I broke a perfectly good winning streak -- a four-session-long, 266-point gain -- all because some underqualified clerks have been throwing away, improperly signing and generally making a mess of foreclosure documents for the banks.

The close losses always hurt the most, and it's hard to imagine a closer call than today's finish. In the final minutes I couldn't muster up that last push and wound up closing the session with a 1.5-point loss. One and a half points! That's one one-hundredth of one percent. Ugh. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

Of course, my bank stocks lent me no support. Bank of America dropped 5.2 percent and JPMorgan Chase lost 2.8 percent. American Express had an okay day, but you know what? They don't do mortgages! And now the housing market has a whole other pile of legal sludge to wade through. Consider this news stuck -- in my craw.

The other stuff hardly seems to matter. Weekly initial jobless claims showed 462,000 people filed for unemployment benefits -- more than expected. The Producer Price Index rose, indicating inflation. That's kind of a scary thought, given that the Federal Reserve seems to think we need more inflation and by many accounts is preparing to pump more money into the system with another round of quantitative easing. I'm just glad I don't have to make the decisions the Fed governors have to make. The economy is in what the layman might call an "awkward spot."

Gold made another upward run and set a new record high. I don't have to tell you, Diary, that gold is a hedge against inflation -- but also just a general safe haven against market disruptions.

You know how when you're watching your team play a game, and the game is close, but you can see in your players' eyes during the postgame interview that now they're scared and the wheels are coming off? Yeah, I feel kind of like that. Like we can kiss the post-season goodbye.

Super frustrated -- even a little ticked off,

The Dow Jones Industrial Average

American Express, one of the tournament's major sponsors, seems to be cribbing from the Obama campaign's well-received graphic design, especially its use of Gotham font.

"It’s substantial yet friendly," branding expert Brian Collins said about Gotham to The New York Times. Just what you want from a credit card.

Now the 26-year-old singer-actress has really started to prove the American Express portrayal wrong. She’s currently in her hometown, er, Paris, kicking back with Jay-Z to celebrate his birthday with an intimate dinner, er, bash that included a delicious dessert, er, “a chorus of strip-tease artists.” According to People, Ms. Knowles jetted in on a red-eye a day after her lover, because she was detained by her performance at “Movies Rock”—5,000 miles away. Once together, the two spent a leisurely day hitting the spa, touring the French capital in a Maybach and dining at L’Avenue.

People argued over whether to give extra recognition to police officers and firefighters. They said that the Twin Towers’ footprint must be preserved. They crowed about opening up the memorial competition to “anyone with $25 and a vision”—which turned out to be the best idea of all, as it raised a little pocket change for the construction. But the architects were never given a budget, and some came up with lavish ideas: 3,000 glass columns, each inscribed with a victim’s name; 92 sugar maples, representing the number of countries from which the victims came; 10,000 vertical light beams floating in midair.

The design that won, Reflecting Absence by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, may have been one of the cheapest, but it includes eight waterfalls, 30-foot-deep reflecting pools and hundreds of trees. The cost, along with an underground museum, was last tallied at $490 million, but construction inflation and the other elements of the memorial quadrant prompted Mayor Michael Bloomberg to speculate that the final price tag would be more like $1 billion.

Just $130.3 million has been raised privately.

Reflecting absence, indeed.

The expulsion of the planned Freedom Center from Ground Zero—which was to be a cultural museum dedicated to … freedom?—cut off what was supposed to be a profitable conduit for funds for the whole memorial.

The Freedom Center had already raised a few million dollars from American Express, G.E. and other corporations, and would have been able to sell naming rights, which will not be permitted on the site itself. (The visitors’ center will display a list of contributors.)

After the Freedom Center died, Agnes Gund, former president of the Museum of Modern Art, resigned from the memorial’s board in protest. Tom Bernstein, a co-chairman of the foundation’s fund-raising committee and chairman of the Freedom Center, quit as well, and with them went the sense that the memorial would appeal to New York’s donor class.

“I’ve never been asked by any of our donors who gave generously to the Sept. 11 Fund and to other 9/11-related charities anything about the memorial,” said Bob Edgar, vice president for donor relations at the New York Community Trust. “I think many donors these days are proactive: ‘What can we do to make things better?’ I don’t know exactly, if given a choice between helping a Ninth Ward New Orleans family and engraving the name of someone who died in 9/11, which one you are more likely to give to.”

