‘Dognap’ cur was already collared

He won’t learn to heel.

The man who allegedly swiped a 7-year-old girl’s spaniel right before Christmas had walked out of jail just three days before cops said he pulled the heartless heist, records show.

Brad Bacon, 29, was released from jail on Dec. 21 for allegedly scamming two Manhattan delis earlier this month.

In both cases, he strolled into the cafes and claimed to be a repairman, then charged hundreds of dollars for work he didn’t do, court records show.

On Dec. 2, he allegedly entered an Energy Kitchen on West 17th Street claiming to be a refrigerator repairman.

Steven Hirsch

MANGY: Suspect Brad Bacon at Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday.

Tomas Gaston

Mia Bendrat is overjoyed to have her spaniel, Marley, back.

He went to the back of the store where employees couldn’t see him, and later demanded $255 for a deposit on the “work,” the records claim.

About a half-hour later, he hit up another Energy Kitchen on West 23rd Street with the same story, netting a $188 deposit, the records say.

Almost as soon as he was out of jail, he swiped little Mia Bendrat’s dog, Marley, on Dec. 24, prosecutors said at his arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday.

Bacon pleaded not guilty to a charge of grand larceny and claimed that it was a case of mistaken identity.

But Detective Dean Roberts said he caught Bacon on surveillance video grabbing Marley in front of a Washington Heights grocery, where the pooch had been tied to a pole on Christmas Eve, according to the complaint.

Even though Assistant District Attorney Jamie Kleidman asked for $7,500 bail, Bacon was released pending his next court date on March 11.

“It’s unfathomable,” said Mia’s mom, Angie Estrada, about Bacon’s release. “He could go and do this again anywhere else in any neighborhood.”

Mia was reunited with Marley on Christmas Day at around 4 p.m. after good Samaritan Tena Cohen bought the shaken pooch from Bacon for $220 and called the cops.

Bendrat said Mia would be terrified if she knew the alleged dognapper was out of jail and roaming the streets.

Mia spent the day curled up with Marley watching cartoons.

“I was thinking that I would never see him again,” she said.

“When I saw him, I ran to him. He’s like a little brother to me, and my best friend.”

Bacon ignored questions after his arraignment.

julia.marsh@nypost.com

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Deadline to apply for free foreclosure case reviews is Monday

Florida residents who believe they suffered from shoddy foreclosure practices have through Monday to apply for a free case review that could net them up to $125,000 if wrongdoing is found.

The program, which is overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, began in November 2011 with an estimated 4 million eligibility letters mailed nationwide.

As of late September, just 3.8 percent of Floridians who were sent letters about their eligibility for the review have applied.

Cases are eligible for review if the foreclosure was on a primary residence in some stage of foreclosure during 2009 and 2010. The foreclosure had to have been handled by one of 24 banks or mortgage servicers named in consent orders crafted in response to findings of foreclosure deficiencies. The affected servicers can be found at independentforeclosurereview.com.

Problems contacting borrowers who may have been evicted from foreclosed homes, as well as borrower fatigue in applying for aid programs probably contributed to the limited response, some foreclosure defense attorneys said.

“A lot of these homeowners have been promised a lot of things in the past that were never fulfilled,” said attorney Ron Kaniuk, of Sachs Sax Caplan in Boca Raton. “It’s the law of diminishing returns. Once you are disappointed a few times, you stop filling stuff out.”

The Independent Foreclosure Review is separate from the $25 billion attorneys general settlement reached in February.

Nationwide, the return rate of borrowers responding to eligibility letters was about 5.3 percent through Sept. 27. Since then, an additional 121,677 borrowers have applied nationwide, said Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The original deadline to apply for the review was April 30. It was pushed back to July 31 and then Dec. 31.

Reviewers are looking for several problems including failure to put a homeowner on a permanent loan modification after he or she successfully completed a trial period, foreclosing on a borrower while he or she was current on payments under a loan modification, and not providing a borrower with proper notification during a foreclosure.

Remediation to borrowers can include credit fixes, reimbursement of improperly charged fees, and lump-sum payments of between $500 and $125,000.

For more information about the Independent Foreclosure Review, call 1-888-952-9105.

