A Harlem high school janitor steals from his employer to pay his sons' boarding school tuition; plus, murder and identity theft among the Russians of Brooklyn.

The Daily News blurs the myth and the reality of organized crime. So does a new museum in the East Village.

And today's ominous headline of mystery: "Brooklynite Splashed With Acid After Dog Barks at Man in Black."

The Daily News describes this person's weapon merely as "a knife."

Elsewhere: a Queens man strangles a would-be car thief, toommates fly into murderous rages, cops use crazy slang, and a convicted art-forger faces a law suit for hoarding a non-forged painting.

Finally, the Post is mad that paralyzed criminals are getting early parole and glad that a mugger was convicted of murder. William Hill got 25-to-life forkilling 81-year old Jacob Gerstle while robbing him in an elevator:

"I've tried dozens of murder cases in my career," the judge said in throwing the book at the hulking murderer. "This is one of the most brutal crimes I've had to face.

Meanwhile, a Greenwich Village restaurant owner has been menacing his landlord with all manner of frightening things, including "pliers, a hammer, a fake gun, and even sexual assault by a large Eastern European chef." But those days are over now; the restaurant owner has been sentenced to 15 years in jail, where the tables will no doubt be turned.

One woman tried to sell her dead son's identity. Another is blaming her mentally-ill sister for the hit-and-run crash that involved her Acura.

And this week jurors got their time to shine, at least according to The Times. But that doesn't mean than anyone actually likes being on a jury or thinks they work super well:

"I used to say--sort of taking the line from Winston Churchill; what he said about democracy, I say it about the jury system--it's the worst possible system, except for all the others," said Edward J. Bronson, professor emeritus at California State University at Chico, who taught constitutional law.

Even guards at the American Museum of Natural History are getting criminal: When they're not protecting dinosaur dioramas, they're stabbing one another in taverns.

Counterfeiters are copying designer handbags. Jewel thieves are copying the movie Snatch by dressing up as Hasidic Jews.

The Post can't contain its glee at a false rape accuser getting her comeuppance, and the Daily News delivers a shocker, revealing that the Upper East Side has little crime, and lots of money.

"It would seem that the prosecution allowed the victim to go on trial," Al Sharpton said, according to the Post.

The Times concludes that it was "a case that recalled some of the city’s most notorious police brutality episodes but never generated as much public outcry or departmental change."

In other news from the courts: Yvonne Fernandez, the woman accused of threatening a fellow Astor juror, is mystified by the version of events that Judith DeMarco shared yesterday. Reports the Post:

Fernandez, a producer for TruTV, said she became friendly with DeMarco and once told her that she briefly dated "the president of the Latin Kings" when she was 16.

But that was years ago, she said: "I'm 52. I have a good job, a beautiful home. It's crazy that she said I came at her with gang signs."

The Times adds that, according to Fernandez, her confrontation with DeMarco ended with hugging and crying together in the bathroom--a "pleasant voice-mail message" also followed. So she was shocked to learn that her supposed aggression had left DeMarco unable to render a fair verdict.

“All this is very surprising,” she told The Times.

Today in murders: the Daily News reports that a middle-aged Brooklyn couple killed last year were wrapped up in shady business. Four co-conspirators were charged yesterday for the "financial schemes" they had apparently hatched with the couple--a divorce lawyer and a mediator:

Prosecutors say the four people busted Monday were in cahoots with the couple to steal $1 million from clients--and probers think the scam may have led to the murders.

"It was kind of the thieves turning on each other," one law enforcement source said. "We just hope something shakes out from these arrests."

Barney Shiotani's Manhattan federal court suit says "unknown third parties" obtained Anthony van Dyck's "Betrayal of Christ" through "theft, conversion or fraud" and transferred it to the National Museum of Catholic Art and History. A spokeswoman for the now-closed museum said it was a "misunderstanding."

She said that she thought [fellow juror Yvonne] Fernandez was flashing gang signs at her as she moved menacingly toward her, because Ms. Fernandez had previously told her that she once dated a member of the Latin Kings, according to the affidavits. Another juror had to restrain Ms. Fernandez, Ms. DeMarco said.

The defense has also obtained a series of email messages among jurors in which they discuss how to downplay the conflict in interviews with Vanity Fair and 20/20. The materials will be the basis for an appeal to be filed today.

