $350,000 in donations, all of which will go toward reducing the amount owed by some unsuspecting debt-strapped Americans.
Slate’s Matthew Yglesias briefly wonders, “Why is this a better idea than just giving money to poor people?” before admitting that “almost all charitable undertakings are organized around some kind of gimmick.”

“We don’t like the idea of framing the debtor as someone who needs charity,” said Spencer, whose red felt square pinned to her clothing identified her as a member of the movement. “The reality is that three quarters of Americans are in debt of some kind, and increasing numbers of people go into debt for meeting basic needs.”

Praises for the Rolling Jubilee have rightly been qualified by the observation that this endeavor probably won’t make a dent in America’s $11 trillion of debt.

In fact, the group can’t even promise to erase an entire family’s debt.

“This first debt purchase of over $100,000 of medical debt [constitutes] roughly 80 different people,” said Thomas Gokey, who helped execute the group’s successful test run.

That’s because debt is purchased in bundles of defaulted accounts from banks for a fraction of what is owed. The professionals then aggressively seek payment for the full amount from individual debtors. Those in the red don’t have to pay back much for debt collectors to turn a profit.

So what has this foray into the debt market revealed so far? For one thing, there’s a lot more than money at stake. “You’re not just buying their debt,” said Gokey of the accounts purchased. “You’re buying their social security number.”

The social security number comes with the debtor’s last known address and a handful of other information.

“It’s not a lot in the context of debt collection, because they’re not getting any of the documentation that would support their claim that this is how much is owed and it’s for this account and it’s with this company,” said Susan Chin, a staff attorney with the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP).

Chin said debtors are often unaware that they can request verification on claims from debt collectors, and that collectors must stop seeking payment on accounts that cannot be verified.
“In general, there’s not a lot of oversight right now of the debt buyer industry,” Chin said. This may change starting next year. Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced plans to police debt collection agencies starting in January 2013.

Some have pointed out the peculiarities of the debt market as limitations of the Rolling Jubilee. For instance, certain kinds of debt—such as mortgages and student debt—are more difficult to abolish due to government protections.

The group’s website counters, “These peculiarities are part of the scandal that we are trying to highlight.”

By Caroline Lewis

A “postmodern grassroots variety show” may sound like just another one of the dismissive names people have been lobbing at Occupy ever since it cropped up in Zuccotti Park last September. But that’s what activist Laura Hanna promises in the fundraising extravaganza the Occupy group Strike Debt is putting on tonight at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village.

"The art collective Not an Alternative sets up giant props they made for the event. Photo by Caroline Lewis

For some, this will be a quirky variety show, but for alternative music and comedy fans, this will be a star-studded event. Comedians like Janeane Garofolo and David Rees will entertain along with members of Neutral Milk Hotel, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and Das Racist (OK, there will be magicians, jugglers, and real live Occupiers as well).

What brings them all together? It’s the kickoff of the Rolling Jubilee. The Rolling Jubilee is an ongoing “project of Strike Debt that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it,” explains the group’s website.

And thanks to some very kind words from mainstream commentators hailing from all over the political spectrum, the group far surpassed their goal for tonight’s fundraiser before it even started.

“Whoa, did you see that?” asked Annie Spencer, a member of Strike Debt. “The live ticker on the Rolling Jubilee website just crossed $200,000 being raised.” That’s enough to buy and abolish more than $4 million worth of debt.

Praises being sung of the Rolling Jubilee are rightly qualified by the observation that this is a nice thought, but probably won’t make a dent in America’s $11 trillion of debt. In fact, the group can’t even promise to erase an entire family’s debt.

“This first debt purchase of over $100,000 of medical debt is roughly 80 different people,” said Thomas Gokey, who helped execute the group’s successful test run.

Gokey said that certain kinds of debt, like mortgage debt and student debt, are also more difficult to erase. “As we learn more about the industry and talk to more people with expertise who are willing to help us, we may learn that there are additional things possible.”

But if nothing else, the Rolling Jubilee is educating people about the rules of the debt game by letting them join in.

