PHILLY KILLZ

NEW ORLEANS - When Soul owner Jon Bon Jovi left his seat Sunday to head down to his team's locker room and celebrate the franchise's first ArenaBowl title, it was before the San Jose SaberCats scored 14 points in 11 seconds to suddenly put the outcome of the game in doubt.
Once he got to field level at the New Orleans Arena, Bon Jovi was handed the commemorative hat and T-shirt that went to the winners of the game.

"It was heart-wrenching," Bon Jovi said after the Soul held on for a 59-56 victory. "I left that box confident. I said, 'OK, folks, let's go down and get us a trophy.' Suddenly, it's a three-point game, and I dropped the hat and shirt. I didn't want to touch them [again] until we earned it. These guys deserve a pat on the back today. This is their moment."

It wasn't until the Soul's Rod Davis recovered an onside kick with 15 seconds left that Bon Jovi and the players could begin to relax.

Soul quarterback Matt D'Orazio, who was presented with a yellow convertible Mitsubishi Eclipse after being named the game's most valuable player, took three deep drops and then threw the ball into the stands each time to run out the clock.

The team from Philadelphia was officially the champion.

"Let's just say that the [championship] ring is going to be tasteful, timeless and classy," said Bon Jovi, who said he will follow through on his pledge to give a free concert in Philadelphia if the Soul won the Arena Football League crown. "It's not going to be so ostentatious that it takes two knuckles to fit."

One player who will be especially happy to slip that ring on his finger is Soul wide receiver Chris Jackson, a nine-year veteran who has put together a career that has him among the AFL's all-time leaders in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns.

He set regular-season Soul team records in all three categories.

While D'Orazio completed 26 of 43 pass attempts for 302 yards and seven scores - he also ran for a touchdown - Jackson was named the ArenaBowl's offensive player of the game after hauling in 11 passes for 146 yards and three touchdowns.

Like D'Orazio, Jackson just finished his first season with the Soul. The acquisition of both players was orchestrated by Soul president and general manager Ron Jaworski, the former Eagles quarterback who started in Super Bowl XV in New Orleans.

"It meant everything to me being a part of this team they put together," said Jackson, who was named the AFL's offensive player of the year earlier this month.

"I didn't want it to be a year where you receive personal accolades, and then come this far and fall short. I know how hard it is to get here from that perspective. One little mistake, and it doesn't work in your favor."

For years, Aaron F. McKie was a charismatic success at every level of Philadelphia basketball, winning awards as a player for Simon Gratz High School, Temple University and the 2001 NBA Finals 76ers.
But yesterday morning, McKie ducked into a State Police barracks in Belmont and turned himself in for a felony arrest. Authorities charge that he lied when trying to buy two pistols in an Abington gun shop by concealing a restraining order that forbade the purchase.

Just days after attending the Sixers' predraft workouts for a possible return as a coach, McKie, 35, now faces imprisonment for denying the existence of the Delaware County court order he compliantly signed last September.

"There's no argument of lack of knowledge," said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, "because it's right there in black and white."

The reason for the restraining order is confidential under Pennsylvania law, and Ferman would not say who sought it against McKie.

In the criminal charge, he is accused of lying by answering "no" to the gun-purchase application's question about a restraining order to protect his "child or an intimate partner or child of such partner."

Signed Sept. 27, the order bars McKie from buying or possessing a gun for a year. Yet April 8, he allegedly walked into Abington Gun Sports in Upper Moreland Township to buy two pistols, a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson and a 9 mm Ruger. Ferman said McKie had not volunteered why he wanted the handguns.

After an arraignment in an Oreland courtroom, McKie was allowed to go free on a $50,000 bond and ordered to hand over his passport.

It remains unclear how the charges will affect his relationship with the 76ers, the hometown team McKie played for from 1997-2005.

McKie spent part of last season with Sixers as a volunteer assistant coach, but left the team midseason when the Los Angeles Lakers - which retained contract rights to McKie as a player - signed him for a bit part to help a trade meet byzantine NBA salary regulations.

The arrangement sent star Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies to the Lakers in exchange for McKie and other players, and McKie was paid $750,000 under a player's contract, though he did not play.

McKie's last NBA playing time was in 2007 with the Lakers. He had been attending recent 76ers predraft workouts, which provoked speculation he would rejoin the team as a coach this summer.

Sixers officials yesterday had no comment about the situation.

McKie, who lives in Narberth, is due back in court for a scheduled preliminary hearing July 3 on one felony count and one misdemeanor, both for how he filled out the gun-purchase application. Ferman said she did not yet know if her office would seek jail time if McKie is convicted.

The West Oak Lane businessman said he's worked 11 years in the neighborhood, only daring to walk west of 21st Street and Chelten Avenue twice during that time.
"I'll drive, I don't walk," said the man, who did not want his name or that of his business to appear in print for fear of retaliation.

The block of Chelten between 21st and 22nd has been well-known for drug activity for about 25 years, the man said yesterday. "That area is the root of the problem. Cut that out and it'll be a good neighborhood."

It was there, at 21st and Chelten, that shots rang out Saturday night, injuring three adults and a 6-year-old girl in front of Klubb Acacia social club, police said.

People were ordering food in front of the club shortly before 9:30 p.m. when two men began firing into the crowd from across the street, police spokeswoman Officer Tanya Little said.

The businessman said he was waxing his car on a hot, balmy evening, "a regular night," when it began to "sound like the wild, wild West."

Some people started running, others began ducking. Still others believed that the bullets piercing the air were firecrackers, he said.

The four victims - whose names were withheld - were taken to Albert Einstein Medical Center by private vehicle, Little said.

The men were listed in critical condition. The girl was stabilized and then transported to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Little said. The girl, shot in her right thigh, was in critical but stable condition.