Other unfinished legal business: the Post reports that the husband of a "beloved Upper East Side psychologist" murdered in 2008 has sued the building owners and managers who permitted a "cleaver-wielding schizophrenic" to enter his wife's office.

In more recent crimes, the Post notes that "three homicides in a five-hour span got the weekend off to a bloody start" late Friday night.

And a 22-year-old City Hall worker is brain dead after a Prospect Heights hit-and-run. Erin Phelan was out with Alma Guerrero, her roommate from Brown, when a green Acura struck the pair on Flatbush--Phelan managed to push Guerrero out of the way, bearing most of the impact herself. Guerrero has a broken collar bone. A cab driver took down the license plate number, and the Daily News says that police are now looking for the car's owner.

Finally, the Post spent some time at the Transit Adjudication Bureau with New Yorkers trying to get out of subway violations. It seems their efforts are largely in vain. For example:

Juan Berrios, 30, got a $75 ticket at the Broadway Junction stop on the L line because he moved between cars. He argued self-preservation, telling of the overwhelming body odor of a homeless man in his car.

"I couldn't stand it. The smell was atrocious," Berrios pleaded, to no avail.

Four teens fought tickets for using student MetroCards on a school holiday.

[Iva] Reka, a student at Franklin Delano Roosevelt HS, said she was dropping off a résumé for an internship.

She said it took an hour to find out she lost -- but ironically, "it was so fast to pay."

“The Senate claims it has inherent powers to do what it wants with regard to its members,” [Monserrate lawyer Steven] Hyman said. “We claim that’s wrong.”

The counsel for the attorney general’s office, which is defending the Senate against Mr. Monserrate’s lawsuit, told the judge that the claim that the Senate could not remove one of its own members was “a breathtaking argument,” especially considering that every other state has a process for expelling legislators.

"Breathtaking argument" wouldn't seem to bode well, but Monserrate remains sanguine. He still has his supporters--like himself, and some other guy:

“Ultimately, I believe justice will prevail,” Mr. Monserrate said outside the courthouse.

One of his supporters, Rolando Bini, said: “I like him. He’s a rebel. And every once in awhile you need someone like him to shake things up.”

Monserrate's rebellious nature manifested itself in a refusal to do community service, writes the Post:

Expelled state Sen. Hiram Monserrate shamelessly blew off all three of his court-ordered counseling sessions and has barely begun his 250 hours of community service -- putting him in the cross hairs of furious city officials looking to revoke his probation, The Post has learned....

Monserrate has not undergone a single minute of domestic-violence counseling and has performed just six of his 250 public-service hours -- visiting a Salvation Army office one afternoon, sources say.

"She touched me, and I drew back and away from her," Gamble told the Daily News Thursday, adding that she then said he needed a "good f---" to turn him straight."

The unwelcome invasion of his pants ended, the Manhattan Supreme Court suit says, with Falcone slugging the house manager three times in the gut when he protested.

"Black Workers Go Home" has appeared along Bayard and Mulberry Sts. at least three times this month, sources and witnesses said. The Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the graffiti as a possible bias incident....

"There aren't that many black people in Chinatown," said Ed Xu, 24, selling eyeglasses at Mott Street Optical. "I am surprised to see it. It should be erased immediately."

The tattoo database is one of dozens kept by the Police Department in its technological information hub, the Real Time Crime Center, to jump-start criminal investigations by giving detectives more to go on than a person’s height and weight.

Aside from arrest data and the tattoo database, the center, which was created in 2005, breaks down information in all sorts of ways. There is a database for body marks, like birthmarks and scars. It keeps track of teeth, noting missing ones and gold ones. It keeps track of the way people walk: if there is a limp, it notes its severity. And it has a so-called blotchy database, of skin conditions.

The New York Civil Liberties Union is not super into these databases, but the cops appreciate being able to call up information on tattoos reading "Boo" or "I Love Rudy."

But should observation and cataloguing fail to provide insight into the unknown, there's always recourse to the supernatural--psychics! Although ideally not a thieving psychic, as one Upper West Side woman learned the hard way. Reports the Post:

In a suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, a woman says Sylvia Mitchell conned her out of over $10,000 with schemes to cleanse her of "impurities."

