Hasan Vaughan andThomas Singletary

Two 36-year-old men have been convicted of shooting and stabbing three people to death and then torching the Central Islip house they were in four years ago in a revenge plot.

A Suffolk County jury found Hasan Vaughan guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder. A second jury in the same trial found his friend, Thomas Singletary, guilty of second-degree murder but acquitted him of a first-degree murder charge. Both were convicted of arson and reckless endangerment.

“These murders were singular in their brutality,” Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said. Both men are from Central Islip.

Prosecutors said Vaughan recruited Singletary to kill his 31-year-old girlfriend, Katrice Daniels, her 28-year-old sister, Mykier Daniels, and Mykier’s 19-year-old friend, Louis Calixto Jr. in August of 2009.

Police found the charred remains of the victims in the smoldering rubble of Katrice Daniels’ Hickory Street home. Mykier Daniels was shot, stabbed and strangled while the other two had stab and gunshot wounds.

Vaughan had sought revenge for the theft of his laptop computer, credit cards and cash. He and Singletary set the house on fire before they fled.

Vaughan faces a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Singletary is facing a maximum of 25 years to life.

John Beaumont

A man was arrested for stabbing his 57-year-old brother to death in their father’s West Babylon home where all three live on Saturday evening, Suffolk County police said.

Officers responded to their Densfield Road after John Beaumont, 54, called 911 to report that he stabbed his brother, Thomas, during an argument while their father was home at 5:33 p.m.., police said. The father was not injured.

Thomas Beaumont was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, where he later died.

John Beaumont was charged with second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty Sunday at First District Court in Central Islip.

Revamped Vanderbilt planetarium. Pictured above is a state-of-the-art planetarium projector. (Photo courtesy of Vanderbilt Museum.)

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Planetarium has been renamed The Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium following the philanthropic Fort Salonga couple’s recent $850,000 donation—a move that some worry may cause confusion.

Suffolk lawmakers debated the issue Tuesday before they unanimously voted to approve a resolution changing the name of the Centerport facility, which saw nearly 10,000 visitors the first month since it reopened in March following a $4-million renovation. About 200 school children visit the planetarium and museum daily.

“We’ve spent a long time branding this facility, we’ve spent a lot of money on this facility…everybody knows it as the Vanderbilt planetarium,” Legis. Jay Schneiderman (I-Montauk) said before the vote. “I’m a little bit concerned. I don’t want to discourage people from being philanthropic. I just hope were not hurting ourselves in the long run.”

The donation, spread out of the next decade—$80,000 for the first five years, $90,000 for the second five—is the third largest in the history of the museum since William K. Vanderbilt II bequest the mansion and a $2 million trust to the county after his death in 1944 and his daughter, Muriel Vanderbilt, donated another $6.2 million.

Revamped Vanderbilt Planetarium Educates and Illuminates

“I’ve thought of that,” Lance Reinheimer, interim executive director of the Vanderbilt, said of the name change possibly confusing the public. “It’s a valid concern.”

He added that road signs will continue to just say “planetarium” and the Reichert family name will be used mainly in correspondence and publications. It will be informally known as the Reichert Family Planetarium at the Vanderbilt Museum.

“This is a private donation, it’s not a corporate donation, and we’re naming the building in recognition of the gift,” Reinheimer said. “So it’s a little bit different than Bethpage Ballpark,” he added, referring to the Long Island Ducks’ minor-league baseball stadium in Central Islip for which the county sold the naming rights to Bethpage Federal Credit Union.

Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) dismissed the concerns over any potential confusion.

“In all the years that I’ve been sitting here there’s been nothing but complaints [from] this legislature about the Vanderbilt bleeding money,” Lindsay said. “Here we got some money, what are we going to do, throw it back at them?”

Maria Cepparo

A Bay Shore woman has been accused of leaving her four children, one of them autistic, alone in a vehicle parked in a fire zone while she drank in a Holbrook bar.

Suffolk County Police arrested Maria Cepparo and charged her with endangering the welfare of a child.

Police said the 40-year-old woman was in Momo’s Sports Bar and Grill while her 13-year-old son, who is autistic, an 8-year-old son and 6-year-old twin daughters were left in her Ford Focus with no heat and the doors unlocked at 12:15 a.m. Sunday.

Cepparo will be arraigned Sunday at First District Court in Central Islip.

The four children were released to their grandmother.

Dr. Gracia Mayard will be arraigned Friday at federal court in Central Islip on charges of distribution of a controlled substance and conspiracy to distribute oxycodone, a widely abused and highly addictive opioid.