Other fund-raising professionals pointed to other anomalies that are making it hard to attract donors—like the fact that the memorial doesn’t exist yet. (A chicken-and-egg problem if ever there was one.)

“As opposed to the Statue of Liberty, where you could look out and see the lady with the torch in the harbor and that iconic image is known throughout the world, we are being asked to invest funds in something where there is only an iconic image of what once stood there,” said Michael Seltzer, president of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, an umbrella group of foundations and individual donors. “The situation defies conventional indicators, and I think $130 million is frankly quite impressive by this stage.”

As a sign of how hard it is to raise money for Sept. 11 almost five years later, consider September’s Mission Foundation, an organization established by Monica Iken, who lost her husband on Sept. 11 and who, right after the memorial design was announced in January 2004, said she wanted to raise $9.11 million that would go towards the memorial’s construction and operation. So far, Ms. Iken said, she has brought in about $35,000. She has lowered her sights to raise $1 million by the fifth anniversary this September.

Good Money After Bad (News)

“I would say it’s disappointing, but I would not in any way say it’s a failure,” said Addie Guttag, senior vice president for development at the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

And she and the foundation’s defenders have a point: The foundation raising money for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island took more than 20 years to raise a half-billion dollars. Prestigious universities and large art museums get up into that range, but then they’re long-established institutions.

“Part of what we are fighting is that stories are being put out there in the press that it is a failure,” Ms. Guttag said. “I don’t know any start-up that has raised more money than we have. People, and corporations, like to give to a winner.”

When asked whether potential donors mentioned the bad news, Ms. Guttag said, “No, but I think there is confusion over what is ours, what is Silverstein’s, what is the Port Authority’s …. No corporation has turned us down. In some cases, they want to wait and see. In some cases, they have to do their due diligence and get approval from their board.”

Until recently, the bad press followed bad news, largely at other portions of Ground Zero. Then, on April 11, the New York Post quoted two foundation board members anonymously who said that the foundation’s president, Gretchen Dykstra, wasn’t doing her job well. She had come to the foundation a year ago with little fund-raising experience but what was seen as valuable connections to businesses forged when she was head of the business-improvement district in Times Square.

It is unclear how those connections have played out. The biggest donation so far—$25 million—came from the Starr Foundation, which is headed by Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, the embattled former chairman of A.I.G., and it is assumed he was asked for a donation by his close friend John Whitehead, the chairman of the foundation’s board. Many of the other large corporate gifts—$15 million from Deutsche Bank, $10 million from the Bank of New York, between $1 million and $5 million from Bear Stearns—have come from downtown institutions with a clear interest in seeing something get built in the hole at Ground Zero, and whose executives sit on the foundation board.

“When I see how much and where we have raised, I say, ‘Thank God for John Whitehead,’” said one board member who requested anonymity. “You have to put forward a sense of excitement. There has been no ad campaign so far. We live in New York City. How many fund-raising events have there been in the last year? None.”

Ms. Dykstra referred specific questions on development to Ms. Guttag, and she was unavailable to be interviewed because of her schedule, according to vice president of public affairs Lynn Rasic.

“A campaign of this magnitude depends on the support of major donors and the public,” Ms. Rasic said. “Like most nonprofits, the president and foundation staff work with the board to maximize their resources in order to further the organization’s mission and close gifts. Obviously, Gretchen’s job as president entails a host of things. The foundation isn’t just a fund-raising body. The foundation is set up to build, own and operate the memorial and the site.”

The launch of a television and print advertising campaign to solicit donations from the general public will come in May—but that, according to the board member, is awfully late in the process. Ms. Rasic said that the campaign is being produced entirely pro bono, with airtime, newspaper space and creative work all donated.

The foundation knows that most of its money will come from big gifts, not the general public. So ad campaigns, or gimmicks like American Express donating one penny for each charge—like it did for the Statue of Liberty—may be nice to goose school spirit, but cannot be counted on for major amounts.

The last direct-mail campaign, with about 164,000 pieces, yielded just $60,000, according to Ms. Guttag. The earlier one, launched in late November, yielded even less. She said that direct mail, however, builds a mailing list that will come in handy five or 10 years hence in soliciting funds for operating or maintenance.

Other board members did not blame Ms. Dykstra entirely or at all for the lack of donations, although they did echo the sense that fund-raising was in crisis.

