It is almost as if members of law enforcement have been reading this daily blog and decided to help me illustrate one of its chief lessons. The lesson?
Anybody can find themselves facing criminal charges…even someone you least expect. Maybe even you.
Today’s defendants come to our attention by crossing the aisle from the other side of the trenches.
“Uncle Marky”, as he is known to Cape Cod children is in trouble again. He got shot by a Harwich police officer Monday night.
Court and police records describe Marcus M, whose last name has again been changed to “Defendant” as a violent and troubled soul. At the ripe old age of 29, he seems to have already displayed an impressive gift for criminal consistency.
Defendant is a Dennis-Yarmouth High School dropout and the father of one child. He is a Level 2 sex offender after his conviction in 1998 for raping a child, 13, with force, in a dugout at the youth league baseball field on Wixon Middle School grounds in Dennis in December of 1996. At the time, prosecutors said he already had a history of violence and was serving a suspended sentence for assault in Dennis.
The “wild west” has long been associated with images of folks making their own rules and bravely trying to tame the frontier. It would appear that two Western Massachusetts gentlemen had similar attitudes…although, according to the police, their actions would be more aligned with untaming than taming the area.
Let’s start with this past Friday in Springfield. 30-year old Ricardo M., (hereinafter, “Defendant”) was observed by police officers while allegedly ducking down inside a car near 86 Maple Street. When simply nestling under the dashboard did not work, he decided to jump out of the car and lead the police on a foot chase. This, however, did not make his situation dire enough, so he took the extra alleged step of breaking into an elderly woman’s apartment to hide.
She screamed. Police came. He was arrested.
Almost everyone necessary showed up in the Hampden Superior Court in Springfield the other day. The jury was ready for the reading of the verdict. Judge McDonald was there. Assistant District Attorney Morse was in the courtroom. Defense attorney Stamm was sitting, albeit lonely, at her seat. Only one thing was missing.
38 year old Gerry H, also known as the Defendant, was gone.
He had been present for the trial, final arguments and instructions to the jury. Perhaps not coincidently that means he was the there to hear that he was facing a 20-year minimum mandatory sentence. His faith in the outcome was apparently justified…the jury found him guilty of assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, home invasion and threat to commit a crime.
Last Wednesday, a Hampden Superior Court jury returned with a verdict in a case of alleged unarmed robbery of a person 60 years old or older.
The cast of this particular drama included two defendants. They were Aretha Hallums, 40, and Donald Alford, 55. Cast in the role of victim was the elder Edward Foster, formerly of Springfield. The scene of the facts at issue was outside the Bay Street Social Club at Bay and Catherine streets, apparently an unlicensed bar.
Particularly helpful for the jury, I would imagine, was that both defendants testified in their own behalf…each contradicting the other.
Last February, it would appear that the political scene at Bridgewater State College got a bit heated. Bomb and death threats began being posted around campus. On September 2nd, 2008, as the country’s major parties were celebrating their conventions, a former Parliamentarian was being arrested for her alternative methods of announcing her platform.
Former Student Michelle Fortune, 47, of East Bridgewater, had held the post of Parliamentarian, which is a high ranking position within a campus leadership organization called the “Student Government Association”. She was arrested at her home on six counts of threats to kill, six counts of vandalism, six counts of making a bomb threat, disturbing the peace, and creating a disturbance at a school. Unfortunately, political fever being what it is, the arrest did not go terribly smoothly and she was subsequently charged with resisting arrest.
The threats made on February 26th and 27th came in the form of six messages handwritten on several bathroom walls around the BSC campus. February 28, 2008 was specified as the date attacks would occur. Investigators employed the services of a handwriting expert in hopes of cracking the case. According to Chief Tillinghast of the BSC Police Department, “more handwriting samples were needed so a search warrant was obtained. BSC Police executed the search and seized numerous documents from the suspect’s home. The suspect was found to be responsible.”
Some people have not been taking this blog to heart and so apparently did not believe that it was not good to take a bad situation with law enforcement and make it worse. Now, 19-year-old Falmouth resident, Tevis Yarmala, faces multiple charges after he allegedly struck and tried to stab a Falmouth police officer in the face with a stick during a traffic stop last week.
Mr. Yarmala is alleged to have run a red light. First strike. Observing this, Patrolman Christopher Bartolomei , according to police reports, pulled the vehicle over. Mr. Yarmala is said to have greeted the officer by name. Second strike. When the patrolman “detected” the odor of burnt marijuana and asked about it, Mr. Yarmala admitted to smoking marijuana at a friend’s house. Third strike.
In this particular game…not out yet.
In Worcester Superior Court, testimony is scheduled to begin today in the trial of a Berlin man charged with raping and trying to suffocate a woman last year in a West Boylston motel. The defendant, Alex F. Scesny, 38, has also been identified by law enforcement as a “person of interest” in the unsolved slayings of several area prostitutes. Today he is facing trial on charges of rape, assault with intent to murder, assault and battery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (to wit: a pillow) allegedly occurring on March 17, 2007.
In April, District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. labeled Mr. Scesny a “person of interest” in the 1996 strangulation death of 39-year-old Theresa K. Stone in Fitchburg. Cold case investigators turned their attention to Mr. Scesny after a DNA profile derived from biological evidence recovered in the West Boylston rape investigation was shown to match a genetic profile from a swab taken during Ms. Stone’s autopsy, according to a state police affidavit filed in court. He later described Mr. Scesny as a “person of interest” in the deaths of five other women who were known to have worked as prostitutes in the Main South section of the city.
While Scesny’s DNA has only linked him to Theresa Stone’s murder, the similarities between the cases has stirred fears of a possible serial killer.
Have you ever heard the saying “the lunatics are running the asylum”? We begin the week with a story about an interesting twist on it.
It was last night. Sunday night. All around the Commonwealth, people were preparing for a new week of work and school. The clock struck 9:30pm. Perhaps you were getting ready to retire for the evening, resting up for what the week would bring. An ambulance patient in Springfield, Mass., however, had other ideas. He decided to overtake and commandeer the ambulance.
The unnamed joy rider was being taken to Mercy Medical Center. The gentleman had been reported as acting erratically. Suddenly, he decided to turn things around. He attacked and started beating the medical technicians, successfully chasing them out of the ambulance on Chestnut Street. Once the technicians jumped ship (or ambulance), he took control of the vehicle and began driving. Apparently a stickler for consistency, he drove erratically through Springfield, hitting a Peter Pan bus, a car and then a parked car on Main Street, said Springfield Police Lt. Robert Strzempek.
In New Bedford, Massachusetts, what appears to be a man walking with a figurative “Please Lock Me Up Forever” sign on his back is beating incredible odds.
The man, Allen Thurston, 36, is a convicted level 3 sex offender. After he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend, he was arraigned yesterday in New Bedford District Court on an assault and battery charge.
The prosecutor pressed the court to revoke Thurston’s bail; the judge would not do so. Police, naturally, are said to be “concerned” as to why his bail was set so low. Their reasons seem logical enough:
Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog