The Puerto Rican eatery, located in a remote industrial section of Westchester Square, is owned by Richard Caban, the brother of NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban. The establishment has for the past few years gained a reputation as a hangout for Adams, who celebrated his birthday there last year, other high-profile elected leaders, including State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, as well as top NYPD brass, including Commissioner Caban and Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey.

But Con Sofrito has since 2022 faced a bevy of open building and fire safety violations over a sprawling “party room” it erected in its parking lot during the pandemic without proper permits. The restaurant’s landlord, a corporate entity named 1315 Commerce LLC, sued Richard Caban in Bronx Civil Court over the party room in October after it refused to dismantle the illegal structure, a development first reported last month by the news outlet The City.

In a previously unreported development, Jamie Schreck, an attorney for the landlord, filed court papers in that case last week saying Richard Caban had finally agreed to break down the party room by March 1 — and close Con Sofrito for good by Aug. 31.

In addition, Caban agreed as part of a settlement to cough up $14,000 to cover Schreck’s attorney fees and continue to pay rent through the final date of Con Sofrito’s occupancy, the court papers show. The presiding judge, Betty Lugo, approved the settlement in a decision released on the court docket Friday.

Speaking to the Daily News on Friday afternoon, Schreck said his client is pleased with the settlement and looking to find a new tenant who’s not in the hospitality industry.

“What he told me is that he’s done with restaurants after this,” Schreck said, referring to Joseph Dedona III, the manager of the corporate landlord entity. “He’s fed up with the restaurant industry.”

The settlement might not spell the absolute end of Con Sofrito, though.

“They want to find a new location and a new liquor license,” Schreck said of Caban and his Con Sofrito partners.

An attorney for Richard Caban did not immediately return a request for comment, nor did a spokesman for the mayor.

The illegal party room that sparked the court feud has been featured prominently in photos and videos posted to Instagram by Jimmy Rodriguez, an infamous Bronx restaurateur who lists himself online as the “manager” and “creator” of Con Sofrito.

Rodriguez posted videos and photos in September from the mayor’s 63rd birthday party — which was held in the party room.

Rodriguez used to run Jimmy’s Bronx Cafe, a popular club shuttered in 2004 after coming under suspicion of being a hotbed for gang and drug activity. In the 1990s, Major League Baseball officials warned Yankees players to stay away from Jimmy’s after two shootings took place in front of the club.

Rodriguez did not return a request for comment Friday.

Thursday’s procedural step came in the form of a resolution authorizing the speaker to pursue legal action on behalf of the full Council to compel the mayor to implement the laws, which are designed to expand access to CityFHEPS, a voucher program subsidizing rent for low-income New Yorkers. The measure breezed through the Council in a voice vote with overwhelming support.

With the resolution adopted, the speaker wouldn’t say what form any legal action against the mayor will take, though, or when it might be initiated.

“There has been no final decision yet on any legal action,” she told reporters. “But this maintains our ability to keep our options open, that’s what the resolution does.”

Among other provisions, the laws in dispute would expand access to CityFHEPS by eliminating a rule requiring that otherwise income-eligible individuals must enter a homeless shelter before they can apply for a voucher. By scrapping that rule, Council Democrats have argued the city can prevent more New Yorkers from becoming homeless.

The Council enacted the laws last summer by overriding the mayor’s vetoes of them. Nonetheless, the mayor didn’t implement the laws by a legally mandated Jan. 9 deadline, arguing the city can’t shoulder the added cost that would come with them.

After Thursday’s resolution vote, Adams spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak reiterated that argument, saying “this legislation will add $17 billion onto the backs of our taxpayers” — a figure Council Democrats argue is exaggerated.

The speaker’s reluctance to talk about what exactly her next step will be on the legal front comes as others are also mulling court action over the CityFHEPS matter.

The Legal Aid Society, which by law represents the city’s homeless population, said last month it would file a lawsuit against the mayor to force him to implement the CityFHEPS laws. At the time, a Council spokesman said the speaker was eyeing legal action, too, and that it wasn’t clear whether she would bring her own lawsuit or join Legal Aid’s filing.