“I think the fund-raising really needs a good jumpstart,” said Julie Menin, head of the lower Manhattan community board and a member of the foundation’s board. “I served on the jury that picked the 9/11 memorial, and some time has passed since then and we don’t have a lot to show for it. I really think there needs to be more of focus put on fund-raising. It entails a national campaign. It entails elected officials going out and fund-raising for the memorial.”

Fund-raising professionals not directly connected to the campaign were surprised when told that not all members of the foundation’s board had made contributions.

“We call it ‘family first’—whether it is the first 12 months or 15 of a campaign, you certainly like to have leadership gifts in hand before you spread the solicitations around,” said Bob Carter, president of Ketchum, which is advising the $30 million fund-raising campaign for a Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania. “The executive director is likely to be the manager of the process and perhaps the information resource to the key volunteers. We believe in the success of peer-to-peer fund-raising instead of fund-raising by paid staff.”

J.P. Morgan Chase, Time Warner and American Express are the three largest corporations who have representation on the board but which have not contributed. Spokesmen for each of them said the companies plan to make significant donations, although they did not specify when.

The Rockefeller Foundation has not announced, though its president, Judith Rodin, is a member of the foundation’s board. Ms. Rodin recently hired Richard Tofel as vice president and general counsel. Mr. Tofel was the president of the International Freedom Center.

A call to a Rockefeller Foundation spokesman for comment was not returned.

—additional reporting by Jason Horowitz

A quick Politicker once-over of past Santorum donors turned up lots of usual suspects -- think Rupert Murdoch, who has given $4200, and Henry Kissinger, who plunked down $500 -- as well as some genuine surprises, like die-hard Democratic fund-raiser John Catsimatidis. The list also includes baby neo-con Mark Gerson, failed would-be senator Rick Lazio, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, controversial businessman Kenneth Langone, and a piggy bank's worth of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns-ers (we're sure Mr. Santorum's plum position on the banking committee had nothing to do with that). Most impressive, however, was Mr. Santorum's ability to recruit a real, live Frank Sinatra and Robert E. Lee!

-- Lizzy Ratner

More names after the jump:

New Yorkers for Santorum 2006

Gary Barnett
Extell Development Corp.: $2000 - 12/31/2004

John Bruno
Potamkin Cadillac, President: $2000 - 09/10/2004

John Catsimatidis
Red Apple Group: $1000 - 05/12/2005

James Cayne
Bear Stearns, Chairman/CEO: $1000 - 11/30/2005

Samuel R. Chapin
Merrill Lynch, Vice Chairman: $1000 - 11/18/2004

Barry J. Cohen
Bear Stearns, Senior Managing Director: $1000 - 03/10/2003

Paul W. Critchlow
Merrill Lynch, Business Executive: $2000 - 11/22/2004; $2000 - 11/22/2004

Steven Dantus
Bear Stearns, Senior Managing Director: $1000 - 03/27/2003

Robert Foran
Bear Stearns, Senior Managing Director: $1000 - 03/10/2003

Charles Gargano
Empire State Development Corporation: $2000 - 11/18/2003

Bruce Geismar
Bear Stearns, Senior Managing Director: $1000 - 03/18/2003

Mark Gerson
Gerson Lehman Group: $2000 - 05/26/2005

Alan Greenberg
Bear Stearns, Chairman of the Executive Committee: $1000 - 03/10/2003

Roger Hertog
Alliance Capital, Vice Chairman: $1000 - 07/25/2005

Brian Hull
Merrill Lynch, Executive: $1000 - 11/22/2004

Daniel Irvin
UBS Warburg, Managing Director: $1000 - 11/18/2003

Ambassador Brenda Johnson
$1000 - 12/29/2005:

Peter Kalikow
HJ Kalikow & Co.: $2000 - 03/30/2005

Daniel Keating
Bear Stearns, Senior managing director: $1000 - 03/12/2003; $1000 - 11/30/2005

Alfred Kelly
American Express Group, President: $4200 -12/14/2005

Jerome Kennedy
Merill Lynch, Vice Chairman: $1000 - 11/22/2004

Henry Kissinger
Kissinger Associates: $500 - 06/30/2002

Kenneth Langone
Invemed Associates: $4200 - 06/30/2005

Rick Lazio
The Financial Services Forum: $1000 - 11/18/2004

Robert E. Lee III
$4200 - 12/31/2005

Mark Ellis Lehman
Bear Stearns, VP & General Counsel: $1000 - 03/12/2003

Bartley Livolsi
Citigroup, Managing Director: $2000 - 11/18/2003; $1900 - 03/30/2005

