After rough year, Carnival hopes for calmer waters

After boarding the latest addition to the Carnival Cruise Lines family, Josh Beaver sampled lasagna at the new onboard Italian restaurant, downed some drinks with his traveling companions and hit the water slides while the afternoon was still young.

“So far, from what I’ve seen, there’s lots to do,” said Beaver, 33, of Holden Beach, N.C.

The Carnival Breeze hadn’t even left PortMiami yet on a recent Saturday, and already it buzzed with vacationers exploring all there was to do: nosh on a Pig Patty from the new Guy’s Burger Bar, make friends with bartenders at the new RedFrog Pub or check out a novel and a glass of the grape at the new Library Bar.

Here aboard one of the largest ships in the biggest brand of the Number One cruise ship company in the world, there was little hint that the last year was one of the toughest in the 41-year history of parent company Carnival Corp. & plc.

Last year got off to a catastrophic start when Costa Concordia, owned by Carnival unit Costa Cruises, struck rocks in Italian waters as the captain steered the ship on an unauthorized route. The massive liner listed to one side, and 32 people died in the chaos that followed.

“When you lose lives, it’s heartbreaking,” said Carnival Corp. Vice Chairman and COO Howard Frank, who devoted much of his time last winter handling the aftermath with Costa leaders. “And so I think in terms of our emotional reaction to it, it’s been the toughest year we’ve had.”

Carnival Corp. Chairman and CEO Micky Arison took criticism for not going to Italy following the wreck, but said he believes the company did the right thing and doesn’t second-guess his actions.

Financially, the company took a hit as well, starting with discounts that were necessary to drum up business after the accident. Costa’s future bookings plunged, but picked up after the operator slashed prices. As of mid-December, prices at Costa remained lower than they were a year earlier, though the company expects that to change once the anniversary of the accident passes.

“I think we’ve been consistent in saying the recovery at Costa is not a one-year issue,” Arison said during the December earnings call with analysts. “It’s going to be multiple years, and we are forecasting a recovery of about half the yield deterioration.”

The ship remains on its side off the island of Giglio; it’s expected to be removed by the end of summer.

A flurry of civil lawsuits have been filed, but none have reached trial yet; the company has reached compensation agreements with 70 percent of the more than 3,000 passengers who were not physically injured and 60 percent of injured passengers and families of those who died.

As the company and broader industry focused anew on safety, the summer months presented a fresh set of problems when the European economy weakened just as cruise lines were stationing more ships in the Mediterranean. While North America was immune to those concerns, the run-up to the Presidential election and the fiscal cliff debates prompted Carnival to worry about a slowdown in business at home.

Last month, Carnival forecast 2013 earnings that were lower than expectations and said advance bookings for the year were behind what they were a year earlier at lower prices. Many analysts believe the projections were conservative, though, and executives said they were hopeful that January would bring more robust business.

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Jurors hear secret tape recording in Miami police corruption trial as feds rest their case

As rain began to fall on a June evening, Miami Police Sgt. Raul Iglesias told an undercover detective in his drug-fighting squad to turn off his cell phone and take out the battery as both officers stood outside the boss’s home.

Iglesias, already relieved of duty on suspicions of being a dirty cop, feared Roberto Asanza’s phone could be recording him. And his instincts were right, because Asanza was wired — though not through his phone.

“No one has done anything illegal or broke the law,” Iglesias told Asanza in the recorded conversation, played for jurors Friday at the sergeant’s corruption trial in Miami federal court. “... If they got, they got [it], but I [have] never seen anyone in my unit do anything wrong.”

Later in their chat, Asanza — who was cooperating with authorities and trying to bait his boss into incriminating statements — expressed fears about lying on the witness stand if he was asked to testify. Iglesias agreed that committing perjury would be a bad idea.

“Yeah, of course, you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna f---ing lie,’’ Iglesias responded.

The secret tape recording from June 2010 was the last piece of evidence that prosecutors presented before resting their corruption case Friday against Iglesias, 40, who has been on the force for 18 years.