Dane Chan only caught on to Mitchell's act after the psychic got her to fork over $9,000 for items from a Polo Ralph Lauren store that the supposed seer said were needed for a "ritual."...

During Chan's first, $20 reading, she was "told that she would 'live long' and that [her] 'family was useless,' " the suit says.

Chan, a restaurant worker, returned the following February. And for $60, Mitchell had her "hold a crystal wand for approximately three minutes" and again found she would "live long" and that her "family was useless."

Greyhound, meanwhile, has recovered the bus that disappeared from its Manhattan garage early Sunday morning. It turned up in Queens, where the Post says it was spotted by a "driver for the rival Peter Pan bus company."

Witnesses are weirded out, according to the Daily News:

"Who would want to steal a Greyhound?" asked Jose Martinez, 42, a worker at an East Elmhurst deli where the $75,000 bus was found. "It's not like you can sell it or hide easily."

Also recovered: three of the Keith Haring-inspired photographs that were apparently stolen from a party last week. The Post reports:

Sandra Shafer, who produced the shoots, said, "A girl called today and will be returning three prints. She did not realize she could not take them. Keith Haring always wanted the public to 'own' his artwork, and I guess now they really do own them."

"He has no regard for society at all," lawyer Stuart London said, detailing Mineo's seven arrests and his inconsistent statements and comparing him to his tattoo of a chameleon smoking marijuana.

"An animal that changes its appearance, changes its color and likes to get high," London said. "That's really the best metaphor of all for Michael Mineo."

"Tuesday was a day of defense lawyers thumping lecterns, wiping brows and occasionally drawing the ire of the judge," reports The Times. Today, the court hears closing arguments from the prosecution.

In other news of police misdeeds: the officers accused of shooting Sean Bell will not face a federal civil rights case. Officials from the Justice Department said in a statement, "Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence, nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation."

And in questionable crime prevention strategies, a marked increase in "stop-and-frisks." According to the Daily News:

The NYPD was required under a 2001 law to report data on those stopped, questioned and frisked.

Of those stopped in 2009, roughly 57% were frisked, 6% were arrested, and another 6.2% received summonses. Blacks and Latinos were the subject of roughly 87% of the stops in 2009.

Meanwhile, both the Post and the Daily News have accounts of a Merrill Lynch broker with an ill-gotten Ferrari.

Summarizes the Post:

A mediocre stockbroker duped Wall Street titan Merrill Lynch into believing he was a portfolio powerhouse -- deserving of a $780,000 loan his first day on the job -- then used the dough to buy a Ferrari and split, prosecutors said yesterday.

Steven Mandala, 29, surrendered yesterday to face indictment for grand larceny, money laundering, identity theft and other crimes in the scheme.

"In a city where homicides have fallen to a record low, it may be overlooked that there are numerous ways to be killed in New York," writes The Times, "and those who die by accident have done so in numbers remarkably constant over the years."

Accidental deaths discussed by The Times include "watercraft accidents," "exposure to excessive natural heat," "exposure to the cold," "motor vehicle accidents," "unintentional drug poisonings," falls, and fires.

Besides, even if murder is down, there's always bank robbery. A pair of bank robbers was caught in Manhattan after attempting to take a getaway taxi; another pair is still on the loose after a string of holdups at Brooklyn check-cashing services.

Other evergreen sources of criminal activity are religious scams and potentially shady charities.

For example:

The Brooklyn DA is investigating whether a shadowy, Israel-based Kabbalist rabbi bilked vulnerable New York Jews out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by offering divine promises for cash, The Post has learned.

A controversial Queens congressman has steered $290,000 in taxpayer money to two convicted drug dealers for their nonprofit group - which has virtually no assets.

And the Post reports on the mid-party disappearance of photographs commemorating Keith Haring, who died 20 years ago today:

Overebullient glitter- and body-paint-bedecked revelers may have walked off with two dozen Keith Haring-inspired photographs -- together worth tens of thousands of dollars -- that had been hanging on the walls at a Fashion Week after-party in Midtown last Thursday night.

Worth around $3,000 apiece, the large-scale portraits and murals somehow slipped out of the party unnoticed.

One rep for the hosting Hudson Hotel took a charitable position on the vanished prints: "I'm not sure if it was really a theft. Guests may have believed the pictures were there to be taken."