A spokesman for the Legal Aid Society declined to comment after Thursday’s vote.

Sliwa, who erroneously identified the Bronxite as a Venezuelan migrant during a live interview Tuesday night on national TV, admitted to the Daily News Thursday he could have been “milder and calmer” during the episode caught live on FOX News cameras.

But his group’s actions during the attack and Sliwa’s on-camera comments sparked anger and outrage across NYC Thursday.

“Washed-up comic book villain instructed his herd of wannabe vigilantes to beat up a guy they decided ‘looked like’ a migrant. A hate crime,” Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan wrote on X. “Live on TV. Violence of any kind, whether against cops or innocent people in Times Sq, must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“The wheels of justice must move at an appropriate pace. We don’t have the luxury to do what we saw Curtis Sliwa did,” Mayor Adams, Sliwa’s opponent in the 2021 mayoral election, said at an unrelated press briefing with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “To see someone on the corner and, based on their ethnicity, automatically identify them as a migrant or asylum seeker, and not a long-time Bronx resident — that is not what we can do. We have to get it right.”

Adams and Brannan were far from the only ones to tag Sliwa.

On CNN Thursday morning, Gov. Hochul said no one should take the law into their own hands.

“This is not the Wild West. This is New York State,” Hochul said.

Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller and possible Democratic mayoral candidate in 2025, described Sliwa’s antics as “racism” and said he looked forward to meeting him on the debate stage.

“This kind of racism has no place in our city. Unfortunately, Curtis Sliwa went to his usual worst instincts,” Stringer said. “I look forward as a potential Democratic nominee to debating this warmed-over MAGA Republican in 2025.”

While some politicos claimed the attack was motivated by hate and racism, Bragg was not ready to call it a hate crime but did call the incident “disturbing.”

“We’re going to do what we do on all of our matters, right?” Bragg said at the briefing with Adams. “So I think there are people speculating and using a legal phrase in [using] ‘hate crime.’ We don’t make assumptions, we investigate and look at the evidence, so we’ll do what we do in all the other matters — follow the facts.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards chalked the incident up to Sliwa’s typical fear mongering.

“This is classic Curtis Sliwa: in the mud, stoking division in New York City. And it’s shameful that he would believe that because someone speaks Spanish, they’re a migrant,” Richards said. “I’m hoping people like Curtis realize our diversity is our strength.”

In an afternoon press conference at City Hall, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the “actions by Mr. Sliwa and his group” amounted to “fear-mongering” against migrants.

“Seeing incidents and occurrences like that certainly does not help the climate of the city right now. It actually does a lot of harm, creates a lot of confusion, a lot of anger,” she said.

Everyday New Yorkers also slammed Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels in the 1970s when crime was raging in the Big Apple and has been one of the more vocal critics chiding the city over its handling of the migrant crisis.

Desiree Joy Frias, a mutual aid volunteer, said she wasn’t surprised by the fracas or that Sliwa was wrong about the man’s background.

“This is not new behavior. They used to take down Black and brown people all the time in the 70s and 80s,” she said. “That people feel that they can handle things extra judiciously — that’s terrifying.”

Sliwa, who spoke to The News before going to a dermatologist appointment, didn’t seemed too fazed about all the controversy.

“All of these folks, I understand, they’re looking to dance on my grave. I take enough shots at them all the time, so it’s fair. But let’s get real here, guys” he said. “Let my haters know it’s not going to stop us from doing what we’ve done for 45 years — although on this one — my mistake. The rhetoric I used, I should not have used in that moment.”

Raymond Bryant, the uncle of Jay Bryant, said his nephew made the admission at a relative’s house in Queens in 2003. And he was barred from speculating whether his nephew was working with accomplices.

His turn on the stand was part of a lively day of testimony at the trial of Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald “Tinard” Washington, who are accused of killing Jay, real name Jason Mizell, over a drug deal in his Queens music studio on Oct. 30, 2002.

Another witness, Washington’s fellow inmate in the Metropolitan Detention Center, was forced to appear and reiterate his claims that Washington confessed to the crime when they were jailed together in 2011.

Jay Bryant’s uncle, who was subpoenaed to testify, said his nephew made the admission in a one-on-one conversation, out of earshot of other people.

“He basically told me that he was involved. He basically said that he did it. He didn’t get into it too much,” Raymond Bryant said, adding that his nephew explained “that maybe he wouldn’t have did it if he didn’t go for his gun or something.”

Jay Bryant was indicted and added to the case last May, nearly three years after Jordan and Washington were charged with the murder. He’s not on trial after his lawyer successfully argued to have his case severed from Jordan and Washington.

Bryant’s uncle also testified that his nephew told him in 2016 that his DNA might be on a hat found at the murder scene.

Prosecutors have been working throughout the trial to blunt the impact of Jay Bryant’s confession, contending in their opening arguments that he unlocked the rear door of the studio to let Jordan and Washington inside. They’ve also sought to link Jay Bryant to Jordan and his brother, and have gotten witnesses from the night of the killing to say they’ve never seen Bryant before.

A key witness, Uriel “Tony” Rincon, said he was inches away and saw Jordan’s face before Jordan blasted a hole in his leg and shot Mizell in the head. Rincon identified Washington as the man who blocked the studio door and pointed a gun at Mizell’s business manager, Lydia High — who also took the stand and identified Washington.

Later Wednesday, the jury heard from Yusuf Abdur-Rahman, who was taken into custody on a material witness warrant and made to testify.

Abdur-Rahman acknowledged he sent the federal government a letter saying Washington confided in him “that he had murdered Jam Master Jay, the rapper.”

He tried to get around recounting what he wrote in the letter, saying he couldn’t read without his glasses. But that excuse fell away when Judge Lashann DeArcy Hall handed him a spare pair of reading glasses she kept on the bench.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Miranda Gonzalez later played a pair of frantic voice recordings on which Abdur-Rahman insisted he’d never take the stand because he felt misled and lied to about only being a grand jury witness, and that he didn’t want his reputation tarnished as a “snitch.”

“I’m not about to get on the stand. I don’t care what the judge said,” he was recorded saying. “I’m not about to do no s–t like that. If it was a matter of life and death, I’m not going to do it. Have a nice day.”

The bill, authored by Bronx Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, is a direct response to the NYCHA bribery scandal that came to light Tuesday as federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted 70 current and former Housing Authority superintendents on charges that they solicited $2 million in bribes from private contractors. In exchange for the bribes, the supers are accused of giving the private operators no-bid “micro purchase” contracts for NYCHA complex construction jobs that didn’t exceed $10,000 in value.

Under current law, NYCHA doesn’t need to publicly report information about procurements in that small-dollar price category — and Torres argued it’s that gap in transparency that has allowed corruption to fester at the public housing agency.

‘“For five years, I have been sounding the alarm about NYCHA’s chronic lack of oversight over no-bid contracting, which can easily become a breeding ground for fraud, corruption and abuse,” said Torres, who as a member of the City Council called in 2019 for stricter transparency requirements around NYCHA micro-purchase contracts. Torres also grew up in public housing.

“One case of bribery or a few cases of bribery can be explained away as outliers,” he continued. “But 70 cases of bribery, affecting one-third of NYCHA properties, points to a systemic failure of management and oversight. It points to a culture of corruption.”

Asked for a response to Torres’ comments, NYCHA spokeswoman Barbara Brancaccio said the authority has “already made substantial reforms to its procurement processes,” citing a “nearly 50% reduction in micro-purchase spend on services” since 2021.

“While micro-purchases allow for staff to quickly and flexibly respond to emergencies at the development level, these recent and unfortunate events demonstrate that additional oversight is needed,” Brancaccio said.

Torres’ legislation, a copy of which was obtained by The News ahead of its introduction in the House of Representatives, would specifically order the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to require every public housing agency in the country to disclose information about all private outsourcing contracts they award.

Such disclosures would divulge the date of the contract, information about the goods and services provided as part of it as well as the identities of the agency official who solicited the contract and the vendor executing it, according to the bill text.

It was not immediately clear how the bill will fare in the House, which is controlled by Republicans.

None of the contractors who paid out bribes to NYCHA supers were charged as part of Tuesday’s massive bust.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press conference that the indicted supers created an environment in which micro-purchase bidders knew they couldn’t get the contracts unless they paid kickbacks first.

In one especially egregious case, Juan Mercado, a super at the Hammel Houses and Carleton Manor, two jointly managed NYCHA properties in Queens, solicited and accepted at least $314,300 in bribes between April 2014 and this past July, making him the top offender in the scandal, according to prosecutors.

In a letter to NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt on Wednesday, Torres lamented that the agency never tightened rules around micro-purchase procurement after his 2019 lament. He asked her to provide him with information about all steps the agency has taken since then to improve oversight in the contracting gray area.

“NYCHA owes the people of New York transparency about the progress it has made toward procurement reform in public housing,” he wrote to Bova-Hiatt.

Nicholas McGee, 45, was serving time in a Virginia jail for identity theft when the NYPD caught up with him for the grisly Jan. 22 discovery.

Kawsheen Gelzer, 40, had been couch surfing at McGee’s apartment on Nostrand Ave. near Farragut Road in East Flatbush, where he lived with his longtime girlfriend Heather Stines, 45, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a news briefing Tuesday.

Gelzer was a registered sex offender convicted of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy in 2004.

In March 2022, Gelzer and McGee argued over drugs and nonpayment of rent, Kenny said.

McGee told NYPD officers interviewing him in the Virginia jail that he confronted Gelzer over the rent, and the two argued.

“[McGee] waits until the victim goes to sleep, when he beats him with a hammer,” Kenny said. “The victim wakes up during the beating, and at this time McGee takes out a knife and stabs him.”

The attacker dismembered Gelzer’s body with a Leatherman multitool and wrapped the pieces up in black bags, Kenny said.

He placed the bags in a refrigerator in the apartment, glued the door shut and wrapped it in tape. He left the city sometime after June 2023, cops said.

“He’s just a thief,” Kenny said of McGee. “He goes where the money takes him.”

Gelzer’s mother reported him missing on April 22, 2022, but he was not discovered until cops, working off a tip, arrived at the apartment nearly two years later and uncovered the body parts of the 6-foot-tall, 200-pound man.

Following the horrifying discovery, Stines was arrested and charged with concealment of a human corpse.

McGee has 15 prior nonviolent arrests in the city, Cincinnati and Kentucky, where Stine is originally from, Kenny said. He was being sought for seven thefts across the city at the time of the killing.

McGee was indicted on a murder charge and will be extradited back to Brooklyn for a court hearing, sources said.

All in all, 70 NYCHA superintendents squeezed out just over $2 million in bribes from private actors in exchange for giving them no-bid contracts to do building repairs at the Housing Authority’s various projects across the city, according to a string of criminal complaints unsealed Tuesday.

Here are details on the 10 NYCHA supers accused of taking the biggest bribes, totaling $1.02 million:

1. JUAN MERCADO: 

A super at the Hammel Houses and Carleton Manor, two jointly-managed NYCHA properties in Queens, Mercado is accused of soliciting and accepting at least $314,300 in bribes between April 2014 and this past July — making him the scandal’s top offender.

The feds didn’t name or indict any of the private actors who allegedly issued the bribes at the heart of the scandal, in many cases because they cooperated with investigators, but Mercado’s complaint says he routinely demanded between 10% and 20% of a contract’s total price tag as a kickback before signing off on it. In total, Mercado’s accused of issuing no-bid contracts worth at least $1.7 million in exchange for bribes.

2. NIRMAL LORICK:  

Lorick, a super at Queens’ Baisley Park Houses, raked in about $153,000 in bribes between January 2014 and this past July, according to court papers.

In exchange for those payouts, Lorick gave the go-ahead on issuing no-bid work orders worth some $1.3 million, the feds say.

3. JOSE HERNANDEZ:  

While working as a super at the Marble Hill Houses in the Bronx, Hernandez pocketed about $95,000 in bribes between 2014 and September 2020, the feds charge.

The bribes prompted him to sign off on repair contracts worth about $640,000. The feds say that Hernandez made clear to contractors vying for repair work that they “would not be awarded no-bid contracts” at his developments unless they paid him bribes first.

4. DWARKA RUPNARAIN: 

Rupnarain retired from his superintendent post at the Bronx’s Gun Hill Houses in December 2022.

Before that, Rupnarain is accused of having taken some $83,100 in bribes between February 2015 and June 2022. In exchange, he cleared the way for no-bid contracts worth at least $508,000, the feds say.

5. VERONICA HOLLMAN: 

While working as a super at Brooklyn’s Pink Houses between May 2018 and July 2022, Hollman pocketed at least $80,000 in bribes in exchange for issuing contracts worth some $400,000, according to prosecutors.

“If [an unnamed contractor] did not make payments to HOLLMAN, HOLLMAN would not award [the contractor] additional no-bid contracts for work at Pink Houses,” prosecutors wrote in her complaint, citing interviews with the contractor.

6. RIGOBERTO “RICKY” CHARRIEZ:

Charriez pocketed at least $70,000 in bribes while working at various projects across the city as a super between 2016 and 2023, including most recently at the Richmond Terrace development in Queens. The bribes paved the way for Charriez to issue contracts worth about $377,000, the feds allege.

“The contracts were typically each worth approximately $5,000, and [an unnamed contractor] therefore paid CHARRIEZ approximately $500 in cash per contract,”  his complaint states.

7. DEXTER LINO:

While working as an assistant superintendent between 2019 and 2021 at NYCHA’s Latimer Gardens in Queens, Lino raked in about $70,000 in bribes, too, prosecutors say.

The bribes prompted Lino to award no-bid repair deals worth about $245,000, according to his complaint.

8. CLARENCE SAMUEL:

While working at NYCHA’s Gompers Consolidation project in Manhattan between 2016 and September 2022, Samuel collected at least $56,000 in bribes, according to the feds.

In exchange, he allegedly green-lit no-bid contracts worth about $250,000.

9. FRANKIE VILLANUEVA:

Villanueva took some $50,000 in bribes while working as a super at the Mott Haven Houses in the Bronx, according to his complaint.

In exchange, he issued no-bid contracts worth about $200,000, the feds say.

10. MICHAEL JOHNSON

In exchange for at least approximately $48,000 in bribes between 2018 and 2022, Johnson used his power as a super at Brooklyn’s Cypress Hills Houses to issue contracts worth about $225,000.

Against that backdrop, Johnson retired from NYCHA in January 2023.

The blaze broke out in a bedroom in a first-floor apartment at the Gowanus Houses on the corner of Bond and Wyckoff Sts. in Boerum  Hill just after 4 p.m., FDNY Deputy Chief Joseph Duggan said at a news conference.

Firefighters called to the apartment discovered a 2-year-old boy, 67-year-old man, 60-year-old man and 51-year-old woman trapped, all in cardiac arrest.

“There was a slight clutter condition inside, but that’s why we called for the [fire] marshals to conduct an investigation about why it started and why they couldn’t get out,” Duggan said. “It appears they were trying to make their way out when they were overcome.”

The victims were rushed to Brooklyn Hospital Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist, where the 67-year-old died. His name was not immediately released.

The three other victims were listed in stable condition after suffering from smoke inhalation, police said.

The fire marshal will determine the cause of the blaze.

