FOR THE RECORD

Correction Commissioner Martin F. Horn noted Jan. 29 that jail staff worked with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to provide recordings of inmate telephone calls that were useful in establishing connections to the drug gang known as the "Stack Money Family" charged the day before.

Fifteen people were arrested, including three current Rikers Island inmates, for their part in an uptown narcotics ring where gang members sold crack cocaine in and around residential apartment buildings near West 143rd St. and Hamilton Place.

"We know that some inmates will use their phone access to arrange criminal activity in the jails, such as attacks on others and the delivery of contraband," Mr. Horn said. "And we know that inmates will use phones to continue their criminal activities and even to direct criminal enterprises outside the walls.

"In this case, Correction investigators who worked on gang intelligence were able to provide useful background on inmate-suspects, and our system wide phone recording and monitoring system provided valuable guidance to investigators."

Since the system was installed, it has been used in several cases. In one, phone information prevented an inmate from enlisting witnesses in a bogus insanity defense. In another, it helped protect a witness from threats and harassment by friends being directed by an inmate in custody. In a third, phone call information prevented further injury to a victim of elder abuse.

The Department of Correction installed and activated a new phone monitoring system to capture inmate calls last year after the city Board of Correction amended its minimum jail standards to allow such surveillance without a warrant. In all city jails, every phone call by an inmate can be recorded and monitored.

Those arrests came a week after three COs were accused of engaging in a different kind of collaboration by Bronx prosecutors— turning over a juvenile facility at Rikers Island to gangs of young inmates they allegedly deputized as enforcers.

Mr. Horn's unusual effort to trumpet the role of those under his command in making the case against the drug gang was clearly intended as a reminder that the vast majority of correction officers who go the extra mile do it on behalf of the justice system rather than to corrupt it.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint now finds himself on both sides of the arbitration process, as he will be one of three arbitration panelists set to award a wage pact for New York City Transit workers, the Public Employees Relations Board announced Jan. 30.

Mr. Toussaint is the laborappointed panel member, while NYC Transit appointed Dall W. Forsythe, a former state Budget Director. Chairing the panel is John E. Zuccotti, a former First Deputy Mayor who has served since 1981 on arbitration panels awarding pacts between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Local 100 and the Amalgamated Transit Union.

"In the weeks ahead I expect that all outstanding contracts between the MTA and Local 100 will be resolved," Mr. Toussaint said in a statement Jan. 27.

In this form of arbitration, which has also been used twice in recent years by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the panelists designated by labor and management essentially lobby the impartial chair after the two sides have presented their arguments. The impartial chair ultimately decides the award.

State government buildings flew their flags at half-mast Jan. 30 in memory of U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Julian Brennan, a Brooklyn resident who was killed Jan. 24 in Afghanistan.

At Governor Paterson's request, they were also scheduled to be at half-mast Feb. 3, the day this newspaper hits the stands, in honor of four soldiers who underwent training at upstate Fort Drum before being killed while conducting combat operations in Iraq Jan. 26.

The four, all members of the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, were Matthew Kelley, Benjamin H. Todd and Joshua M. Tillery, all of whom held the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 2, and Philip Windorski, who was a Chief Warrant Officer 3.

The Governor lauded the service and sacrifice of all five men.

Nice to see Rudy Giuliani, the scourge of welfare loafers, defending bonuses for Wall Streeters whose firms needed Federal bailouts.