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Outdoorsy fun for the New Year’s holiday

So, as Miss Ella once sang, What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

Many of you, of course, will ring in 2013 with champagne and dancing at one of the clubs in Miami Beach or downtown Miami — and many of these same people will wake up with a hangover Tuesday only to wonder why they spent $2,000 to be in the same space as R&B/hip-hop act Drake and a DJ at the Fontainebleau or depressed that they spent $1,500 for a VIP table at the Catalina’s Studio 54 party to hear ’70s disco when they could have played Donna, Gloria and the Village People at any old time on iTunes for a few houseguests.

Clubbing not your thing? Good thing you live in South Florida, where going outside generally makes sense at this time of year. Here are some suggestions for activities, with an accent on the great outdoors and even a little fitness thrown in for good measure.

King Mango Strut

The annual spoof of the Orange Bowl Parade — or whatever some politician wants to call it now, as in ‘La Gran Naranja’ — has been “putting the ‘nut’ back in ‘Coconut Grove’ since 1981,” its ads tout. This time around, being an election year should provide plenty of fodder, and not just the silliness going on in West Kendall and Brickell, where some people are still waiting to cast a vote in the presidential race. (Obama won, go home.) The snarky parade pokes good-natured fun at the people and things behind the events that made the news snap during the year. This year’s grand marshal will be Clint Eastwood’s chair, fresh from the Republican National Convention.

This year’s parade takes place at 2 p.m. Sunday in downtown Coconut Grove on the corner of Commodore Plaza and Main Highway. The wacky participants turn left onto Main Highway and then left onto Grand Avenue at CocoWalk. Get comfy along the street and prepare to giggle. Call the Mango Hotline at 305-582-0955 for information.

The ball drop

You can go traditional and watch the ball drop in downtown Miami at the Bayfront Park Amphitheater New Year’s shindig. The free event features music and the midnight countdown for the dropping of the Big Orange, followed by fireworks. Be there at 301 N. Biscayne Blvd. Call 305-358-7550.

Just want the fireworks part? Miami Beach’s New Year’s Eve Party offers a free fireworks celebration at midnight on the beach near Ocean Drive and Eighth Street, if you can tear yourself away from Carl Cox at Mansion and Calvin Harris at Liv. Call 305-673-7400.

Bike It

Shark Valley, on the Tamiami Trail about 35 miles into the Everglades, is a real South Florida experience. Cycle amid gators — and we’re not talking the University of Florida variety. Alligators, wading birds and turtles frolic freely in the greenery along the 15-mile round-trip bike path. A multilevel observation at the midpoint offers a nice break spot for a boxed lunch or photo ops. There are no shortcuts, but you can opt for a tram tour. Call 305-221-8776.

Other leisurely bike rides around town include the shaded 13 or so miles of the Old Cutler Trail in South Miami, and you can pop over to Pinecrest Gardens for the Sunday Green Market, one of South Florida’s best farmers markets. North Dade residents aren’t too far from the restored Hollywood Beach Broadwalk for some nice ocean views while cycling or strolling.

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How ‘Doctor Who’ Kept Its Big Christmas Secret Off Twitter

Tonight Doctor Who fans get to gorge on their annual Christmas fix — a full-length special episode the series has produced every year for the holiday since 2005. This time, however, there’s some extra spice in the form of a new regular cast member: Jenna-Louise Coleman debuts in “The Snowmen” as the Doctor’s next companion.

Except it’s not her debut. Coleman actually made her first appearance in the series premiere back in September. Actually, make that surprise appearance. In preseason interviews, Doctor Who‘s producers had explicitly told fans they’d have to wait until Christmas before they’d see Coleman in the show.

[More from Mashable: Top 10 Twitter Pics of the Week]

But there she was, fighting Daleks and making soufflés, way ahead of schedule. This was unheard of for the series, which has seen major plotlines leak online — usually months before broadcast — several times over the past few years. The show had gotten to the point where it would simply announce any major developments far in advance in order to get ahead of the spoiler hunters.

Yet somehow the show’s producers kept Coleman’s early debut a secret — a feat made even more challenging since there were several preview screenings of the episode, each attended by hundreds of rabid fans, all carrying smartphones. How did Doctor Who keep every single one of them from tweeting about it?

[More from Mashable: How Music Ruled Twitter in 2012]

“I asked. That’s it,” says Steven Moffat, Doctor Who‘s current showrunner. “I don’t think anyone thought it would work. I certainly didn’t. At the London premiere, I just stood up and said, ‘Please, nobody, no fan, no newspaper — nobody at all — mention that she’s in it. And to my surprise it worked.”

