http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longi ... 2577.story

Community activist quits after arrest

BY JOSEPH MALLIA
Newsday Staff Writer

June 3, 2006

Arrested in a crackdown on a numbers-running ring, Latino community activist Cristobal Lopez stepped down Friday from a volunteer post on a Nassau County agency, a spokesman for County Executive Thomas Suozzi said Friday.

Lopez, 48, of Rockville Centre, is "taking a leave of absence, effective immediately" from his unpaid position on the board of directors of Nassau's Coordinated Agency for Spanish Americans, or CASA, said Joe Calderone, a spokesman for Suozzi. CASA coordinates services for the Latino community.

Lopez, former president of the Freeport Neighborhood Association, was one of a dozen men and women arrested Wednesday after a 14-month Nassau County police probe. The suspects ran numbers out of bodegas and delis in Freeport and Rockville Centre raking in about $65,000 a day, the police said.

The numbers game is popular among undocumented immigrants who fear playing the state lottery because if they try to collect winnings, they might have to reveal their illegal status, Nassau police said.

Lopez, who runs a Freeport grocery business, is "very community-oriented," said one county official who asked not to be named. "As far as I know he's a very concerned man, very active."

Neither Lopez nor CASA executive director Marianela Jordan could be reached for comment Friday.