By Drew Grant 2/06 4:01pm

Gatsbabies

Tabber Benedict, the Sherman McCoy of our time. (Patrick McMullan)

Gatsbaby Tabber Benedict Throws Pre-Prison Party, Tells Friends He’s Going to Europe

Tabber Benedict, one of The New York Observer’s “Gatsbabies,” who almost killed a man during a drunk driving incident in the Hamptons two years ago, is taking his upcoming prison term in stride. The night before he was to be handed down a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for plowing his GMC Acadia into a 45-year-old teacher named Steven Dorn in 2011, Mr. Benedict threw himself a party at Bungalow 8 (or whatever we’re calling it now. Number 8? The former Bungalow 8?).

He told friends that the party was in honor of his upcoming departure … for Europe. Read More

By Aaron Gell 5/16/12 12:29pm

PUBLIC HEALTH

(Courtesy: AndreaPeyser.com)

A Treasury of Andrea Peyser’s Very Best Prison Rape Fantasies

The New York Post’s tender-hearted angel of mercy, Andrea Peyser, is best known for the deeply humanistic perspective with which she handles the sensitive criminal proceedings of our legal system. Less well appreciated is her concern for the good physical hygiene of those society has cast aside.

“My advice to Pedro: Don’t pick up the soap.”—on Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr., May 15, 2012

“Enjoy the communal showers, Sen. Piggy.”—on Sen. Espada, Jr.,  April 27, 2012 Read More

By Nate Freeman 1/24/12 6:53pm

Nightlife

Illo: David Saracino

The Wee Hours: A Reporter Goes from Soft Openings to Hard Time

The Observer was arrested last Friday for entering the subway through an emergency exit. We were cuffed, frisked and led by a police officer through the station. Commuters with tote bags stared.

We found ourselves in a holding cell in the Union Square station precinct with a man named Felix, who had been brought in for sharing a MetroCard with his pregnant wife. Two others came, and then left with desk appearance tickets.

But we would be joining Felix in central booking. We had a warrant, an open container summons, a relic from a summer in 2008. Ah, right: the G Train, with that girl, drinking Sparks out of a brown paper bag. Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 11/30/11 10:28am

Prison Yard Workouts

Illustration by David Saracino.

Body by Rikers: Getting to Know My Trainer, The Ex- and Future Con

A few months after I became a member of a cheap gym in Hell’s Kitchen, it dawned on me I had visited the place only once—when I signed up. I needed professional help.

The trainer occupies an odd position in our lives: despite often being someone you would have never met outside of the gym, he’s privy to your tenderest intimacies and physical vulnerabilities. Like a parent or spouse, he criticizes your smoking, drinking and eating habits, and you actually feel guilty. You’re his boss, sort of, but he’s also yours.

I’d long thought of trainers as an indulgence of the well-to-do. Paying someone to perfect my body seemed a sexy soupçon of vanity and sloth, as decadent as having a private chef. Then again, I told myself, maybe my suffering would lend the endeavor just enough wholesomeness to preserve my radicalism. Plus, the first session was free.

“Do you work out?” my taskmaster, Bashar, asked me, 15 minutes into our introductory session, as I struggled to bench-press the bar. Since I had not done anything more strenuous, for years, than bounce along on the elliptical for the duration of a medium-length Terry Gross interview and two Rihanna singles, I lied. Read More

By Foster Kamer 10/13/11 11:38am

Hard Time

Raj Raj Galleon Group

Big Raj and Bernie, Friends Forever: Rajaratnam Receives Record Prison Sentence for Insider Trading, Reportedly Sent to Madoff’s Pen

Raj Rajaratnam is likely in the market for some new “inside” tips about now: how he’s going to survive eleven years in prison, the sentence for the $64M worth of insider trading he was recently found guilty for that was handed down today. UPDATED: It’s being suggested that Raj is going to the same prison as Bernie Madoff, The Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C. Read More

By Rex Reed 8/02/11 7:33pm

movies

Morales and Reyes.

On Gun Hill Road Lives a Family on a Hair Trigger

Movies about transgendered Latinos are not exactly on the menu every week, so the attention paid to Gun Hill Road is understandable. It’s a flawed but interesting debut by writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green, who says he based it on his own family, without further explanation. I shudder to think.

After three years in prison for Read More

By Cullen Thomas 4/06/11 2:19pm

Exclusive

What the Klink Taught Kerik: The Jailhouse Interview

Last Thursday morning, Bernard Kerik’s lawyer, Andrew Schapiro, called Kerik’s wife, Hala, to give her the bad news before it became public. Kerik’s federal appeal of the four-year sentence he was given last February, for tax fraud and lying to the White House, had been denied. 

The decision came swiftly and took Kerik, his Read More