Scott Mead
Goldman Sachs, Managing Director: $2000 - 06/30/2005

Rupert Murdoch
News Corp.: $4200 - 11/08/2005

Stanley O'Neal
Merrill Lynch, Chairman/CEO: $2000 - 01/05/2005

Michael O'Neill
American Express, Senior VP, Public Affairs: $1000 - 12/13/2005

Aldo Parcesepe
Bear Stearns, Senior managing director: $1000 - 03/12/2003

John Rosenwald Jr.
Bear Stearns, Vice Chairman: $1000 - 03/17/2003 ;$1000 - 12/13/2005

Thomas Schick
American Express, Executive: $1000 - 12/13/2005

Alan Schwartz
Bear Stearns, President/Co-COO: $1000 - 03/12/2003; $1000 - 12/13/2005

Frank Sciame
Frank J. Sciame Construction: 2000 - 03/30/2005

Frank G. Sinatra
Holland & Knight: $1000 - 3/30/2005

Robert Steinberg
Bear Stearns, Senior Managing Director: $1000 - 03/17/2003

Eli Wachtel
Bear Stearns, Senior Managing Director: $1000 -03/18/2003

The victim says that she got up from her seat at Citibar, 1446 First Avenue, at 10:10 p.m. to change the channel, leaving her purse hanging from her barstool. When she was ready to leave, she noticed that her wallet was missing. So she notified the manager, who went back to his office to review the bar’s security video.

Sure enough, he spotted a male suspect going through the woman’s handbag and taking her wallet. He even recognized the guy, describing him as a “regular homeless man,” though it was unclear whether he meant a regular patron of the bar who happens to be homeless, or a regular guy who just happens to be down on his luck (or perhaps both). The bartender also told the victim that the suspect “is always hanging around the establishment.”

In any event, he’ll probably be sporting a new, improved look the next time he visits the bar, because the woman’s Ann Taylor wallet contained a Nike gift card valued at $100, an American Express gift card worth $100, a $50 Gap gift card and $40 in cash.

Shakespearean Theft

On Feb. 13, the Shakespeare scholar Dympna Callaghan was providing the commentary for an evening of discussion and performance at Hunter College’s Silvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse entitled “Boys Will Be Girls,” according to the Web site Broadwayworld.com. Ms. Callaghan was addressing the mysteries of cross-dressing in the Bard’s work, when someone—taking advantage of the onstage commotion (the performers included Good Night, and Good Luck’s David Strathairn and members of an all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew)—stole her wallet from her dressing room.

Perhaps because her name was on the door of the dressing room, Ms. Callaghan assumed that her star power would give any potential thief pause. Either that or she took the word of the event’s security director, who told her that her property would be safe in the unlocked room. However, New York crooks, as a group, tend to be rather inured to celebrity—not to mention Elizabethan poetry—and the fact that the property was apparently in plain view was too inviting to pass up.

Ms. Callaghan, the author of Shakespeare Without Women, didn’t even realize that her wallet was missing until the next morning, because the thief left behind her handbag and other items of personal property. Her wallet contained $200 in cash and an American Express card, which, fortunately, she was able to cancel before it was used.

Pregnancy Scare

One way to chastise motorists who are guilty of violating automotive etiquette—say when they try to run you over as you’re crossing the street—is to tap on the trunk of their car after you’ve survived the encounter.

This would seem a completely justifiable, even measured reaction, considering that they almost killed you. But the sort of would-be assassin who would drive that way in the first place probably isn’t particularly well bred and might even have homicidal tendencies, as a pregnant woman crossing 79th Street and Third Avenue discovered on Feb. 8.

The victim, 9 1¼2 months pregnant and on her way to the gynecologist, was attempting to cross from the southeast to the northeast corner of 79th Street when a car traveling northbound on Third Avenue made a right turn onto 79th Street and almost hit her. That’s when the expectant mother, a 36-year-old West 67th Street resident, decided to reprimand the driver by tapping on her vehicle.

There are those who can’t take criticism, no matter how valid, and the perp pounced from her car, stating, “I’m going to fuck you up.” That the woman was about to deliver—and even informed her of that fact—made no difference. So much for female empathy.