The motive for the shooting was unknown, and no arrests had been made, Little said.

The club is a tax-exempt nonprofit association, according to www.taxexempt world.com.

The sounds of gunfire are too common in the neighborhood, the businessman said.

"There are shootings here every other night, believe me," said the man.

The cops do their jobs and raid the drug houses, he said, but soon afterward the operations are back in business.

"The city has to keep them shut down," he said.

A student pilot practicing takeoffs and landings for his flight test crashed a small plane into a warehouse parking lot Thursday, killing the pilot and an instructor.

The plane, a Grumman AA-1C, went down near Northeast Philadelphia Airport just before noon, first hitting the parking lot and then skidding under a row of trailers parked along the T.J. Maxx warehouse. No one on the ground was hurt and the fire was under control within 20 minutes, officials said.

The control tower had just told the student pilot to make a right turn, but he apparently made the turn to steep, said Herbert Hortman, the owner of Hortman Aviation Services Inc., a flight school and rental company that owns the plane.

The National Weather Service reported that the wind was blowing at around 10 mph at the time of the crash, but Hortman said it should not have been a factor.

The student was making final preparations for his flight test and the instructor was a veteran pilot, Hortman said. The plane was a few hundred feet off the ground at the time of the accident, Hortman said. There were no signs of mechanical failure or other problems before the crash.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, said Holly Baker, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman in Atlantic City, N.J.

The names of the victims were not released.

Northeast Philadelphia Airport is the smaller of the city's two airports. Both it and Philadelphia International Airport, which is at the other end of the city, are owned and operated by the city government.

Airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendal referred calls to Hortman Aviation.

The alleged mastermind of an insurance scam that involved a Philadelphia police officer was charged yesterday with defrauding 10 insurance companies of more than $1 million through an elaborate scheme of fake car accidents and fraudulent police reports.
The former officer, Deshane Riggins, 28, was charged in January in connection with writing a host of phony, accident reports.

The District Attorney's Office announced yesterday that authorities nabbed the alleged ringleader, Wallace Morris, Sr., known as "Pops," of Hatfield Street near 57th.

Morris was charged with 187 counts of insurance fraud, bribery, conspiracy, perjury, theft and related charges, District Attorney Lynne Abraham said.

Morris and Riggins worked in unison for more than two years to swindle at least 10 insurance companies through more than 187 phony claims, Abraham said.

The insurance companies - Progressive, State Farm, AIG, Allstate, Cambridge, Erie, GEICO, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide and American Independent - paid out more than $1 million to the claimants and numerous doctors and lawyers allegedly involved.

The plot involved hundreds of people, including friends and family members, along with a wide array of doctors and lawyers, Abraham said.

Morris and Riggins allegedly conspired to create fake accidents, explaining that if somebody had some damage to their car, they "agreed with Morris to get a corrupt agreement together to make a few illegal bucks from claiming insurance," Abraham said.

The scheme worked like this: There were two cars with two passengers in each, making a total of six people altogether who could file.

Riggins, with prior knowledge of the faked accidents, wrote the fraudulent police report to strengthen the insurance claims, Abraham said. Morris then steered the claimants to doctors and lawyers who were also in on the scheme.

Morris got money from both ends of the shady deal, Abraham said. He allegedly received a fee from each doctor or lawyer he sent to them, and also wanted a piece of the insurance payout that the claimants received from the insurance companies.

The plan unraveled, Abraham said, when investigators from Progressive questioned one of the claimants, who then admitted the accident was faked. Progressive then tipped off the D.A.'s office, which led to the arrest of Riggins and Morris.

Riggins, a seven-year veteran of the force, was assigned to the 14th District when he was placed on administrative duties and later fired in February.

Riggins was charged with 19 counts each of insurance fraud, tampering with public records, bribery and criminal conspiracy.

Abraham said that Morris and Riggins raked in up to $100,000 in the scheme.

Riggins, facing "a lengthy prison term," has been cooperative with investigators, Abraham said, and her office will soon arrest the lawyers and doctors involved in the plot, once their complicity is established.

"These cases simply cannot exist unless there is an agreement, a conspiracy, between doctors, lawyers, police officers in this case and a mastermind," Abraham said. "And in this case, Morris appears to be the mastermind." *

With a pink baseball cap on her head and three grandchildren in tow, Patricia Stewart was at Eakin's Oval at 6:25 this morning.
A little over an hour later Stewart would join more than 6,000 other breast cancer survivors for the "Parade in Pink" down the art museum steps to kick off the 18th annual Susan G. Komen Philadelphia Race for the Cure.

On this brisk, bright Mother's Day morning 45,000 people ran, jogged and walked the 3.1 mile course to raise money and awareness for breast cancer.

"I'm on a mission to touch the life of every woman who has had this illness," Stewart said who is a 25-year breast cancer survivor.

In Pennsylvania and New Jersey an estimated 15,720 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and nearly 3,600 will die of the disorder, according to the American Cancer Society.

Nationally the disease is the second leading cause of cancer death among women behind lung cancer. The cancer society estimates that 182,460 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with the disease this year and nearly 40,500 will die of it.

The Race for the Cure has become a Philadelphia tradition since 1991 when 1,893 people took part in the first race here.

"Our message to everyone who is fighting this disease is simple: we can win this battle," said Elaine I. Grobman, executive director of the Philadelphia affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure who has led the effort for 18 years.

Today, the race course was jammed with men and women, young and old, black and white supporting survivors, honoring the memories of those who died, and hoping to help prevent the spread of breast cancer.

Margarett Zuccott, a breast cancer survivor, won the 3.1 mile race in the survivor category.

"I think it is important to be out to support all the other survivors and their families," said Stewart, 66. "Also it is a reminder of how blessed I am to have survived."