Police caught up with the fugitive farm animal in Sunset Park at about 1 p.m. Saturday after a 911 caller reported a lone sheep hiding behind bushes near 39th St. and Seventh Ave., cops said.

Members of the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit lassoed the lamb, which had no markings on it. No one came forward to claim the errant ewe, cops said.

Police handed the sheep over to Animal Care Centers of NYC, and later Saturday the animal was on its way to Skylands Animal Sanctuary in Wantage, N.J.

“Not baaaaad for a group of cops with no experience shepherding a sheep,” the NYPD tweeted.

The sanctuary’s president and founder, Mike Stura, named the sheep Lyn and posted video on Facebook of her journey to New Jersey in the back of his truck.

“She’s beautiful, a beautiful, tiny little sheepster. Nice kid, very sweet,” he said in the video. “She has no holes in her ears, no tags, nothing. I have no idea what her history is, or what, but we know her future is safe.”

Lyn will be checked by a vet on Monday and after four or five days in quarantine she’ll join the other 47 sheep at his sanctuary, Stura told the Daily News Sunday.

Lyn —named after a friend of the sanctuary and not because she was found in Brooklyn — caused no fuss on the trip to New Jersey and has been “eating and drinking like a champ,” Stura said.

“Sheep are awesome, man. Sheep are really, really nice for the most part. They’re very accepting of new people, of new sheep,” he added. “Probably the most accepting of any of the animals that we have on the farm.”

Stura regularly takes stray farm animals from the New York City area to his 232-acre sanctuary, including Ricardo, the 700-pound bull who went viral after roaming the streets of Newark in December.

Ricardo disrupted NJ Transit service during his run for freedom and became so popular that the NJ Transit Shoppe started selling plushes of the superstar steer for $20.

Ricardo suffered an infection from a wound to his leg and was taken Cornell Large Animal Hospital on Christmas Eve, but he’s expected to rejoin the sanctuary soon, Stura said.

“Ricardo’s fantastic. We are definitely getting close to bringing Ricardo home now,” he said. “We’re just waiting for the wound on his leg to totally close up. They have finally killed the infection he had.”

The first floor of a two-story building under construction at 1266 50th St. in Borough Park collapsed at about 12:10 p.m. The worker was in a cellar when the floor collapsed in a V-shape on top of him, said FDNY Assistant Chief Joseph Ferrante.

Two other workers present when the floor collapsed escaped, said officials.

Firefighters shored up the fallen floor, “dug the dirt out from underneath the victim and removed him from the collapsed area,” Ferrante said.

But despite the firefighters’ quick work, they were too late. Medics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

Police did not immediately identify the victim. But a man who identified himself as the victim’s brother was at the scene late Friday afternoon, and said the dead worker was Juan Tamayo.

“We’re from Ecuador. He leaves behind two kids and one unborn,” the man said before leaving in a car with a crying woman.

City records show the site is owned by Juda Horowitz, who could not be reached Friday.

No construction permit was ever issued for the site, Buildings Commissioner James Oddo told reporters at the collapse scene.

“There are absolutely no plans submitted to the Department of Buildings,” Oddo told reporters. “So this fatality absolutely should not have happened. They should not have been doing this work.”

The Buildings Department got a complaint about the work on Dec. 23, and an inspector visited Dec. 26, city records show. The work underway at the site included excavation and foundation work.

The inspector was not able to access the site, and posted a notice at an entrance advising the owner to get in touch with the department, the records show.

An inspector returned to the site Jan. 4, and found that there was no permit posted for the “excavation/foundation” work being done on a roughly 35-foot long by 12-foot high wall.

The Buildings Department issued a stop work order. City records state that construction had taken place at the site “without permits issued by the Department of Buildings,” and that the “only work allowed is to make site safe.”

Oddo said the Buildings Department will pursue penalties in the case.

“We will use whatever is in our capability,” he said. “It’s a $12,000 fine for the initial work [without a permit]. Violating the stop work order is another $25,000 fine.

“There could be multiple fines at this location so the amount may end up in six figures,” Oddo said.