LilMtnCbn
07-01-2004, 07:09 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/208065p-179356c.html
The fiend feels the fear
Tailed, Joel quails at halfway house
BY JOE MAHONEY, RALPH R. ORTEGA and TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Joel Steinberg is assisted by parole officers into the halfway house that will
be his home for the next eight months.
The child-killer was released after serving 16 years in prison.
White limo carrying Joel Steinberg makes its way to city.
Child-killer Joel Steinberg returned to the city yesterday with his bushy
mustache, beady eyes and reputation as a monster all still intact.
But the notorious criminal also wore a new expression - fear.
The domineering ex-lawyer looked rattled by his wild limousine ride to freedom
and the crush of media and protesters that greeted him at Fortune Academy, the
Harlem halfway house where he will live.
The same fiend who killed a 6-year-old girl because she looked at him the wrong
way stumbled on the stone steps and had to be helped inside by four burly
parole officers.
No one was happy to see him - not the ex-inmates who call Fortune Academy home,
not the local residents just learning one of the country's most reviled
criminals was their new neighbor.
"I'm gonna be a nervous wreck knowing this guy is walking past my front door,"
said Cesar Sanchez, 58. "They should have dropped him on a deserted island. Not
here."
Steinberg, 63, spent 16 years in prison after being exposed as a crack-smoking
control freak who fatally beat his illegally adopted daughter, Lisa, and used
his lover, Hedda Nussbaum, as a punching bag.
He was released after maxing out of the system by serving two-thirds of a
25-year sentence, and he came straight back to New York.
The journey began at 8:45 a.m., when he left the Southport Correctional
Facility near upstate Elmira, stepped into the sunlight and slid into the back
of a white stretch limo next to his lawyer, Darnay Hoffman.
For four hours, the 1995 Lincoln Continental - going 90 mph at times - was
tailed by the media, looking like a high-speed version of the infamous O.J.
Simpson chase.
When the car stopped at a Mobil station in Roscoe, photographers mobbed it,
prompting Steinberg to shield his face with paper and snarl, "Get out of here."
By the time Steinberg reached the city, news helicopters were hovering overhead
and a large crowd had gathered outside Fortune Academy on Riverside Drive.
At 145th St., gun-toting parole officers in bulletproof vests ushered him from
the limo into an unmarked car and drove him the remaining five blocks to his
new address.
When the car door opened at 1:15p.m., New York got its first glimpse of Joel
Steinberg, parolee.
He had thick graying hair, prison-issue blue jeans, and a hooded, green jacket.
He didn't say a word, but his flushed face and nervous twitches spoke volumes.
Once he was safely inside, a small band of protesters arrived, carrying
handmade signs that read: "Get out, criminal" and "Steinberg is an offense to
our community."
Later, neighbors hung up signs with the messages "Rest in Peace, Poor Lisa" and
"Killer Dad," handed out leaflets, and marched in front of the doors, chanting,
"We want the killer out."
"I put them up so everyone will know," said Lazanus Charles, 52. "We have
children around here. Would you want a baby-killer for a neighbor?"
The reception inside the halfway house could be just as chilly.
"I don't know the whole story of his life, but what he did was a heinous crime
and I don't know what awaits him," said one parolee.
Fortune Academy - which houses and provides services to about 75 former
prisoners - agreed to shelter Steinberg as a favor to the Division of Parole, a
source said.
"I don't think anyone else would have taken him," the insider said.
Steinberg spent his first hours there being processed and set up in so-called
emergency housing - a room with four or five beds - where most men spend about
two weeks.
After that, he will be transferred to a permanent room in the six-story
castlelike building, originally a Catholic boarding school, and is likely to
stay for six to eight months, said spokesman Ed James.
"Mr. Steinberg is with us as a client and he will be treated like any other
client," said Fortune House executive director JoAnne Page.
That means a 9 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew, cafeteria-style meals, weekly drug
testing and regular check-ins with his parole officer.
A former security guard at the well-regarded facility said the rooms are
beautiful and the atmosphere is generally calm, although there are occasional
arguments over the TV.
Most parolees spend their days at a job or looking for work. Steinberg has been
offered a position as an intern for a cable TV show, but it's unclear if he
will accept.
While on parole until 2012, he's barred from contacting Travis Smigiel, the boy
who survived his house of horrors, or Nussbaum, who has said she's terrified of
Steinberg.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Nussbaum had not requested protection,
but "if she feels threatened, she should come forward to the police."
As for Steinberg, Kelly said, "this is a big city and I have no indication that
he's at risk in any way."