Moffat says the idea of misleading the audience about when Coleman would debut “grew” as he was writing the current series. But it almost didn’t happen since others at the BBC wanted to get ahead of the news and announce her presence at the first preview screening. Moffat, however, was convinced (rightly, it turns out) that he could persuade the fans and journalists in attendance to guard the secret.

“They tried to talk me out of it at the last minute,” he says. “And it did involve a lot of charming journalists and saying ‘Please don’t…’ It was the polite embargo, really. We couldn’t really embargo it. And I was always clear, ‘There is no punishment here. You don’t get blacklisted — I’m just asking, and the show will be better if you keep this secret.’ And they did.”

But did really not a single person on fire off a quick tweet about Coleman being on the show? It appears so. Although Twitter doesn’t offer a way to search tweets within a specific date range, searching the Twitter domain on Google during the month of August (the series premiered on Sept. 1) for her name reveals just regular promotion for the show.

“You can get a long way just by asking politely,” says Moffat. “Who knew that’s all you had to do? What’s remarkable about it is not one single person broke. And I really didn’t think that was going to work, because if any website had broken it — if any forum had broken it — the press would have just leapt in. They would have felt no further need for restraint. But they didn’t.”

Now Coleman makes her “proper” debut in the Christmas special, but is she playing the same character as before (who was — spoiler alert — abruptly killed off), or someone different? Moffat’s already told fans not to expect any great explanations under the tree. What’s going on with Coleman’s character (characters?) won’t be fully revealed until the series returns in the New Year.

But who knows? Maybe that’s another mislead.

Will you be watching Doctor Who tonight? Does the show still surprise you? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Doctor Who Returns

Matt Smith (The Doctor) and Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) attended a special screening of the premiere of Doctor Who Series 7 at New York City’s Ziegfeld Theater. The episode, “Asylum of the Daleks,” debuts on BBC America on Sept. 1.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lady Gaga Documentary Announced

The nearly 33 million Little Monsters who follow Lady Gaga on Twitter got a massive Christmas present this morning as the singer revealed she'll soon be coming to a theater near you!

VIDEO - Lady Gaga Hosts Fame Picnic in Paris

"Merry Christmas little monsters," Gaga wrote. "Terry Richardson is making a #LadyGagaMOVIE documenting my life, the creation of ARTPOP + you!"

"Thank you for being so patient waiting for my new album ARTPOP I hope this gets u excited for things to come. I love you with all my heart!" Gaga announced her fourth album on August 6, 2012 and featured several of the songs in contention for inclusion on her recent Born This Wall Ball. Although no release date is yet known, it's rumored to be due out in Spring 2013.

VIDEO - The Secret Lady Gaga Never Told Beyonce

Gaga has previously collaborated with Richardson on countless magazine covers and 2011's Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson photobook.

Lady Gaga won't be the only major musician to be featured in a documentary next year. It was revealed on November 26 that HBO would be airing a Beyonce documentary on February 16, 2013.

VIDEO - Get A Sneak Peek at Beyonce's Documentary

The film promises extensive first-person footage -- some of it shot by Beyonce on her laptop -- in which she reflects on the realities of being a celebrity, the refuge she finds onstage and the joys of becoming a mother after giving birth to her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, in January 2012. Watch a sneak peek below.

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New pawn shops court high-end borrowers

Looking for a quick $1 million?

Help is here for Big Apple high rollers: a new breed of upscale pawn shops is willing to trade cash for pricey personal items like jewelry, antique cars and fine wine.

The city’s first high-end pawnbroker, Borro.com, has loaned out millions to more than 15,000 well-heeled clients in its initial year, using their extravagant toys and valuables as collateral.

“We even have a Grammy in our vaults,” said Paul Aitken, the CEO and founder of Borro.com, who declined to identify the artist.

“A lot of our clients are young sports and entertainment people who are just starting their contracts and have some early liquidity problems until their big money comes in,” he added.

Bad economic times and skittish traditional lenders such as banks have left fertile ground for several high-end pawn brokers including iPawn.com. It typically hands out loans of around $100,000 to cash-crunched businesses or professionals.