Iglesias, an ex-Marine and Iraq War veteran who was shot in the leg during a 2004 drug bust, is standing trial on charges of planting cocaine on a suspect, stealing drugs and money from dope dealers, and lying to investigators about a box of money left in an abandoned car as part of an FBI sting.

Asanza, 33, also an ex-Marine, pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of possessing cocaine and marijuana. The deal helped him avoid a felony conviction; in exchange, he testified Thursday that Iglesias told him it was “okay” to pay off confidential informants with drugs.

The secret tape recording could cut both ways for jurors. On it, Iglesias did not say anything to Asanza to implicate himself in connection with charges in the nine-count indictment, his defense attorney, Rick Diaz, pointed out Friday. The charges encompass the police sergeant’s brief stint as head of the Crime Supression Unit from January to May 2010.

Miami Internal Affairs Sgt. Ron Luquis, a government witness, agreed with Diaz’s general assessment during his testimony Friday, though the witness also sided with many of prosecutor Ricardo Del Toro’s critical views of the same evidence.

Asanza, despite agreeing to cooperate, discreetly gave his supervisor a heads-up that he was facing a potential criminal investigation when they met for the recorded conversation, according to sources familiar with probe.

The recording was made two months after other members of Iglesias’ Crime Suppression Unit wrote an anonymous letter to internal affairs, alleging that he was “stealing drugs and money” from dealers “2-3 times per 4-day work week.” Five CSU members, including Asanza, testified against Iglesias over the past week.

Asanza’s recording of Iglesias was less intelligible when both went inside the police sergeant’s home. Asanza’s wire picked up the sound of a barking dog, a blaring TV and the rustling of paper. Investigators believe Iglesias wrote down information on sheets of paper and later burned them, but that evidence was not presented to jurors.

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Why We Hate the Word ‘Phablet’ So Much

It appears we have reached Peak Phablet — and not just because sales are up and the big-screen cellphones were all over the Consumer Electronics Show this week. No, we have also reached Peak “Phablet” — the term for the popular (and quite awkward) devices has also this week been called ”horrible,” “stupid,” and ”worst word of the year” (to which we’re about two weeks in). The name itself has become as popular to loathe as the gadgets have to buy. Even linguists says so:

RELATED: Smackdown: Is There a Right Way to Speak English?

Problem No. 1: A Poor Blend

RELATED: Exploring the Character of a Bad Word

“A satisfying blend is derived from two words that overlap in their sounds, such as motor+hotel = motel, where the ‘o’ is shared,” University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Gene Buckley wrote to us Friday. “But phone and tablet don’t share any sounds at all, so that might be why it sounds clumsy.”

RELATED: Let’s Fix Allllll Our …. Email Punctuation Problems

Problem No. 2: A Bad “ph” Scale

RELATED: The Evolution of the Emoticon

English words generally use “ph” as eff for words from Greek origin, Ben Zimmer explained today in his Word Routes column. Now “phablet” obviously isn’t Greek, but the Greek words it conjures sound kind of gross, Stanford linguistics PhD candidate Lelia Glass told us; a lot of “ph” words followed by the letter “a” happen to be body parts — ”like ‘phallus’ and ‘phalanges,’ which perhaps grosses people out,” Glass said.

RELATED: Auto-Correct Is Not Ruining Spelling

Zimmer has a different theory. “Phablet” isn’t the first non-Greek word we’ve made up with a “ph” making an eff sound, but unlike other modern word innovations — like “phat” — it doesn’t have a sense of humor, or at least not a very good one. Zimmer wrote to The Atlantic Wire:

Historically, “ph” has represented the /f/ sound only in words of Greek origin, and extensions of that spelling have been made playfully — think of the Phillie Phanatic, or “phat” in hiphop usage. In the tech world, “phreak(ing)” led the way (with the “ph-” from “phone”), and then other playful respellings such as “phishing” followed suit. But in “phablet” the “ph-” on its own isn’t really enough to suggest the “phone” component of the blend, so it ends up looking like a silly version of “fablet” (a fabulous tablet?). Of course, when the word is spoken, the connection to the “ph-” of “phone” is lost entirely.

