Articles Posted in Criminal Law

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Yesterday, Wayne Leduc, 40, of Milton (hereinafter, “Trooper Crasher”) pleaded not guilty to charges of drunk driving and operating to endanger and went home after posting bail. One would hope that he was not his own transportation home, Either way, he had better be careful out there.

Simply put, it seems to be getting more and more dangerous to commute in any way here in the Commonwealth!

Trooper Crasher’s charges resulted from a little problem he is said to have had on Interstate 93 in Quincy. It happened on Sunday morning. According to the Commonwealth, he was involved in accident which injured a state trooper. Oh, yes…and they say he was under the influence of alcohol as well.

Apparently, the 43-year-old trooper had pulled over another vehicle at the spot in Quincy. He was standing in front of his cruiser when Trooper Crasher smashed into the rear of the cruiser, propelling it into the trooper, according to the state police.

The trooper suffered leg injuries and was taken to Boston Medical Center for treatment. Other troopers who responded to the scene arrested Trooper Crasher.

One might think that this type of thing does not happen very often. One would unfortunately be incorrect. For example, last Wednesday, another trooper was seriously injured on Route 30 in Framingham when his cruiser was struck head-on by a car that crossed the median. Further, in the past year, we have had several cases wherein troopers were stuck, sometimes killed, when vehicles struck them on various roads.
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Foxboro is apparently tired of public drunkenness.

And, as we all know, when we decide we are against something…we push to make it illegal. Even if it already is basically illegal!!

Folks in Foxboro are now pushing to outlaw public drunkenness. The move is supported by many, including the parents of a young woman who was killed in 2008 after tailgating at Gillette Stadium.

“What’s it going to take, a couple more fatalities?” Steve Davis of Milton said as he and his wife baked a cake for what would have been their daughter’s 23rd birthday today.

On Monday, at a Town meeting, voters approved an article to impose a $200 fine for public drunkenness. This makes Foxboro the only Bay State municipality other than Dedham to pass such a bylaw, according to the state Attorney General’s Office, which must approve the measure.
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Chelsea Massachusetts was the scene of a violent bloody altercation on Friday.

Oscar Guttierez-Nunes, a 27-year-old Chelsea man (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) has been arrested and charged in said altercation. By the end of the altercation, one man was apparently dead and two others were wounded. One of those injured remains in critical condition at Massachusetts General Hospital. The police learned later about the third complainant who had admitted himself into MGH with non-life-threatening injuries
In case anybody wondered, the Defendant was also wounded. According to police, he admitted himself into the hospital under a false name.

The Defendant is currently being held without bail and stands charged with murder and two counts of armed assault with intent to murder and is due back in court on April 7th.

Right now, this is being described as an “attack”. We do not know what that means. Was the Defendant in an a fight with three other guys and somehow got the better part of the deal? Did he even get the “better part”? We know that he was injured as well and one of the others has “:non-life-threatening” injuries. Was he simply a lunatic who attacked a group of men with a knife?
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Wiilliam J. Halpin III, a 25-year-old Melrose man (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is likely not looking toward this week with glee. According to the Commonwealth, he was a bit too gleeful Friday night. Self-induced narcotic-type of gleeful. In other words, he is accused of driving his SUV under the influence of drugs. But it does not end there.

He got into an accident which killed one man and wounded a six-year-old boy.

Today, he is due in court to face the resulting charges. The state police arrested and held him at the scene of the accident. The accident took place on Route 1 in Lynnfield. It is also alleged that the Defendant struck one, not two, vehicles.

According to the Commonwealth, the Defendant drove his SUV into a taxi cab and a second vehicle, both of which were in the breakdown lane near the Fat Cactus restaurant. Ironically, the accident occurred while those two drivers were in the midst of exchanging papers after a different, more minor, crash.

Victor Vargas, a 42-year-old taxi driver from Lynn and father of two, was later pronounced dead at North Shore Medical Center Union Hospital in Lynn.
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It’s stories like this that helps me love what I do for a living; you just never know what is going to happen next! Just when we see debacles like the one surrounding the Parole Board because of a recent police killing, and we see the predictable scurrying about by prosecutorial politicians to make sure that they cannot be splattered with blame, the Supreme Judicial Court takes the opposite tact. They look to uphold people’s rights…despite the likely public outcry.

Specifically, the court dealt with the case of Malcolm S. Maker, a 52-year-old convicted sex offender (hereinafter, the “Appellant” ). The Appellant had been convicted for failing to register his address with the Boston police department within two days of his release from jail, as required by the state Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB).

That is, until now.

The SJC now says that said rule is beyond SORB’s authority.

Apparently, the Appellant is not the most sympathetic of individuals. He has been designated a Level 3 sex offender, which is the type said to be most likely to reoffend. His history of convictions include various allegations of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior.

Then, in 2009, he was charged with failing to notify the police after he was released from jail that he would be living in a Boston homeless shelter. He was convicted and sentenced to two years in jail.

Then came the appeal.
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This week has not been a good one as far as the reputation of “higher learning” is concerned…and, for once, it had nothing to do with either drugs or bullying!

First of all, there is the case of Falmouth’s own Luk Van Parijs (hereinafter, “Penalized Prof.”, who has just pleaded guilty in Boston’s federal court to white collar crimes.

