Police now believe that Jeff Locker, a distraught motivational speaker beset by debt, drove to East Harlem last July, bought condoms at a bodega, then asked a man named Kenneth Minor to kill him, for his ATM card. Minor obliged.

Did Joe Basel—one of the gentlemen arrested for attempting to bug Senator Mary Landrieu's office—go on a date with one of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown's daughters? He bragged about it on the Facebook!

When it comes to the arrest of James O'Keefe, patron Andrew Breitbart is not jumping to conclusions. The MSM may want to convict O'Keefe, but Breitbart is waiting for the facts, so that he can ignore the inconvenient ones.

Beleaguered outlaw vandalartist Poster Boy was arrested again last week, for cutting up subway ads in Brooklyn. His effort at sweet-talking the cops left something to be desired.

NYC authorities are actually trying to shut down four clubs—including nasty burlesque-porn den The Box—for flouting indoor smoking laws. The Box is fighting for its very survival today! Nobody is "too cool" for rules. [NYDN; Related. Pic via]

So who are the four geniuses who got arrested by the FBI yesterday for—apparently—trying to tap the phone of a sitting U.S. senator?

Remember David Brooks, the Long Island defense contractor who spent $10 million on his daughter's bat mitzvah in 2005—the Rainbow Room blowout featured performances by Aerosmith, 50 Cent, Ciara, and Tom Petty among others—and was later accused of using company money to pay for it?

Tokyo's struggling to "clean up" its Roppongi neighborhood, where Nigerian hustlers steer suckers into shady bars where they're drugged and robbed. You'd think that business would fall off naturally, right? But this next drink might be the un-spiked one! [LAT]

After stealing a car, some guy got busted playing Grand Theft Auto, with the stolen car sitting in his driveway. This is like that time Andre Balazs built The Standard after too many bad games of First Person Tetris. [cNet]

Asha Rajaratnam, the wife of accused insider-trading mastermind Raj Rajaratnam, is prepared to defend her man. And she isn't afraid to get physical, as she demonstrated earlier today when the couple left Town on West 56th Street and found themselves swarmed by photographers. [via DB]

The youth of today: what the hell are they doing all the time? Nothing good, that's for sure.

A porn star and a stripper are trying to beat prostitution charges on a grammatical technicality after prosecutors put "and" in a document where they should have put "or." Luckily for the women, they have a lawyer who—solely on the basis of the following quote—we picture (correctly, it turns out) to be a hilariously stereotypical sleazoid attorney:

How desperate are New York Times employees? A tipster tells us that a thief recently stole 27(!) laptop computers from the NYT's headquarters—and some think it may have been an inside job. The sordid details:

Robert Halderman utterly failed to convince a judge to toss extortion charges against him on First Amendment grounds. The judge also didn't buy his "but Tiger Woods skanks did it, too" defense.

A man on the run makes a daring escape through a window! ...Almost.

As Jason Linkins says: "Wow. Before Law And Order: SVU rips this headline, they will need to edit it."

At least two foreign reporters in China, including an AP television reporter, discovered that their GMail accounts have been hacked (by the government??). Oh, ChinaGuy69@aol.com was just not "professional" enough, right? You had to switch to Gmail. Fools. [NYT]

Unless you manage a hotel, Broadway theater or overpriced electronics store, you probably have no use for the millions of tourists who flock to Times Square every year. That's about to change. Out-of-towners can now solve murders—and reduce NYC's crime rate in the process—after they visit Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum or have dinner at Applebee's:

Fallen NY1 anchor Dominic Carter has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for beating his wife. He and his wife also got special little presents from the judge, an insane person.

The Way We Live Now: Being mean. On purpose! The good thing about being mean is that is is fun to make others feel your pain. Homeless shantytown? Bulldoze it! Rich bankers? Tax em! Church money? Steal it! Whee.