Yes, those macho tech writers would not find a fab tablet very funny — it makes their manly gadgets sound wussy. Glass notes that the suffix “-et” or “-ette” is often used to signify cute/little things, which give “phablet“ another strike against manliness. 

Problem No. 3: A Bad Subconscious 

Face it, Zimmer adds: “Phablet” sounds too much like “flab” and “phlegm” and other words that remind us of things we don’t like. But, as we’ve noted, phablets look kind of awkward when you hold them up to your ear, despite their many other benefits. An ugly word for an ugly product, no?

Problem No. 4: A Thing Thing

Glass says we might just have “thing discrimination,” with everyone disliking the term because it represents the coming of a gadget of which they don’t approve. The techies seem to have it out for the big phones, even as people are buying them. 

Problem No. 5: A Pure Hatred

“Ultimately, such word aversion is rather arbitrary (look at the hostility against “moist,” for instance),” Zimmer told us. “Some people have a big problem with another techie blend, ‘webinar,’ but that one seems completely innocuous to me.”  

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Britney Spears Split with Jason Trawick

After more than three years together, Britney Spears and her fiance Jason Trawick have split, her rep confirmed to People.

RELATED - Britney "Working Hard" on New Music

"Jason and I have decided to call off our engagement," Spears says in the statement. "I'll always adore him and we will remain great friends." Trawick adds, "As this chapter ends for us a new one begins. I love and cherish her and her boys and we will be close forever."

Spears, who got engaged to Trawick on his 40th birthday in December of 2011, previously said of her now-ex, "We're really normal. We just like to watch movies. We work out a lot. We love to work out. We do stuff together like that. We take walks."

VIDEO - More Shocking Celebrity Splits

Today has been a big day for sad Spears news as it was previously announced she wouldn't be returning for another season of The X Factor.

"I've made the very difficult decision not to return for another season," Spears told ETonline in a statement. "I had an incredible time doing the show and I love the other judges and I am so proud of my teens but it's time for me to get back in the studio."

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Oxygen turns toxic

Brent Bozell

Television is getting a little unreal.

First, the idea that Al Gore would sell out to Al-Jazeera sounded like an April Fools’ joke. Then the Oxygen network — that supposedly uplifting women’s channel founded in 2000 by Oprah Winfrey — announced it was producing a reality show called “All My Baby’s Mamas” starring an Atlanta rapper and former drug dealer named “Shawty Lo,” alongside his 11 children and their 10 different mothers.

Oxygen promoted this videotaped puddle of stupidity with a YouTube highlight reel featuring the rapper (real name: Carlos Walker) unsuccessfully attempting to name his 11 kids as quiz-show music plays.

The entire political spectrum has united against it. Leftist Boyce Watkins called it “a platform for ignorance.” Liberal Clarence Page asked “Lincoln freed us for this?” Upset with the black stereotyping, citizen activist Sabrina Lord posted a petition on Change.org demanding “Shawty-Lo Must Go,” and the Parents Television Council and its grass-roots army joined in that effort.

As the criticism and petition signatures piled up, Oxygen executives locked down. They sidestepped the show at the winter press tour with TV writers in favor of touting their other new programs, like one called “Fat Girl Revenge.” They lamely claimed their YouTube video was “hacked” instead of official, and claimed it was very early in the development process, although it was expected to air this spring. They insisted it was a special, not a series.

But when pressed hard enough, a network publicist didn’t back down with Fox News. “Oxygen’s one-hour special in development is not meant to be a stereotypical representation of everyday life for any one demographic or cross section of society . . . It is a look at one unique family and their complicated, intertwined life. Oxygen Media’s diverse team of creative executives will continue developing the show with this point of view.”

Critics can’t say this familial mess isn’t reality in the sense that Walker actually created this twisted trail. The names of the mothers have been changed to make better TV — one is nicknamed “Jealous Baby Mama” and another “Shady Baby Mama.” This is odd, because they’re can’t be anyone “shadier” than our aspiring TV star Shawty-Lo, sneaking around to the point that he dishonorably piled up ten “baby mamas.”