Both pawn shops say they’ve won followings in their first year in New York because of the city’s abundance of luxury items, coupled with the Big Apple’s appetite for risk and sophistication about leverage.

The outfits — which operate in the privacy of referrals from financial planners and others — offer securitized loans at about half the cost of roadside hock shops where goods wind up on display and the loans are hardly enough to fund a Caribbean weekend.

“We can keep our interest [rates] incredibly low because we lend out more cash we’d otherwise pay in overhead,” said Ben De-Kall, the founder of iPawn.com and a former Lehman Bros. investment banker .

De-Kall, a Columbia MBA, said he knows the humiliation of having few places to turn after his lifestyle letdown following Lehman’s collapse.

“We’re working largely with business people who can’t get the financing they need,” said De-Kall.

He said one client, a doctor, got turned down by his banker for a quick loan to expand his practice. Within hours, iPawn.com wired $40,000 for his deal, backed by the doctor’s briefcase full of family heirlooms, diamonds and luxury timepieces.

Expanding across the US from its headquarters in Texas, iPawn holds banking licenses.

Appraisal of collateral — such as gems, precious metals and artworks — starts online through photos and videos. If a client is interested, he ships the valuables to Texas for a final valuation before cash worth up to 70 percent of the item’s value is wired to the borrower.

About 85 percent of the clients accept the appraisals. Cars and houses are too big to pledge, De-Kall noted.

Borrowers seeking bigger bucks — loans up to $1 million — can turn to Borro.com, which in turn requires substantial collateral such as antique cars, beach homes, a corporate helicopter and even a Babe Ruth baseball bat, said Borro.com founder Aitkin.

“We take on a lot of Warhols valued in the $300,000 to $500,000 range,” said Aitken, a former technology entrepreneur who sold his phone app company to help bankroll the UK-based Borro.com.

A typical recent loan for $24,000 was backed by a case of 1989 Chateau Petrus valued at about $38,000. It’s safe in climate-controlled vaults, where unclaimed treasures are rare, Aitken said.

tharp@nypost.com

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Miami: We’re still busiest cruise port

Florida’s ports are steaming bow-to-bow in the race to be the world’s businest cruise ship port.

Though some publications have reported Port Canaveral in the lead with 3,761,056 million for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, PortMiami officials Monday said they had hosted 3,774,452 passengers during the same period, putting it slightly ahead. Fort Lauderdale’s PortEverglades reported 3,689,000 passengers for the period, putting it slightly behind the others in third place.

“We’re all very close,’’ said Paula Musto, PortMiami spokeswoman.

PortMiami has slipped below its previous high of 4 million plus passengers because of changing ship deployments, she said. That number is expected to again cruise past 4 million in 2013 as several new ships homeport in Miami.

Jane Wooldridge

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New generation of judges serving on federal bench in South Florida

For a fleeting moment this fall, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. declared in jest that he wished he were “king of the world.”

If he had such power, Scola said from the bench, he would deny a defense lawyer’s request to travel to Pakistan to question a group of defendants charged in a Miami terrorism case along with two Muslim clerics. Since the missing defendants weren’t present, the judge considered them “fugitives.’’

But the judge let the defense team make the upcoming trip against fierce opposition from prosecutors, because case law allows such extraordinary depositions, he found.

Scola, a former Miami-Dade prosecutor and state circuit court judge, relishes his role as one of three new members on South Florida’s federal bench, which is experiencing a generational sea change as the result of several retirements and presidential appointments.

“I knew I wanted to be a judge when I was 10 years old; my father was a judge in Massachusetts,” Scola said, during a brief December interview wedged between verdicts in the South Beach “bar-girls” trial and the sentencing of a mental-health clinic director convicted of Medicare fraud.

Over the past few years, the federal court in the Southern District of Florida has seen the departure of four judges — Daniel T.K. Hurley, Paul C. Huck, Alan S. Gold and Patricia A. Seitz — who have gone on “senior” status, meaning they handle lighter caseloads. Another federal judge, Adalberto Jordan, was confirmed this year as a member of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

Those five vacancies, in one of the busiest federal districts for criminal and civil cases in the country, accounted for about one-third of all the positions on the federal bench in South Florida.