The fundraiser will be interactive as well. “I think what makes us different is we don’t actually have telephones that are ringing in,” said Hanna. “But we have a social media booth that we’re going to set up so we can interact with people who are watching the LiveStream.”

You can learn more about debt and the Rolling Jubilee by checking out the resources on their website or watching the LiveStream of tonight’s fundraiser, which will be complete with “speed lectures” on a variety of debt-related issues. And jugglers – don’t forget the jugglers.

A lawsuit brought by three alleged Occupy Wall Street protesters against the NYPD was settled by the city last week. On Nov. 7, 2011, Kira Moyer-Sims, Angela Richino and Matthew Vrvilo claim they were arrested without cause, detained for 24 hours and subjected to a strip search after leaving a coffee shop near the Manhattan Bridge.

“I felt like I had been arrested for a thought crime,” Moyer-Sims told the New York Times.

According to Vijayant Pawar, the attorney for the group, they were arrested on the belief that they were going to a protest, possibly because of what they looked like or because the NYPD followed them.

“They had not been arrested before and have not been arrested since then. They were not going to protest that day. Were they part of the OWS movement? It’s hard to say who is,” Pawar told Gothamist.

The settlement states that the city will pay a total of $50,000 to the plaintiffs. Richino will be awarded $20,000 while Moyer-Sims and Vrvilo will receive $15,000 each. Pawar said that his clients were satisfied with the settlement.

Rep. Nadler Demands OSHA Enforcement for Sandy Recovery

As the recovery efforts from Hurricane Sandy continue, Congressman Jerrold Nadler wants to ensure that workers who are cleaning up are provided proper protective equipment and that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is enforcing labor laws.

Congressman Nadler serves New York’s 8th Congressional District, which includes the hard-hit communities of Coney Island, Sea Gate, Brighton Beach, Red Hook and Lower Manhattan.

“We must not compound the devastation of Hurricane Sandy by subjecting recovery and cleanup workers to unnecessary hazards and risks,” Nadler said in a statement.

According to OSHA, cleanup can be referred to restoring electricity, communications, water and sewer services and more, aiming to bring a feel of normalcy to citizens. Some of the protective measures that should be enforced include assuming that all power lines are live, monitoring the exposure to chemical hazards, following safe tree-cutting procedures and using a secure ladder when dealing with heights. The workers should also wear the proper protective equipment of a hard hat, shoes, reflective vest and safety glasses. Nadler has drawn parallels to 9/11 cleanup efforts that left many first responders and workers with serious health problems.

“If we are to avoid yet another avoidable health crisis, OSHA must now uphold its responsibility to ensure that all cleanup workers are outfitted with proper protective equipment, and that all contractors comply with federal safety and respiratory protection laws,” Nadler said.

LES Murderer Sentenced to 25-to-Life

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced earlier this week that 35-year-old defendant Raul Barrera had been handed a 25-years-to-life sentence for the 2011 second-degree murder of a Lower East Side woman.

The victim, Sarah Coit, 23, was Barrera’s former girlfriend. One April morning at 2 a.m., he brutally attacked her with a kitchen knife in her apartment, stabbing her more than 30 times in the head and torso and leaving her to die before he went to the police station and confessed. Barrera pled guilty to avoid a trial, but Vance ensured that he still received a stiff sentence.

“This case illustrates the sobering fact that domestic violence can quickly turn fatal, and that the most dangerous time for a victim is when she or he tries to leave a relationship,” Vance said in a statement. “Shockingly, this murder was one of 92 such ‘family-related homicides’ in Manhattan in 2011. Far too many domestic violence victims remained trapped in relationships from which they see no escape.”

Vance also announced the opening of Manhattan’s first Family Justice Center next year, which will provide services for domestic violence victims. Currently, victims are encouraged to call the DA’s office’s domestic violence hotline at 212-335-4308.

Compiled by Megan Bungeroth and John Friia

By Paul Bisceglio

Double-decker bus tourists had plenty to see when they reached the Financial District on Monday: grungy drum lines parading down the streets, crowds dressed in mock business suits, anarchist vests and polar bear costumes, and donuts hooked to fishing poles dangling in front of cops. It was Occupy Wall Street’s one-year anniversary, and roughly 1,000 activists showed up to celebrate.

