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We take today’s blog from the “You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me” section of the news. It involves a man who clearly picked the wrong time to attempt to get back his Massachusetts driver’s license.

One would imagine that even without the pending Parole debacle claiming the front page every day , that Algary Horton, 53, of Mattapan (hereinafter, the “Nondriver”) would still be refused.

You see, the Nondriver does not have the greatest driving record. He has been convicted six times for drunk driving for example. Oh yes, and there was that time, in 1993, when he killed a woman on one of those allegedly drunken drivers and then fled the scene.

The Nondriver does get points for consistency, however. He was convicted of OUI in 1979, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1998 and 2004, authorities said.
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Today is the first holiday in quite a while that former Pelham Police Chief Edward Fleury (hereinafter, the “Ex-Defendant”) can breathe freely. The cloud of criminal allegations which has surroundied him since 2008 has finally lifted. He was finally acquitted of homicide charges in the tragic death of the late young Christopher Bizilj.

The Ex-Defendant’s firearms training company co-sponsored an annual Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club, about 10 miles west of Springfield. Young Christopher’s dad brought the 8-year-old to the event. In doing so, he also signed a waiver acknowledging the risks and absolving anyone else of liability should something bad occur.

Something very bad did.

The boy was shooting a 9 mm micro Uzi at some pumpkins, when the gun kicked back and shot him in the head. The Ex-Defendant was not present in the area in which this took place, although the father and other personnel were.
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If you heard a cacophony of crashing noises yesterday from the direction of Boston’s Beacon Hill, it was the sound of Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick , along with a certain Parole Board, caving in to public ridicule and political pressure.

As you have heard time and time again, the now-infamous Massachusetts Parole Board released a repeat violent offender in 2008. Of course, it was not the first time that this has happened. However, this time, said offender , in 2010, was involved in a robbery to which the late police officer John Maguire responded. There was a gunfight and the officer, as well as the offender, were killed. Since that time, amongst various reports of unexplained police shootings of suspects and non-suspects, a state-wide hand-wringing has been occurring.

Naturally, in 2011, tragedy must be someone’s fault. Someone living’s fault. Thus, it was the Parole Board’s fault.

At first, Governor Patrick had the gall to be a leader and indicate before rushing to judgment and demanding the Parole Board’s heads on a stick, that perhaps we should concentrate on the victims, then gather all the evidence and then decide fault.

Well, so much for that kind of nonsense.
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It would appear that this Massachusetts driver thought ahead. Realizing that the coming storm would make it difficult to go out and drink, Ms. Tara Tobin (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) got in one last trip just before the snow. The result was not too pretty.

The Yarmouth police say that the Defendant admitted that she had drunk six or seven beers in Dennis before driving.

What happened? The crash took place Tuesday night around 9 p.m..

The unusual part? According to the police, the Defendant, whatever condition she was in, did not cause the accident.

Apparently, a 47-year-old emotionally disturbed man jumped into the path of a Dodge Dakota pickup truck. The truck’s driver swerved to avoid the man and was then rear-ended by the Defendant’s car..

The man suffered serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries and was taken to Cape Cod Hospital, police said.
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Here’s one for the sex trade! In the past, we have discussed many times the various, and in my opinion, faulty rationales for keeping prostitution illegal. One of those rationales has been that prostitutes are, per se, victims. They are exploited and forced to perform sex acts for money. The thought seems to have been that being a prostitute is definitional of losing one’s will and performing the evil deeds by force.

Well, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled against this equation. It has thrown out the convictions of a pimp and a madam (hereinafter, the “Defendants”), ruling that the couple did not lure a homeless and drug-addicted teenager into prostitution because the 16-year-old runaway had sold her body for money in the past.

The court did, however, let stand the Defendants’ convictions for deriving support from prostitution and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The allegations in the case were that the Defendants drove the teen to the hotel where she met an undercover detective and agreed to engage in sex for $280, according to court records. Using a ruse, the officer convinced the teen to leave the hotel before any sexual acts occurred. The teen then apparently handed the cash the Defendants, who were waiting in the hotel parking lot
The court found, “We think that the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous and that it clearly expresses the Legislature’s intent to penalize a person for inducing a minor, who is not then so engaged, to engage in the commercial enterprise of prostitution by offering for hire his or her body for indiscriminate sexual activity”.

As a Boston sex crimes criminal defense attorney for over twenty years, not to mention previous years as a prosecutor, I have been involved in a number of cases involving prostitution.
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Gerard Sasso, 52, of Medford, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) has made Massachusetts history. In fact, he is not only a “first” in the Commonwealth, but is a “second” in the country! Unfortunately, he will be “celebrating” in a federal prison.

Yesterday, the Defendant became the first person in the state — and the second in the nation — to be convicted for lasering an aircraft. He was convicted of charges of willfully interfering with an aircraft operator with reckless disregard for human life, and of making false statements, the US attorney’s office said in a statement.