The retirements have generated coveted openings that have been filled by Scola, 57; Kathleen M. Williams, 56, a former Miami federal public defender; and Robin S. Rosenbaum, 46, a former Fort Lauderdale federal magistrate judge. Rosenbaum, also a one-time federal prosecutor, was sworn in as a new U.S. district judge Dec. 13.

“It’s pretty obvious that Robin is never going to make a decent living,” 11th Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus, for whom Rosenbaum once clerked, quipped about her public-service career during her investiture in Fort Lauderdale federal court.

But then Marcus struck a more serious note, describing federal district judges as the “crucible of justice” in the U.S. court system. “I have to say, Robin, this is work you were born to do,” he said.

Another recent nominee: Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William L. Thomas, a former assistant public defender in both the state and federal system. Thomas is scheduled for confirmation as a federal judge in 2013. If confirmed, he would become the first openly gay black man appointed to a federal judgeship in the nation.

Michael Caruso, the Miami federal public defender who replaced Williams in August, said the appointment of federal judges is in many ways a “president’s most enduring legacy.”

“All presidents strive to appoint smart, fair and hardworking lawyers,” Caruso said, commenting on the four nominated by President Barack Obama in South Florida. “President Obama, in addition to choosing women and men who share these traits, has chosen those who’ve been trial lawyers in the criminal justice system and who have devoted a significant portion of their career to public service.”

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ET Exclusive: Jamie Foxx Opens His Home & Heart

Jamie Foxx may be the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood, and our own Nancy O'Dell is exclusively with the Oscar winner at his Santa Monica, CA home to talk about his career, his family and how he handles the media when there's a woman in his life.

The star of the upcoming Django Unchained says the worst thing that can happen in a relationship is to go public with it: "I like to stay quiet with anyone that dating; that I'm really, really dating, "he says. "If there's somebody that you're dating, the worst thing that you can do is let that [camera] touch you. Because once the camera touches you, [it's out]."

Video: Jamie & Kerry Party 'Django' Style

Watch the video to get a tour of Jamie's amazing home that he shares with his whole family, set on 40 acres with a stunning pool, a recording studio and an avocado grove!

One thing you won't find at Jamie's home, however, is his Best Actor Oscar statuette that he won for his performance in Ray.

Pics: Jamie & Leo Smolder in 'Django'

"I never wanted to keep it at the house -- I never wanted to get stuck," says Jamie, whose pal and former manager Jamie King holds onto the statuette for him. "It changes you. … I just wanted to go back to being funny."

Watch the video for more of Jamie's interview, including his reaction to the current Oscar buzz for Django Unchained!

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Kerik-case trial shock

The Bronx jury that convicted a friend of jailed former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on Friday stunned the courtroom yesterday by acquitting the pal’s business-partner brother.

Frank DiTommaso shook his head and was near tears when his not-guilty verdict was read — while his brother Peter, sitting in the second row, started crying.

Both brothers were charged with lying in 2006 before a grand jury that was looking into lavish renovations of Kerik’s co-op in Rivderdale.

The brothers denied doing the work, which included installation of new walls and floors and the addition of a Jacuzzi.

FRANK DITOMMASO Acquitted yesterday.

Kerik admitted later that he got the renovations as a kickback for his help in greasing wheels for lucrative contracts. The brothers’ construction company had allegedly been under a cloud because of suspected mob ties.

In October, Kerik, who is serving four years at a federal prison in Maryland, was escorted to Bronx state Supreme Court to testify in the brothers’ trial.

He was allowed to trade his handcuffs and jail jumpsuit for a dark business suit and red and blue tie.

On the stand, a clearly uneasy Kerik struggled with answers, often replying, “I don’t recall” and “I have no idea” to a prosecutor’s questions.

But he contradicted his previous testimony, saying a contractor, not the brothers, was responsible for more than $250,000 in free renovations.

Defense attorney Cathy Fleming suggested that the reason he admitted wrongdoing earlier was to make the scandal go away.

“You pleaded guilty because you thought that would end it and allow you to move on with your life,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kerik answered.

The same jury convicted Peter DiTommaso of two counts of perjury on Friday. He faces up to seven years prison.

Jurors heard the same testimony against Frank DiTommaso, who faced one court of perjury, but reached a different verdict.

After his acquittal yesterday, Frank DiTommaso said, “I feel terrible that the jury convicted my brother. I feel terrible. But at least it’s over for now.”

douglas.montero@nypost.com

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