Protests kicked off around 8 in the morning, when the activists flooded the Financial District from its surrounding parks to interrupt business-as-usual on Wall Street. Police had barricaded all roads leading to the district’s cobble-stoned center, so protesters clogged the intersection of Pine and Nassau streets until the cops forced them onto the sidewalks and began to make arrests. The protesters then dispersed into small groups that independently roamed the neighborhood, some marching around with music and costumes, others parking themselves along Broadway or in Zuccotti Park—OWS’s original occupation spot—to accost posted cops and corporate-looking passersby.

Members of the Occupy movement traveled from as far as Vermont and Oakland, Calif., to heed New York General Assembly’s recent call to shut down Wall Street on the morning of the movement’s anniversary. The protesters rallied for various causes that encompassed corporate responsibility, education equality, environmental awareness and women’s rights, with signs like “I can’t afford to get sick,” “It’s the bankers, stupid,” “Public schools, not bombs” and “Police the parks, not our bodies.” As a teen from New Jersey put it, “Where there’s a problem, there’s an Occupy movement.”

The protesters reunited later in the morning at Bowling Green, where anarchic teens, parents with baby strollers and activists from the ’60s shared speeches and songs that decried corporate America. An elderly man in a police uniform told West Side Spirit that he was a retired Philadelphia cop who joined the movement after he heard OWS’s declaration last year. A man in punk clothing admitted that his upper-middle class parents support him so that he can contribute to the cause. “Reverend” Billy Talen, the white suit-clad OWS icon from the Church of Stop Shopping, passed through the crowd proclaiming that the “1 percent” were living for the death of the rest of us.

“People ask me if I think I can make a difference,” said a retired college administrator, explaining her reason for being there. “I say no, not by myself. But now I am doing my part to contribute to something bigger. That’s how a movement grows.”

Many activists shared her optimism, yet there were also grumblings of dissatisfaction with the day’s impact throughout the crowd. One woman expressed disappointment in the turnout, which was far below the numbers of last year’s occupation. Another protester mocked the morning’s excessive speeches: “I have something important to say, so everybody listen to me,” he said, mimicking the speakers. “We need to get back out on the streets!” If Wall Street was supposed to be shut down, he wondered, why was everything still running—albeit slower, with a much larger police presence?

Around the protesters, local employees went about their normal lives as best they could. Construction workers found benches to rest on in Zuccotti Park, and many scoffed at the protesters’ outfits. “All this stuff’s silly to me,” one construction worker said. “Even with corruption and fraud, when big businesses profit, we all profit.”

A source at a bank in the area added that “higher-ups” in the building were apathetic about the demonstrations. Many bankers look at the protesters as “jobless bums” who take to the streets to get attention, not to effect change, the source said.

After Bowling Green, the activists moved to Battery Park to plan more marches and demonstrations throughout the district. Nearly 150 people were arrested by mid-afternoon, according to police, most for disorderly conduct.

Last September, protesters set up camp in Zuccotti Park and launched Occupy Wall Street, a global campaign for economic equality, political transparency and just about every other cause people fight for these days. The occupation drew disparate activists from across the country to the Financial District for two months until police forced them out. Now, OWS mastermind New York General Assembly is summoning its acolytes back to Wall Street for Sept. 17, the movement’s one-year anniversary.

“Join us for three days of education, celebration and resistance to economic injustice with permitted convergences and assemblies, concerts and mass civil disobedience,” invites s17nyc.org, the movement’s anniversary website. Judging by its schedule, the weekend looks to be as grand as this invitation promises: Occupy-related groups have planned events throughout Manhattan on Sept. 15-17, ranging from films to closing off the New York Stock Exchange.

The schedule’s specifics are still being worked out in the movement’s weekly planning meetings (by consensus, of course), and many events are being arranged independently through social media, so here is a rough guide to where you need to be to get in on the action on “#S17”—or where you need to avoid to have a peaceful weekend.