“I know that it is a big problem but what happens to the oxycodone after I write the prescription is not my concern,” the 61-year-old suspect allegedly told an investigator who questioned him, according to court documents. “It’s just like a person that sells guns, he cannot control what happens after he sells a gun.”

Mayard is the latest in a string of local doctors who’ve been accused of prescribing oxycodone to patients in exchange for cash. Mayards allegedly didn’t examine—or in some cases, didn’t even meet—patients before writing them prescriptions. Some patients then resold the pills, authorities said.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents teamed up with Nassau County and New York State police on a local task force to crack down on such doctors. They shared the credit for the latest bust.

“Overdose deaths from prescription painkillers are now more frequent than those from heroin and cocaine combined – this is an epidemic,” said Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “Rather than follow his oath to ‘do no harm,’ Mayard prescribed hundreds of thousands of highly addictive pills with complete disregard for where they would end up or who would take them.”

Mayard has been in custody since his arrest in March. He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Suffolk County police arrested Allan Concepcion at his Mount Sinai home on Tuesday and charged him with third-degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.

Special Victims Section detectives alleged that the 38-year-old suspect had a sexual encounter with a student earlier this year.

Concepcion is also the junior varsity volleyball coach at the school, a gymnastics coach at the Hampton Bays Middle School and an assistant coach with the Long Island Fury volleyball traveling team, police noted.

He pleaded not guilty Wednesday at First District Court in Central Islip.

Sylvestro Liotta

Authorities said a fatal hit-and-run suspect who was caught at the Canadian border last week had tried to cover-up his crime by walking back to the scene and pretending to be a Good Samaritan.

Sylvestro Liotta pleaded not guilty Tuesday at Suffolk County court to charges of leaving the scene of an accident, driving without a license, perjury and offering a false instrument for filing.

“The evidence shows that after running the victim over, Liotta left the scene in his damaged work vehicle only to return on foot to implement a cover-up,” Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota said. “He walked back to Caleb’s Path where he struck [the victim] and dialed 911 to report that he found a seriously injured man in the roadway.”

Prosecutors said the 45-year-old Central Islip man fatally struck Orlando Marquez, 38, on Caleb’s Path near the victim’s Brentwood home on Feb. 18 and fled the scene.

The victim was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore where he was pronounced dead. Liotta was arrested by New York State Police as he tried to cross the border into Canada.

“The defendant had a plan in place to flee to Europe and rendezvous with a friend he’d made online,” Spota said.

Bail for Liotta was set at $400,000 bond or $200,000 cash. He is due back in court May 22.

Sylvestro Liotta

A Central Islip man wanted for killing a 38-year-old man in a hit-and-run crash two months ago has been apprehended at the Canadian border last week.

Sylvestro Liotta was indicted on charges of leaving the scene of an accident, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and other counts.

Prosecutors said the 45-year-old man ran over Orlando Marquez on Caleb’s Path near the victim’s Brentwood home on Feb. 18 and fled the scene.

Border patrol officers discovered Liotta had a warrant for his arrest during a routine check of passengers traveling to Canada on a Trailways bus.

He was removed from the bus Wednesday at a checkpoint on a bridge to Fort Erie, Ontario.

He will be arraigned Tuesday before Judge Fernando Camacho at First District court in Central Islip.

Margaret Dopfel was driving westbound on the Southern State Parkway when she rear-ended another vehicle near exit 36 in Lindenhurst shortly before 9 a.m., police said.

Troopers found the 46-year-old woman to be impaired by drugs after she submitted to a chemical test of her blood, police said.

Dopfel was charged with driving while ability impaired by drugs, endangering the welfare of a child and driving while intoxicated with a child under 16 in the vehicle, a felony under Leandra’s Law.

The child was released to a family member.

Dopfel will be arraigned Thursday at First District Court in Central Islip.

Suffolk County police said Trent Wiggan was driving a Honda Accord westbound on Suffolk Avenue when a motorcyclist collided with his car while he tried to turn around east of Brentwood Parkway at 4:20 a.m.

The motorcyclist was taken to Southside Hospital in Bay Shore where he died shortly later. The victim’s name was not immediately released.

Wiggan, 19, of Central Islip, was taken to the same hostpial with his passenger for treatment of minor injuries.

Third Squad detectives impounded the vehicles for safety checks, are continuing the investigation and ask anyone with information about this crash is asked to call them at 631-854-8352.