Crime Blotter

HIGHER EDUCATION Those zany NYU students were at it again this week. If they aren't jumping off balconies, playing "camp-out" in the library, trying to make porn films in classrooms or riding around in that fancy bus of theirs, these attention-starved ninnies are getting busted for dealing out of the dorms.

That drugs are being dealt from dorm rooms should come as no surprise to anyone—it's been that way for generations, and NYU is hardly unique in this matter. Julia Diaco, however, the 18-year-old who was busted last Tuesday for selling several ounces of "high-grade" pot to an undercover officer, made headlines because she so exemplifies the over-privileged, snotty, dimwitted kids who infest that campus.

The Daily News had a field day, calling her "pampered," a "princess," describing her "chic" clothing and going on at some length about how she comes from a "powerful" family that lives in a "castle-like mansion" in a wealthy New Jersey town. They also interviewed roommates who said she was loud, and other students who described her as "headstrong and always well-dressed."

In other words, Diaco is a shrill, bitchy little prom queen who's finally getting what she deserves. She was also busted last year, and faces multiple drug charges in this case.

Up the road a ways it was a different story for Anthony Marquez. The 19-year-old Columbia student was stabbed during a mugging in Riverside Park. A knife-wielding man confronted Marquez just before midnight on Tuesday, demanding money. When Marquez tried to run, the man grabbed him, the two struggled and Marquez was stabbed in the back, the blade narrowly missing his kidney.

"It hurt like hell," Marquez later told reporters.

Bona Djefaga, an African-born Brooklyn resident, should've perhaps spent a little more time in driving school before stealing the keys of his friend's livery cab. Early on Monday, April 26, Djefaga picked up 25-year-old Jose Disen, who'd just finished a double shift as a security guard and was on his way to see his fiancee. That is, until Djefaga drove the car into a tree. The crash killed Disen, but Djefaga escaped with only minor injuries. Charges are pending.

Paul Douglas, the 31-year-old accused of beating former co-worker Milton Moran Jr. to death earlier this month, was picked up in Florida late Monday night, where he had been doing a pretty miserable job of "laying low."

And our Criminal of the Week Award goes to S.I. bodega owner Esteban Palafox. When a truant officer called him at work to inform him that his 10-year-old son hadn't shown up to school for three days, Palafox tracked the boy down in their apartment. Unable to find a suitable switch in the apartment, he returned to the deli, grabbed an 18-inch slab of beef jerky, brought it home and whacked the boy across the thighs with it. Nothing gets your point across quite like a big ol' stick of beef jerky, we always say.

He was arrested on Tuesday and charged with endangering the welfare of a child, assault and criminal possession of dried meat.