SATURDAY, Sept. 15
Occupy Town Square
Washington Square Park, 11 a.m., s17nyc.org
The park is the official convergence point for all occupy-related groups on the anniversary weekend’s first day. Organizers promise a full day of games, performances, skill-shares, trainings and “horizontal, facilitated assemblies.” Activists will mingle, establish their demands and plan demonstrations for the weekend and beyond.

Anti-Capitalist March
Central Park, 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, 4:30 p.m., facebook.com/directactionnyc
According to a Facebook event page, Direct Action NYC is organizing the late-afternoon march through the Upper East Side, starting from the southeast corner of Central Park.

Occupy the Film Festival
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave.,
6 and 8:30 p.m., occupyfilmfestival.com
AFA will host “Occupy the Film Festival,” two evenings of films, photography and Q&A sessions with directors, all of which will show you “the real stories the 1 percent doesn’t want you to see,” says the festival.

SUNDAY, Sept. 16
Occupy Town Square
Foley Square and Thomas Paine Park, Worth Street betw. Lafayette and Centre streets,
11 a.m., s17nyc.org
Day two moves the movement’s official meeting place to the Civic Center, where a street fair and Open Assembly will focus on “solutions and alternatives to the current system.” Foley Square will also host a concurrent, afternoon-long concert (headliners TBA) for activists more inclined to head-bang along to socio-political diatribes than to speak them. Also, Rosh Hashanah services!

Autonomous FTP March
East Harlem, 8 p.m., facebook.com/directactionnyc
Direct Action NYC will hold a second march, this one with the theme “F.T.P.” (F*** the Police), according to a Facebook event page. Protesters will begin to roam the neighborhood at 8 p.m. from a location yet to be determined.

Occupy the Film Festival
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave.,
6 and 7:30 p.m., occupythefilmfestival.com
Day two of “Occupy the Film Festival.”

MONDAY, Sept. 17
All Roads Lead to Wall Street
Throughout Financial District, 7 a.m., s17nyc.org
The big day. If the movement has its way, there are few places you will be able to go in the Financial District this Monday without seeing the 99 percent in action. Working from neighborhood’s peripheral parks, says the S17 website, different groups will crowd intersections, march through the streets and block off the New York Stock Exchange. Specific targets include the Charging Bull and, of course, Zuccotti Park. To prevent complete mayhem, apparently, event organizers have drafted an Action Plan that calls for the movement’s diverse crews to avoid interfering with each other’s individual expressions of disobedience.

Bike Monday
Seward Park, Canal Street and East Broadway, 6 a.m., owsbc.org
The OWS Bike Coalition is organizing an early-morning ride for “biketivists” from the park around Downtown, free breakfast included.

Emma Goldman Popular Assembly
Veterans Memorial Park, 55 Water St., 6 p.m., s17nyc.org
A Popular Assembly in memory of Emma Goldman will convene following the day’s protests to provide “a non-oppressive, non-hierarchical and non-confrontational space to discuss issues relevant to envisioning a better world.”

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

By Alissa Fleck

Ever since OWS encampments were ejected from Zuccotti Park last fall, Brookfield Properties security company, in conjunction with the NYPD, has drawn up a set of rules aimed at stamping out any fledgling Occupy activity. These rules are “akin to being subjected to a TSA screening” for park patrons, reports Gothamist.

Brookfield released the “Rules of Engagement” document for security guards and police officers, which has been circulating the internet, highlighting the complex and delicate situation. It even describes various rules as being “in flux.”

One excerpt from the document reminds enforcers of the “zero tolerance” policy: “NYPD supervisors that prove to be resistant to enforcing the rules of the park should be reminded that Chief Esposito has agreed to this set of rules and wanted them to be enforced with zero tolerance.”

Gothamist reminds readers Esposito gained infamy as a past aggressor to OWS protestors, including shoving several onto a sidewalk at a demonstration. The document also outlines items which are prohibited, including drums, yoga mats and temporary kitchens.

These regulations reportedly exceed those formerly upheld by a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice.

