By David Crohn

A CONSPIRACY TO BLOW UP EVERYONE IN NEW YORK NAMED MOHAMMED?
A cabbie finishing up his day parked near Rockefeller Center at the end of his workday. He saw smoke rising from his dashboard, leapt from the car and then watched as it burst into flames. No one was hurt, and a Taxi and Limousine Commission spokesman insisted that cabs are among the safest cars on the road. A fire department spokesman said that this type of thing happens all the time.  He was right: two days later, it happened again, this time on Eighth Avenue, just north of 42nd Street. Again the driver smelled something funny and saw smoke. He ordered his passengers out of the cab, then bailed after parking in front of a comedy club. Both cabs were Ford Crown Victorias, known for a design flaw that causes overheating.

AT LAST, A STORE WHERE CUSTOMERS LIKED THE LONG LINES
Until recently, the Fiesta Meat Market in Washington Heights let customers buy cocaine along with the bologna and provolone. Cops busted the $4 million-a-year operation after undercover officers bought the narcotic at least 24 times, directly from the deli counter. Along with 25 suspects, police rounded up $175,000 and 4.5 kilograms of coke.

MAYBE HE JUST LIKED SLIDING DOWN POLES
Fire buff Ronald Deshields liked to ride on fire trucks, bringing along his own helmet, radio, rope and harness and other gear.  But he wasn’t a probationary fireman, as claimed; he was, in fact, a parolee, having served four years for impersonating a security officer, among other crimes. His firehouse colleagues first suspected something when they learned his age was 33; the cutoff to join the department is 29. They confirmed their hunch when they checked the caller ID on his radio, which had been pilfered from a firehouse in Bushwick. All this was revealed when he was arrested for burglary in Bay Ridge.

HE ONLY OWNED UP TO THE CUM STAINS
After being pulled over for a missing license plate, Lawrence Ubell told
police the vomit on his kilt wasn’t his. The man, who had bloodshot eyes and was driving a 2002 Honda, claimed sobriety, although a breathalyzer said otherwise. Ubell, 48, was arrested and charged with DWI.

FUNNY…WHEN MY WIFE SHOOTS ME IN THE LEG, I GET ANNOYED
Jonathon Aponte turned out not to be the battle-hardened Iraq War vet he claimed. He had said the smell of burning flesh and nightmares of “screaming, gunshots [and] explosions” was too much for the 20-year-old Bronx resident to bear. It seems he paid a hitman $500 for a gunshot wound to the leg that would save him from what he said were the “horrors” of combat. In fact, said Bronx Assistant District Attorney James Cudden, “Aponte worked in a warehouse that stocked helicopters.” Aponte was cleared of felony perjury charges and instead pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of false reporting. The same cannot be said for his wife, who was a co-conspirator—and the shooter. Both face felony
assault charges.

NEWS FROM THE ART WORLD: PETER MAX NOW NAMES ESCAPED COWS FOR A LIVING
After an hour spent chasing a cow named Maxine across a busy intersection and through the residential streets of Queens, and following  a short stay at Animal Care and Control in Manhattan before her final trip to her current home
upstate, no one could answer the question: Where did she come from? A tab in her ear said something about an abattoir—that she escaped from one, or was headed to one. But authorities couldn’t confirm this. The cow was originally called Queenie, but was renamed Maxine after the artist Peter Max.  She now lives in an animal sanctuary in Watkins Glen.