“Did you fucking hit my car?” she demanded and kicked her in the stomach. Then she fled eastbound on 79th Street. Luckily, the victim—who received medical attention at the scene—got her assailant’s license number and car description before she departed. She was driving a gray 2002 Nissan Altima.

“That’s an easy one,” stated a police source. “They have a plate. I’m sure they’ll make an arrest soon.” Let’s hope.

The victim says that she got up from her seat at Citibar, 1446 First Avenue, at 10:10 p.m. to change the channel, leaving her purse hanging from her barstool. When she was ready to leave, she noticed that her wallet was missing. So she notified the manager, who went back to his office to review the bar’s security video.

Sure enough, he spotted a male suspect going through the woman’s handbag and taking her wallet. He even recognized the guy, describing him as a “regular homeless man,” though it was unclear whether he meant a regular patron of the bar who happens to be homeless, or a regular guy who just happens to be down on his luck (or perhaps both). The bartender also told the victim that the suspect “is always hanging around the establishment.”

In any event, he’ll probably be sporting a new, improved look the next time he visits the bar, because the woman’s Ann Taylor wallet contained a Nike gift card valued at $100, an American Express gift card worth $100, a $50 Gap gift card and $40 in cash.

Shakespearean Theft

On Feb. 13, the Shakespeare scholar Dympna Callaghan was providing the commentary for an evening of discussion and performance at Hunter College’s Silvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse entitled “Boys Will Be Girls,” according to the Web site Broadwayworld.com. Ms. Callaghan was addressing the mysteries of cross-dressing in the Bard’s work, when someone—taking advantage of the onstage commotion (the performers included Good Night, and Good Luck’s David Strathairn and members of an all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew)—stole her wallet from her dressing room.

Perhaps because her name was on the door of the dressing room, Ms. Callaghan assumed that her star power would give any potential thief pause. Either that or she took the word of the event’s security director, who told her that her property would be safe in the unlocked room. However, New York crooks, as a group, tend to be rather inured to celebrity—not to mention Elizabethan poetry—and the fact that the property was apparently in plain view was too inviting to pass up.

Ms. Callaghan, the author of Shakespeare Without Women, didn’t even realize that her wallet was missing until the next morning, because the thief left behind her handbag and other items of personal property. Her wallet contained $200 in cash and an American Express card, which, fortunately, she was able to cancel before it was used.

Pregnancy Scare

One way to chastise motorists who are guilty of violating automotive etiquette—say when they try to run you over as you’re crossing the street—is to tap on the trunk of their car after you’ve survived the encounter.

This would seem a completely justifiable, even measured reaction, considering that they almost killed you. But the sort of would-be assassin who would drive that way in the first place probably isn’t particularly well bred and might even have homicidal tendencies, as a pregnant woman crossing 79th Street and Third Avenue discovered on Feb. 8.

The victim, 9 1¼2 months pregnant and on her way to the gynecologist, was attempting to cross from the southeast to the northeast corner of 79th Street when a car traveling northbound on Third Avenue made a right turn onto 79th Street and almost hit her. That’s when the expectant mother, a 36-year-old West 67th Street resident, decided to reprimand the driver by tapping on her vehicle.

There are those who can’t take criticism, no matter how valid, and the perp pounced from her car, stating, “I’m going to fuck you up.” That the woman was about to deliver—and even informed her of that fact—made no difference. So much for female empathy.

“Did you fucking hit my car?” she demanded and kicked her in the stomach. Then she fled eastbound on 79th Street. Luckily, the victim—who received medical attention at the scene—got her assailant’s license number and car description before she departed. She was driving a gray 2002 Nissan Altima.

“That’s an easy one,” stated a police source. “They have a plate. I’m sure they’ll make an arrest soon.” Let’s hope.

The FBI's "Operation City Lights," according to the report (and Dienst had cameras in place at three separate raids) targeted McLaughlin's district office as well as the Labor Council's headquarters.

It sounds like an old-time bid-rigging scam: The suggestion is that electrical contractors divvied up neighborhoods, setting "low-bids" in advance, with other contractors deliberately bidding too high on street light contracts. McLaughlin was allegedly compensated with cash, an American Express card, and the installation of his alarm system.

McLaughlin, it's worth noting, came up as an electrical worker.

Also: Another huge black eye for the city's Department of Transportation.