With Greg Gittrich, Kerry Burke and Richard Weir
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
The fiend feels the fear
Tailed, Joel quails at halfway house
BY JOE MAHONEY, RALPH R. ORTEGA and TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Joel Steinberg is assisted by parole officers into the halfway house that will
be his home for the next eight months.
The child-killer was released after serving 16 years in prison.
White limo carrying Joel Steinberg makes its way to city.
Child-killer Joel Steinberg returned to the city yesterday with his bushy
mustache, beady eyes and reputation as a monster all still intact.
But the notorious criminal also wore a new expression - fear.
The domineering ex-lawyer looked rattled by his wild limousine ride to freedom
and the crush of media and protesters that greeted him at Fortune Academy, the
Harlem halfway house where he will live.
The same fiend who killed a 6-year-old girl because she looked at him the wrong
way stumbled on the stone steps and had to be helped inside by four burly
parole officers.
No one was happy to see him - not the ex-inmates who call Fortune Academy home,
not the local residents just learning one of the country's most reviled
criminals was their new neighbor.
"I'm gonna be a nervous wreck knowing this guy is walking past my front door,"
said Cesar Sanchez, 58. "They should have dropped him on a deserted island. Not
here."
Steinberg, 63, spent 16 years in prison after being exposed as a crack-smoking
control freak who fatally beat his illegally adopted daughter, Lisa, and used
his lover, Hedda Nussbaum, as a punching bag.
He was released after maxing out of the system by serving two-thirds of a
25-year sentence, and he came straight back to New York.
The journey began at 8:45 a.m., when he left the Southport Correctional
Facility near upstate Elmira, stepped into the sunlight and slid into the back
of a white stretch limo next to his lawyer, Darnay Hoffman.
For four hours, the 1995 Lincoln Continental - going 90 mph at times - was
tailed by the media, looking like a high-speed version of the infamous O.J.
Simpson chase.
When the car stopped at a Mobil station in Roscoe, photographers mobbed it,
prompting Steinberg to shield his face with paper and snarl, "Get out of here."
By the time Steinberg reached the city, news helicopters were hovering overhead
and a large crowd had gathered outside Fortune Academy on Riverside Drive.
At 145th St., gun-toting parole officers in bulletproof vests ushered him from
the limo into an unmarked car and drove him the remaining five blocks to his
new address.
When the car door opened at 1:15p.m., New York got its first glimpse of Joel
Steinberg, parolee.
He had thick graying hair, prison-issue blue jeans, and a hooded, green jacket.
He didn't say a word, but his flushed face and nervous twitches spoke volumes.
Once he was safely inside, a small band of protesters arrived, carrying
handmade signs that read: "Get out, criminal" and "Steinberg is an offense to
our community."
Later, neighbors hung up signs with the messages "Rest in Peace, Poor Lisa" and
"Killer Dad," handed out leaflets, and marched in front of the doors, chanting,
"We want the killer out."
"I put them up so everyone will know," said Lazanus Charles, 52. "We have
children around here. Would you want a baby-killer for a neighbor?"
The reception inside the halfway house could be just as chilly.
"I don't know the whole story of his life, but what he did was a heinous crime
and I don't know what awaits him," said one parolee.
Fortune Academy - which houses and provides services to about 75 former
prisoners - agreed to shelter Steinberg as a favor to the Division of Parole, a
source said.
"I don't think anyone else would have taken him," the insider said.
Steinberg spent his first hours there being processed and set up in so-called
emergency housing - a room with four or five beds - where most men spend about
two weeks.
After that, he will be transferred to a permanent room in the six-story
castlelike building, originally a Catholic boarding school, and is likely to
stay for six to eight months, said spokesman Ed James.
"Mr. Steinberg is with us as a client and he will be treated like any other
client," said Fortune House executive director JoAnne Page.
That means a 9 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew, cafeteria-style meals, weekly drug
testing and regular check-ins with his parole officer.
A former security guard at the well-regarded facility said the rooms are
beautiful and the atmosphere is generally calm, although there are occasional
arguments over the TV.
Most parolees spend their days at a job or looking for work. Steinberg has been
offered a position as an intern for a cable TV show, but it's unclear if he
will accept.
While on parole until 2012, he's barred from contacting Travis Smigiel, the boy
who survived his house of horrors, or Nussbaum, who has said she's terrified of
Steinberg.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Nussbaum had not requested protection,
but "if she feels threatened, she should come forward to the police."
As for Steinberg, Kelly said, "this is a big city and I have no indication that
he's at risk in any way."
With Greg Gittrich, Kerry Burke and Richard Weir
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