Wouldn’t you think that somewhere in this chain that Baby Mama Five or Six would have been warned away by the rest of the roster?

Since he has no shame, 36-year-old Shawty-Lo is now dating a 19-year-old. His oldest child is 21.

No one by now expects “reality TV” to offer us role models. Instead, these shows careen recklessly around the culture and celebrate dysfunction. Sadly, more than half of births to women under age 30 are out of wedlock. Among blacks, the rate soars to more than 65 percent.

Oxygen isn’t making this show as a morality play, some kind of “Scared Straight” documentary. Like almost every other reality show, this network surely will just set a stage for outsized drama and squabbling and yelling and crying.

Early in the controversy, Oxygen Media senior vice president Cori Abraham hoped that the show would provide “over-the-top moments that our young, diverse female audience can tweet and gossip about . . . leaving the man of the house to split his affection multiple ways while trying to create order . . . but sharing your man with several opinionated women is bound to create issues.”

In short, they see this as a black edition of TLC’s “Sister Wives,” without the actual lobbying for polygamy.

This ridiculous concept should be dumped by Oxygen, and Oxygen should be dumped by cable systems. The fact that people are having to write petitions about this train wreck only proves that the TV industry will always “think” its way to an idiotic-sounding new low.

L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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What the week’s big mortgage moves mean for consumers

This week brought three big developments to the nation’s beleaguered mortgage landscape. For consumers, the complex moves have been mostly mystifying, but experts say they all aim at turning the page.

“There is a strong desire to put behind us all this period of time — the aftermath of the darkest period in American finance. All these things [announced this week] are intended to do that,” said John Taylor, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based community advocacy group. “There are good and bad things in it for consumers.’’

A new rule issued Thursday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aims to prevent lenders from making the sort of toxic mortgages that forced many unsuspecting borrowers into ruin. Yet the new “qualified mortgage” rule, according to some lenders, also could perpetuate the nation’s tight credit problem and keep many would-be homebuyers on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, two settlements unveiled Monday with big banks should resolve some lingering issues from the mortgage meltdown that have kept banks focused on past errors instead of getting back to the business of lending.

Here is a quick primer on the week’s developments and some likely implications for consumers.

OCC Settlement

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates nationally chartered banks, Monday unveiled an $8.5 billion settlement with 10 giant banks that service mortgages.

As part of the controversial settlement, the OCC is scrapping its Independent Foreclosure Review, which was aimed at identifying victims of robo-signing and other improper foreclosure tactics by banks, but soon proved to be a badly flawed effort.

Instead, under the OCC’s new approach — which will be spelled out in enforcement actions in a couple of weeks — more than 3.8 million borrowers who faced foreclosure between Jan. 1, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2010 stand to get some payment regardless of whether they actually suffered any harm.

The mortgage servicing banks covered are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust, PNC, Sovereign, U.S. Bank, MetLife Bank and Aurora.

The agreement provides for $3.3 billion to go directly to borrowers. Another $5.2 billion is earmarked for loan modifications and the forgiveness of deficiency judgments.

The OCC said the amount that eligible borrowers get will range from a few hundred dollars up to $125,000, depending on the type of error that possibly occurred in their mortgage servicing.

“If a borrower went through foreclosure with one of those 10 lenders, they should receive a couple hundred bucks, whether they deserve it or not,” said Guy Cecala, publisher and CEO of Inside Mortgage Finance Publications in Bethesda, Md., which tracks news and statistics in the residential mortgage industry. “The odds of getting $125,000 is the odds of winning the lottery. It would have to be a false foreclosure or where they were thrown out of their house illegally.”

The OCC will look to 13 broad categories of errors outlined in the Independent Foreclosure Review launched in April 2011.

Those include a litany of bumblings and misdeeds by the mortgage servicers, ranging from foreclosing on a homeowner who was following the rules during a trial period of a loan modification, to failing to offer a loan modification as mandated under a government program, to failing to follow up with a borrower to obtain needed documents under a government program.

