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Peter Bacanovic will go to Las Vegas prison
Friday, December 31, 2004

Following months of legal maneuvering, Peter Bacanovic, Martha Stewart’s former stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, will report to a federal prison outside Las Vegas next month. Bacanovic accepted Federal Judge Miriam Cendarbaum’s recommendation that he serve his sentence at the Nellis Federal Prison Camp in North Las Vegas, Nev. The NFPC is a minimum-security prison that houses 550 male inmates. Past inmates include Mark Morze, a former executive who was convicted of defrauding investors of more than $70 million in the 1980s, and Ted Wolfman, a former stockbroker from Toledo, Ohio, who was convicted of embezzling nearly $50 million from his clients. A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Bacanovic and Stewart in July of lying about the circumstances surrounding Stewart’s sale of ImClone Systems, Inc. stock in December 2001. Bacanovic has appealed his conviction. Lou Colasuonno, Bacanovic’s spokesperson, told the New York Post that Bacanovic’s lawyers would continue to pursue the appeal while Bacanovic is in prison. “Peter wants to get on with his life,” Colasuonno said. Stewart, 63, began to serve her five-month sentence at a federal prison in West Virginia – dubbed “Camp Cupcake” by the press – in October. She is scheduled for release in March.

Susan Sontag dies here
Susan Sontag, a leading intellectual who introduced the concept of "camp" to mainstream culture and influenced the way many thought about art, illness and photography, died Tuesday. She was 71. Sontag’s son, David Rieff, said the cause was complications of acute myelogenous leukemia, one of the deadliest forms of leukemia. Sontag had suffered off and on from cancer since the 1970s. She wrote a best-selling historical novel, “The Volcano Lover,” and in 2000 won the National Book Award for the historical novel “In America.” But her greatest literary impact was as an essayist. The daughter of a fur trader, Sontag was born Susan Rosenblatt in New York in 1933. She spent her early years in Tucson and Los Angeles. Her mother later married an Army officer, Capt. Nathan Sontag. Sontag skipped three grades and graduated from high school at 15. She married and had a son, David, born in 1952. In later years, she described her relationship with photographer Annie Leibowitz as "an open secret."

L.I. town allows domestic partners
Joining such towns as East Hampton, Southampton, Huntington and North Hempstead, Babylon on Tuesday, Dec. 22, became the sixth Long Island town to establish a domestic partner registry. In a 4-1 vote, a town board passed a resolution that would allow Babylon residents who have lived together for at least one year and “who choose not to or are legally prohibited from marrying” to register as domestic partners, beginning in January. Supporters of the resolution, such as Rev. Richard Parker, a retired Methodist minister from Babylon, described the board’s decision as a step forward towards equality for the town’s gay residents. “There are a lot of people who see this just as an issue of fairness and justice,” he told Newsday. Babylon Councilmember Lindsay Henry, the only member of the five- person panel to vote against the resolution, disagreed. He told Newsday that he thought the bill could undermine the legal protections heterosexual couples enjoy. Bob Tall shared Henry’s sentiments. “I don’t really have a problem with the registry. But [gay] marriage is a different thing,” Tall said to Newsday.

City issues transgender guidelines
More than two years after Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed Local Law 3 – the transgender rights bill – into law, the New York City Commission on Human Rights on Tuesday, Dec. 22, issued guidelines that specifically address discrimination based on gender identity and expression. Even though the city’s Human Rights Law already bans discrimination against transgendered people in areas such as employment, housing and public accommodation, activists complained that the NYCCHR did not have adequate guidelines to address these issues. “This is an historic accomplishment for New York City,” said Pauline Park, co-chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy. Carrie Davis, coordinator of the Gender Identity Project at the Center, agreed. “The transgender community still faces persistent and severe discrimination, being turned away from housing, health care and employment on the basis of gender identity and gender expression,” she said. “These guidelines will help our community know its rights.”

AIDS fund-raiser Jerry Orbach dies
Actor Jerry Orbach, who built his career on Broadway by starring in hit musicals such as “Chicago,” “Promises, Promises” and “42nd Street,” died of prostate cancer in Manhattan on Tuesday, Dec. 26. Orbach, 69, had most recently portrayed New York City Police Detective Lennie Briscoe on the NBC drama “Law & Order.” He was diagnosed with prostate cancer last spring just as production began on the NBC spin-off “Law & Order: Trial By Jury.” A lifelong New Yorker, Orbach was involved with a number of local HIV and AIDS organizations, such as Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. In one of his last public appearances before his death, Orbach performed at a GMHC fundraiser at Lincoln Center on Oct. 25. “We will always have enormous gratitude for Jerry Orbach’s contributions in support of our work for people with HIV and AIDS,” GMHC Executive Director Ana Oliveira said. “He was a splendid man whose beautiful talents and generosity will be greatly missed.” Orbach leaves behind his second wife Elaine, whom he married in 1979 after meeting her in “Chicago,” and two sons, Chris and Tony, from his first marriage.

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