Penalized Prof. Is a 40-year-old former associate professor of biology from MIT. He was fired in 2005 for falsifying data in scientific papers. The papers concerned experimentation about generating a transgenic mouse in his lab. The charge was making a false statement in a federal research grant application, the US Attorney’s Office said. He is due to be sentenced in June. He faces the potential of five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

In 2009, Penalized Prof.’s career began to unravel when the federal Office of Research Integrity found that he had engaged in scientific misconduct by submitting the false data in numerous grant applications. He was also found to have falsified data in numerous scientific publications and presentations and one book chapter.

MIT’s embarrassment was shared today by a local law school today as well. Well, at least a student is embarrassed. And that’s the least of his problems now.

John Ethan Cassidy, a 26-year-old University of Massachusetts School of Law student (hereinafter, “Legal Gunner”) was arraigned today on a variety of firearms charges for allegedly possessing an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9mm pistol, Dartmouth police said. He was arrested yesterday evening as he left the school.

Legal Gunner had moved to the area in August 2010, police said in a statement. He was originally from Spring, Texas. Unfortunately, he was apparently also wanted on a warrant from that state. Law enforcement says he will also face charges at a later date of assaulting his roommate. The guns were apparently uncovered, along with large-capacity magazines and several hundred rounds of ammunition in his apartment.
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Recently, I was discussing a case with a client who was charged with possessing drugs with the intent to distribute in a school zone. It became clear that he had suddenly come into contact with the need to express a certain confusion.

It happened just after I explained to him, once again, that the School Zone count carried a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.

“Yeah, but they can’t send me to jail, even if convicted”, opined “Client X” (just think of him as a police officer who shot someone. They’re names are never revealed).

I asked him for the reasoning behind this legal opinion and he explained that he had a clean record and so, somehow, the mandatory minimum did not apply to him. I then reminded him that his record was far from clean. True, he had no prior convictions, but he had two pages of previous cases which had ended short of convictions, such as dismissals and a Continuance Without A Finding. Most of these cases, by the way had been drug cases.

“Ok”, he explained , moving happily along to Theory “B”, “but none of those cases involved this particular drug that they are charging me with now.”

The conversation became less happy when I explained that this did not really matter. In the vernacular, “drugs is drugs”. Particularly when the allegation is that you are selling them.

It is because of such misconceptions by those not trained in the law that I address today’s story.
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We celebrate Valentine’s Day in February here in the Commonwealth. So, surely that cannot explain what allegedly passed for wisdom on the part of 49-year-old Gloucester fisherman, John Cusick, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) in his behavior this summer when dealing with a certain federal fishing monitor.

According to United States Attorney Carmen Ortiz, the Major Crimes Unit in Boston is prosecuting the Defendant on charges of assault and sexual harassment for allegedly hugging and putting his tongue in the ear of an unidentified monitor aboard the Sea Farmer II in July.

The indictment was apparently just handed down. It alleges that the Defendant harassed and assaulted the federal monitor who collects data from commercial fishing vessels while the vessel is engaged in fishing activities,

Fishing monitors are apparently placed on commercial boats by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to be sure that fishermen do not exceed their federally mandated quotas, which have been the subject of protest for years.

The allegations against the Defendant have sparked some controversy. Tina Jackson, president of the American Alliance of Fishermen and their Communities, claims that “NOAA is pulling out all the stops to discredit fishermen because they’re in a lot of trouble…NOAA is under a microscope right now for their actions on enforcement and policy.” She further claims that the fishermen will be lobbying Congress next week to urge them to investigate NOAA.

In a separate case, another gentleman has been indicted for two counts of assault of two monitors..

We have discussed many ways that “justice” is perverted in today’s criminal justice system. Over my man years of experience as a lawyer practicing criminal law, I have seen various cases that the perversion has a political bent. I saw it as a prosecutor in New York and I have seen it as a defense attorney here in Boston. It is perhaps the worst bastardization that the system can suffer.
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While the investigation is still pending, police have already decided that a Springfield man lost his life to his live-in companion.

The police responded to the home of 45-year-old Joel Echols shortly before midnight on Friday. They found Mr. Echols suffering from various stab wounds.

Police responded to the Vinton Street home of 45-year-old Joel Echols shortly before midnight on Friday to find Echols suffering from multiple stab wounds in his chest. He was rushed to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, where he was pronounced dead.

Police believe that there had been a domestic disturbance involving the Mr. Echols and his girlfriend/wife (this has not been established yet apparently). It is further believed that she won the argument by the deadly assault to his upper chest.

The companion, Beverly Caldwell, 41, has been arrested and charged with murder.
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Happy President’s Day! I see that the Commonwealth has been celebrating the long weekend by making all presidents, both past and present, grateful that they no longer need to ride public transportation.

Let’s first turn to Lynn first. There, an MBTA bus driver has been suspended after allegedly having a bit of an issue with a passing vehicle. According to an MBTA spokesman, the driver is said to have thrown a coffee into the passing vehicle.

Apparently, the incident took place when the bus was pulling out of a bus stop. It was then allegedly cut off by a pick-up truck. Being mature Massachusetts drivers, the two exchanged heated words. Then, showing a real outbreak of responsibility, the bus driver is reported to thrown a cup of coffee into the truck, striking a passenger.

The truck driver reported the incident to police, and the bus driver was pulled over in Peabody.

The bus driver has been suspended and is now awaiting a court summons.

As unfortunate as the truck driver was, at least he is still alive. You see, another gentleman was actually struck and killed by a red line train in Cambridge this weekend.
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