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DOJ proposes overhaul of Florida’s program for disabled children

TALLAHASSEE --
In a new and even harsher indictment of Florida’s treatment of severely disabled children, federal civil rights lawyers have issued a comprehensive blueprint for overhauling the state’s system of care for frail youngsters.

The 17-page “settlement proposal” by the U.S. Justice Department demands the state stop slicing in-home nursing services for frail youngsters, stop ignoring the requests of family doctors who treat disabled children and stop sending hundreds of children to geriatric nursing homes — where they often spend their childhoods isolated from families and peers.

On the same day The Miami Herald obtained the “confidential” settlement proposal, the heads of three state agencies held a news conference in Tallahassee to defend the housing of hundreds of disabled children in nursing homes and to tout a newly minted program that matches medically complex children with specialized caseworkers.

“I can tell you that what I found was way better than I even thought I would find,” Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek said Thursday, a day after she toured two nursing homes in Miami Gardens and Plantation. “I have to wonder what the DOJ was looking at when they went through there and I would invite any of you to go to any of those facilities, because I certainly did not see what they were seeing.”

The Miami Herald asked to join several Department of Children & Families administrators, including Secretary David Wilkins, on a tour of the most-troubled nursing home last month — but was rebuffed.

The home, Golden Glades Nursing and Rehabilitation in Miami Gardens, is where two severely disabled children died in recent years — one of them, 14-year-old Marie Freyre, perished after caregivers failed to give her life-saving anti-seizure drugs.

Federal regulators fined the home $300,000 for the girl’s death.

“We were quite pleased with what was going on there,” Dudek said of Golden Glades and the two other homes she visited Wednesday. “One place had clouds in the sky and they had personalized activities; their rooms were very much personalized. Children had buddies who were there. They went out to school in all the cases where they could or were in in-home school,” Dudek said of the six homes in the state that house youngsters.

Dudek and the other agency heads called the news conference to offer details of a new program — announced last month — that offers “enhanced care” coordinators, or caseworkers, for every medically fragile child whose care is paid for by Medicaid, the joint state and federal insurance program for the needy.

The Enhanced Care Coordination program will enlist at least 28 nurse care managers throughout the state to work with families of disabled children and the nursing homes where they are being treated.

“The program is designed to help empower parents, to help them and to educate them and to help them personalize the experience that they have,” Dudek said, adding that the coordinators will be able to help some children return home from institutions.

Dudek extended an olive branch to the Justice Department, saying AHCA’s intent was “to work with the federal government.”

But she also said the state was eager to convince the DOJ that Florida is breaking no laws by housing so many children in institutions.

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Three witnesses won’t be charged in Ohio football rape case: documents

(Reuters) – At least three members of a high school football team in Steubenville, Ohio, received word they would not be prosecuted just days before testifying against teammates accused of raping a 16-year-old girl, according to documents obtained by Reuters.

In letters from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office addressed to each student’s lawyer, the state committed to not prosecuting Evan Westlake, Anthony Craig and Mark Cole, three witnesses for the prosecution.

But DeWine said on Thursday his office had made no deal with any of the witnesses involved in the case.

“We have offered nothing, made no promises to any witness in this case. … No deals have been cut with anybody,” DeWine told WTOV television in comments confirmed by his spokesman.

The case has unsettled Steubenville, a city of 19,000 near the Pennsylvania border where football has a powerful influence.

Community leaders have criticized authorities, voicing suspicion they have avoided charging more players who could have been involved in order to protect the school’s beloved football program.

Days after the letters were sent, all three players testified at a pre-trial hearing against teammates Ma’lik Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16, who were charged with raping a classmate at a party attended by many teammates last August. Richmond and Mays were set to be tried as juveniles in February.

Although evidence in the criminal case showed each player “may not have conducted himself in a responsible or appropriate manner, his behavior did not rise to the level of any criminal conduct,” all three letters say. “Therefore, we will not prosecute your client for his actions on August 11-12, 2012.”

Walter Madison, an attorney who represents one of the students charged with rape, verified the letters’ authenticity, but declined to comment further.

The letters can protect the players from criminal charges, said John Burkoff, a criminal law professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

“If the government says that it won’t prosecute you and then changes its mind, you can argue that it can’t go back on that,” he said. “It’s constitutional estoppel (an impediment).”

The letter to Westlake, dated September 28, was signed by Ohio Associate Attorney General Marianne Hemmeter. The other two letters were signed by Ohio Associate Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Brumby and dated October 9, three days before the trio testified against their teammates. Brumby and Hemmeter conducted the questioning at that hearing.

Attorney General spokesman Dan Tierney said the state decided the students would go uncharged only for the crime of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

“We would stand by the attorney general’s previous comments,” he told Reuters on Thursday.

The case shot to national prominence last week when the online activist group Anonymous made public a picture of the purported rape victim being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men. Anonymous also released a video that showed several other young men joking about an assault.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Peter Cooney)

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They Dated Golden Globes Edition Part 2

Remember them?

Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhaal have a tendency to mix it up as far as dates go at the Golden Globes. With the 70th annual ceremony almost upon us, we're looking back at these celebs and their various plus-ones as they arrived to the star-studded event over the years.

Related: They Dated?! Golden Globes Edition - Part 1

Jolie has had the privilege of walking the Golden Globes red carpet multiple times in her career, often on the arm of a different gorgeous gentleman. The beauty's very first adult appearance was in 1999, with then-hubby Johnny Lee Miller. Just three years later, Jolie walked the carpet with new husband Billy Bob Thorton. In 2009, the actress debuted her latest beau, Brad Pitt.

Damon is now happily married to wife Luciana Barroso, but back in 2000 the Good Will Hunting star proudly held the hand of then-girlfriend Winona Ryder. A decade or so prior, his date arrived with her Square One co-star Rob Lowe.

Related: Pick the Winners With ET's Golden Globes Ballot!

Gyllenhaal has dated two award show beauties, Kristen Dunst and Reese Witherspoon. In 2003, the actor escorted Dunst to the ceremony and just three years later, Gyllenhaal would bring Witherspoon as his plus-one.

Click the video for more, and tune in to the Golden Globes on January 13 at 8 ET/5 PT on NBC.

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Twist in Net 'sex' drama

The stripper who claims she was sexually assaulted in a Brooklyn Net’s hotel suite said the hoopster watched the attack and did nothing to stop it.

“He peeked in the room,” the alleged victim said of forward Andray Blatche. “He just didn’t . . . when he came in, he didn’t have intercourse with me.”

The 21-year-old woman told Philadelphia’s ABC 6 that Blatche knew exactly what was happening to her but never tried to help.

“He was not oblivious. He was aware the whole time,” she said on camera, with her face silhouetted.

She said she met up with the baller and his entourage at Delilah’s, a Philly strip club, and they partied there before going back to Blatche’s Four Seasons hotel suite.

Andray Blatche

She told the station she believes she was drugged at the club.

“I felt strange,” she said.

She collapsed on a bed in the hotel just before the first alleged attack.

“It was like I was asleep, but I was still conscious. I heard everything that was around me, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t move,” said the college student.

“And not long after that, that was when the first guy came in. It was like he rolled me over and had his way,” the student said.

Blatche and at least one of his pals watched the attack from the doorway, she said.

“And then the other guy came in, the short one with the dreads, and then he had his way,” she said.

“It was like they kept peeking in. He went to the door a few times, opened the door, and then they were all three at the door.”

She never claimed that Blatche assaulted her.

Blatche didn’t seem worried yesterday.

“When the truth comes out, then everybody will realize what really happened,” he said at the team’s practice. “In the meantime, I can’t really have too much comments on it.’’

The hoopster, who has a history of brushes with the law, denied that he runs with a bad crowd.

“No, I’m telling you — y’all will hear the truth sooner or later. It’s just a bad situation . . . but trust me, no. When the time comes and I can talk about it, then everybody will realize that it’s not what you think.’’

Philadelphia cops yesterday said no one was in custody and no charges had been filed.

The city’s police commissioner, Charles Ramsey, has questioned the validity of the woman’s claims because of her intoxication and said it would be a tough case to make.

dmacleod@nypost.com

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