The Defendant received the award of three years in prison for shining a laser at a State Police helicopter that was escorting a tanker through Boston Harbor, federal prosecutors said.

Apparently, the Defendant shined a powerful green laser on the helicopter on December 8, 2007. Prosecutors said the pilots were able to determine the light was likely coming from his apartment. When the police went to his apartment to investigate, he initially denied having the lasers but later confessed, prosecutors said. The green laser was recovered, along with 10 other lasers, from the apartment.

“This sentence should send a strong message that interfering with an aircraft in any way will result in aggressive prosecution and stiff sentences. Such actions endanger lives and disrupt air travel, and will not be tolerated,” quota the government.
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Just last week, we discussed the case of kids threatening to commit mass murder online. I mentioned that this was not the climate for it. This was illustrated horribly this past weekend in Tucson, Arizona. The end result of the event is that Federal prosecutors have brought charges against the alleged gunman accused of attempting to assassinate Representative. Gabrielle Giffords and, in the process, killing six people, ages ranging from a 9-year-old-child to an elderly woman.

Jared Lee Loughner, 22, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is the man accused of the shootings. He is said to have also fired at Giffords’ district director and others s standing in line to talk to the congresswoman,

“He was not more than three or four feet from the congresswoman and the district director,” said Mark Kimble, a communications staffer for Giffords. He went on to describe the scene as “just complete chaos, people screaming, crying.”

It is believed that the Defendant acted alone. Investigators said they carried out a search warrant at the Defendant’s home and seized an envelope from a safe with messages such as “I planned ahead,” “My assassination” and the name “Giffords” next to what appears to be the Defendant’s signature.
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While Massachusetts schools have been struggling with ways in which to comply with the over-arching and extremely broad anti-bullying law, a couple of students at Brookline High School have apparently been doing their own planning. According to officials, that planning would include a mass homicide.

The students allegedly posted on Facebook plans to meet after school and commit the deed according to the prosecution. They indicated online that they could use gallons of gasoline and use thousands of syringes full of bear tranquilizers. When one of the lads suggested shooting some guns at proposed victims, the other genius responded that he was “way ahead of you,”.

Brookline police searched the homes of both students and seized their computers, but have not found any weapons, according to police..

The pair were arrested on Wednesday after one of their fathers became aware of the cyber-conversation and, apparently, felt that it would be better that his son end up in trouble…than dead or culpable for mass murder.
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Former Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson has been sentenced to serve 3 ½ years in state prison for accepting $23,500 in bribes. Wilkerson had pleaded guilty to criminal charges of eight counts of attempted extortion last year.

In 2008, she was caught inserting $100 bills in her bra as part of a kickback scam. Wilkerson was accused of taking eight cash payments between 2007 and 2008 from undercover agents and a witness who was secretly working with the FBI. The former state senator was captured on approximately 150 video and audio recordings saying she was going to use some of the money at a casino, as well as to embark upon a sticker campaign in the wake of losing the 2008 Democratic primary.

While prosecutors had pushed for Wilkerson be sentenced to four years in prison, her legal team had argued for less time. The sentence that Wilkerson received is in line with federal sentencing guidelines.

The former state senator, who has been ordered to turn herself in on March 11 so she can start serving her federal prison term, said today that the believes that she was pursued by corrupt federal prosecutors who didn’t like the fact that she was among the politicians that challenged the status quo. Originally, Wilkerson had faced 32 charges of allegedly taking bribes, but the government agreed to drop 24 of the criminal charges. Mail fraud and wire fraud and conspiring to extort cash were among the charges.

Wilkerson sentenced to 3 1/2 years in corruption case, Boston.com, January 6, 2011
Wilkerson guilty of attempted extortion; prosecutors recommend up to 4 years, Boston.com, June 3, 2010

Related Web Resources:
White-Collar Crime, Federal Bureau of Investigation
White-Collar Crime: an overview, Cornell University Law School Continue reading

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Yesterday, we discussed that tragedies sometimes result from mistakes made by human beings. Yesterday, it was the Parole Board. Today, authorities are investigating a police-involved shooting in Framingham yesterday morning that has left a 68-year-old man dead, the Middlesex District Attorney’s office has announced. The word “homicide” has not been used…yet..

It all began when Framingham police detectives and members of the Framingham Police SWAT Team gathered together at 26 Fountain Street. at about 12:30 a.m. in order to execute a search warrant that had been issued for narcotic offenses, according to the DA.

What happened next is a little hazy, as it often is when police shoot someone.

Apparently, the search warrant was being executed, as planned, but something somewhere went wrong. Initial reports (aka all we are being told thus far) indicate that a bullet was “discharged” from the Framingham Police Department-issued weapon of a SWAT Team member.

In civilian parlance, one of the officers fired his gun.
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