The victim, a 43-year-old East 69th Street resident, was minding his own business, perched on his high chair and enjoying his bagel at 6:30 p.m., when another man approached him from behind and asked him for $2. When the victim explained that he had no money, the panhandler took the news poorly, striking him with a closed fist behind his left ear.

The homeless perpetrator wasn’t unknown to the police, who say they’ve been trying to get him off the street for a long time. “He has a violent edge and stands there ranting and raving,” explained one police officer. “But as soon as you talk to him, he’s very calm and collected. He’s incredibly well-spoken.”

Handling such individuals can pose a problem for the police, especially when they have people skills, because the cops have to be able to prove that they’re a threat to themselves or others before they can take them off the street.

One police officer recalls a homeless gentleman, known as Moses, who begged for money using signs not meant for polite company. “Do you have spare change?” one of his prospectuses read. “My girlfriend has an overbite and my cock is sore.”

The police eventually managed to arrest him for aggressive panhandling, less because of his risqué signage than because of his other M.O.: Unasked, he’d sweep up in front of a chicken store at 62nd Street and First Avenue. When the employees refused to pay him for the effort, he’d dump the garbage in front of the store.

Another problem that the police often confront is public sympathy for the perps, some of whom become neighborhood fixtures. One police officer remembered the case of the panhandler known as “Wild Man,” who frequented 70th Street and Third Avenue. While filthy and known to defecate in public, he apparently fancied himself something of a ladies’ man and once broke into the apartment of a Norwegian blonde he’d befriended on the street, stealing her underwear.

He was eventually arrested for resisting arrest. “Even when he’s pepper-sprayed, on the ground, under arrest,” complained the cop who apprehended him, “someone comes over with a $20 plate of food from Yura.”

The victim in the Bagel Shoppe incident told the police that he’d never been hit so hard in his life—which is understandable, since his assailant once told the cops that he’d been a star college-football player. The victim received medical attention at the scene. Meanwhile, the police were optimistic that the suspect—who is known to hang out in the vicinity of Second Avenue between 72nd and 73rd streets—would be spotted and arrested shortly.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to do a show-up,” explained the cop.

All for Love

Valentine’s Day isn’t only emotionally wrought—for those whose partners measure the depth of their attachment by the time and effort they put into buying a gift—but also expensive. Especially if you’re playing the field.

That may be what motivated one thief to get a jump on the holiday on Jan. 15, when he visited the Gristede’s at 1356 Lexington Avenue and helped himself to several boxes of chocolate. He took the candy off a display shelf and put them into his shopping cart. But they didn’t stay there for long: He soon hid the chocolates inside his orange knapsack and then, to mask his thievery, purchased a roll of paper towels and toilet paper.

Unfortunately, his paramours should plan to be disappointed, perhaps even to celebrate Valentine’s Day without him—his sleight of hand didn’t fool the Gristede’s manager, who apprehended the 30-year-old suspect outside the store, recovered the six boxes of chocolates (valued at $57) from his backpack, and held him until the police arrived.

Children = Future

It’s not good enough to know your teenage son’s or daughter’s friends; the problem usually starts with the friends of their friends—especially when your offspring decide to entertain company while you’re away for the weekend, as a Jan. 14 incident rather vividly illustrated.

A 17-year-old East 87th Street resident told the police that three adolescent males visited her apartment around 1 a.m., accompanied by one of her girlfriends, who apparently—if only by inference—vouched for their rectitude. The hostess wasn’t that familiar with them, since she was able to identify one of them only as “Joey,” age 16, a second as “Dan,” age 18, and the third male not at all.

Their identities only became important once they’d departed and the teenage hostess started to notice some of her favorite things (and, one suspects, some of her parents’ favorite things) missing. They included $50 in cash, not one but two iPod Nanos valued at $500, a couple of Sony PSP’s worth $600, a $500 Nikon camera, a $500 Sony camera, an American Express credit card and—perhaps most precious of all to a teenager—her New York State driver’s learning permit.

Fearing the worst, she called Amex and had her suspicions confirmed: Her guests had charged $5,600 to her account. Their spending spree had also taken them to the P.C. Richard & Son store on East 86th Street. But the card, later returned to her by the NYPD grand-larceny unit, was denied there. The grand-larceny team continues to investigate the crime; the evidence at their disposal includes security-video footage of the three males leaving their adolescent victim’s home.

-Matthew Schuerman