If OWS-ers are prohibited from Brookfield properties, they do have other privately owned public spaces they can occupy nearby. For a full list of the Lower Manhattan locations most vulnerable to an OWS takeover click here.

By Paul Bisceglio

With Occupy Wall Street’s one-year anniversary celebration in the Financial District scheduled for Sept. 17, New York city officials are wondering if OWS protestors might have anything else in the works to commemorate their inaugural occupation of Zuccotti Park.

Another takeover, perhaps?

Michael Levine, professor of urban planning at Pace University and director of planning for Community Board 1, doesn’t know when the next wave of public advocacy groups will move in, but he can say where in lower Manhattan the occupation is most likely to occur.

Levine recently challenged his students to venture out into the city to find its most vulnerable Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS), publicly accessible outdoor plazas that, like Zuccotti Park, are owned by commercial companies, not the city.

POPS have been ubiquitous in Manhattan sincea 1961 zoning resolution introduced a program that allowed developers to construct taller buildings if their plans included outdoor plazas. They tend to be more occupation-friendly than city-owned parks because some are open 24/7, don’t display concrete rules and regulations and are owned by the large businesses that public advocacy groups oppose.

Levine’s students rated 28 POPS south of Canal Street on a scale of 0 to 4, from invulnerable to highly vulnerable. They based their rating on four categories: convenience, size, signage or lack thereof and reputation of owner. The following three plazas scored over 3.0, making them the top of the POPS—the three privately owned public spaces in lower Manhattan most vulnerable to occupation.

140 Broadway
Owner: HSBC
Area: 3,347 square feet
Score: 3.1
Student Nellyn Caraballo gave this plaza across from Zuccotti Park major points for its high-traffic location along Broadway and its big-time corporate owners, but noted that it is too small and busy for group occupancy—plus the owners have been clever enough to post a sign prohibiting camping.

388 Greenwich St.
Owner: Salomon Smith Barney
Area: 51,635 square feet
Score: 3.2
A huge, visible area with benches, grass and trees makes this Tribeca park ideal for group gatherings, according to student Arlida Bucaj, and the park’s corporate owners make it all the more enticing. The location lost points for clear signage, though nothing is posted to prohibit sleeping.

59 Maiden Lane
Owner: Amtrust Realty Corporation
Area: 32,604 square feet
Score: 3.5
This capacious plaza surrounds part of the New York City Finance Department at the intersection of Maiden Lane and William Street. The plaza scored big on size, absent signage and its suit-wearing owner. The majority of the plaza is open concrete, however, with scatterings of trees and benches on the ends, so student Erin Hanraty deducted points for convenience and comfort. The plaza might be a great place for gathering, but protestors had better be sure to bring some chairs and padding, as well as watch out for trampling commuters.

One Chase Manhattan Plaza. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Following downtown residents’ and the Community Board 1 (CB1) Urban Planning Committee’s demands for an explanation, three representatives of JP Morgan Chase met with the CB1 Quality of Life Committee yesterday evening to discuss the closure of One Chase Manhattan Plaza, home of the bank’s Financial District skyscraper and a privately owned major pedestrian thruway that has been fenced off since September.

Officially, the plaza was closed for a yet-to-be-seen construction project, but its timing prompted many citizens to suspect that the fencing was erected to ward off Occupy Wall Street protestors. Suspicion increased when various community remembers reported that they were explicitly told by the bank’s floor workers and security guards that the barrier was to prevent protests.

Committee member Ro Sheffe asked the representatives if any factors at all other than construction were behind the plaza’s closure. Chase’s Community Reinvestment Manager Karen McGuinness responded, “Absolutely not.”

The representatives explained that serious leaks in the plaza were identified that compromise the building’s infrastructure and safety. They said that the bank has spent recent months surveying the lot and using vector mapping to determine weak points. Results showed that the plaza’s membrane would be good for another 8-10 years, but multiple sections need repair, along with cleaning and resetting.

Asked how long repairs would take, one representative said about six months, weather permitting. Asked when repairs would begin, he responded, “soon — as soon as tomorrow, even,” but promised no specific date or deadline.

Asked if the plaza would reopen to the public after construction, another representative assured that it would. “We intend to operate the plaza as it has been traditionally operated,” he said.

After the representatives left the meeting, the Committee agreed to suspend a resolution to pressure the bank to reopen the plaza that the Urban Planning Committee had drafted when it met on July 5. For now, they decided, they would keep an eye on the plaza and wait to see if Chase follows through.

Many committee members remained skeptical about the bank’s story — a few had been told themselves by the bank’s staff that the fencing was in place to block protestors — but most were satisfied that the bank had made its intentions clear.

Sheffe, however, said that he was still unhappy. “I don’t want to argue with Chase because it’s their property,” he told New York Press. “But there’s a social imperative. [The plaza] is a valuable community resource. I want it open as soon as possible.”

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

It’s just another day in the life of a Zuccotti Park security guard. The park, which remains under watch by security 24/7 since the dissolution of the Occupy encampment, is still witnessing acts of rebellion.

A Brookfield Properties security guard was playing computer games in the park last night, until he realized he was being filmed by an Occupy livestreamer, reports Gothamist. The security guard, accompanied by another, approached the Occupier and told him not to stand on the park chairs. When the accompanying guard implied the livestreaming may not be legal, the game-playing guard smashed the camera out of the man’s hand.

NYPD and livestream viewers appeared on scene to see what the melee concerned. Officers told the Occupy camera operators they were not allowed to stand on tables and chairs.

Video streaming by Ustream

—Alissa Fleck

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

UPDATE: It turns out that the only connection between the DNA sample lifted from a subway gate at a recent Occupy Wall Street protest and DNA collected in the unsolved 2004 murder of Juilliard student Sarah Fox was an NYPD lab worker who processed both, the Daily News reported Wednesday.

The matching DNA was found to be the NYPD employee’s, which means that the samples were contaminated. According to the Daily News’s sources, the employee, whose identity has not been released, will likely face departmental charges for failing to prevent tainting.

- – -

It could be straight out of a pulpy crime drama, but this time it’s for real. A DNA sample collected at a recent Occupy Wall Street protest eerily matches DNA collected in the unsolved 2004 murder of 21-year-old Juilliard student Sarah Fox. Does this point to a connection or mere coincidence? Was the DNA lifted at the protest in fact that of a protester, and, further, what would have prompted the NYPD to lift DNA from the scene in the first place?

(by Alissa Fleck)

The sample collected in connection with OWS was found on a chain used to “prop open the gates at an East Flatbush subway station…designed to let straphangers ride for free,” reports am NY. Realistically, the sample could have come from anywhere.

The DNA is a match to that taken from Fox’s CD player, which she brought with her on a jog in May of 2004, immediately prior to her disappearance and murder.

The shared DNA did not hit on any known criminal in the database, reports am NY. Officials are quick not to jump to conclusions, saying it’s possible evidence was simply handled by a common officer in both cases. The sample on Fox’s CD player was never shown to match her case’s primary suspect or any friends or family.

So is it simply coincidence, or is there a more sinister element at play—could this discovery provide renewed hope for the 8-year-old unsolved murder?

Dr. Lawrence Koblinsky, a forensics expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told NBC New York, “the likelihood is high the person who left that DNA on the CD player is the killer of Sarah Fox.”

The link is odd and serendipitous enough as is, but additionally strange seems the decision to collect DNA evidence in the case of an OWS protest. The collection of DNA in an isolated incident like this one begs the question of when it is protocol for the NYPD to collect a DNA sample. What sort of cost does it incur and how useful is it, in most cases?

The NYPD’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for such information, but the New York State Legislature reached an agreement on a bill in March of this year which would allow for the collection of DNA from those convicted even of misdemeanors. WNYC reported this would make NYS the first “all crimes DNA” state in the country, according to Governor Cuomo.

“DNA collection is one of the most reliable and cost-effective tools that we have in law enforcement,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.

While this may not directly apply to this particular case, it shows New York’s heightened emphasis on the importance of DNA collection, even in cases where it might seem largely unnecessary. Still, many questions remain unanswered in this stranger-than-fiction discovery.