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Massachusetts had more than its fair share of crimes this past holiday weekend. There were shootings in the Boston area, one homicide and, as one would expect from such a weekend, plenty of vehicular crimes. Criminal Defense attorneys will be needed.

For example, one Massachusetts woman was arrested this weekend in Salem, N.H., after police said she stole purses and led them on a harrowing chase with her 12-year-old daughter in the car.

This would be Maria M., 36, of Lawrence (hereinafter, “Mother Defendant”). She is said to have targeted customers at the Christmas Tree Shops, Target, and Market Basket in the area. According to the authorities, she would reach for purses left in shopping carts while the women looked away and “larcenied” her financial cares away.

According to witnesses, Mother Defendant brought a “young girl”, presumably her daughter, along for the July 4th festivities, as she liberated items from said purses.

Once the police spotted the described car, along with the occupants matching the description, they tried to pull her over.

This did not go too smoothly.
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This weekend, we have been celebrating the birth of our country. Even a Boston criminal defense attorney recognizes the importance in that. In the meantime, the Cambridge couple (hereinafter, the “Defendants”) who were among 10 people arrested in three cities last week as part of an alleged Russian spy ring have been arraigned in Federal Court and await an opportunity to make bail and recover their freedom.

Good luck.

The government says that the Defendants were sent to live in the United States under false identities to hobnob in spheres of influence, an idea one civil liberties lawyer called laughable given their jobs as a software company executive and a real estate agent.

“These so-called spies really had a racket,” said Harvey Silverglate, author of Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. “The idea that they were going to pick up useful intelligence in the circles they were moving in is absurd. They have defrauded the Russian intelligence agencies and gotten a decade of free support in exchange for no useful information.”

As Attorney Silverglate also points out, unless the investigation the FBI conducted over nearly a decade yields more damning evidence than what has so far been released, the people most harmed by the whole affair, Silverglate said, may turn out to be the American taxpayers.
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Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr is having a field day on this one. Who can blame him?: The surface-layer ironies here are numerous!

“Hey”, he muses, “they don’t call it the Red Line for nothing.”

The rollicking news that some Cambridge residents have been arrested and accused of being Russian spies should be enough to keep us in stitches with puns focusing on titles like “Reds”, “Ruskies” and ( of course) “The People’s Republic Of Cambridge” for weeks to come.

Anyone out there miss the “good old days” of the 1950’s? Here is your chance to experience yesteryear.

The story treating us to all this hilarity is the arrests of accused Russian agent Donald Heathfield and his wife, Tracey Lee Ann Foley (hereinafter, collectively, the “Defendants”), among others in other locations not as humorous, for espionage. According to federal authorities their investigation shows that they are a part of a Russian spy ring arrested this past weekend.

It remains in doubt, according to the federal prosecutors, how much useful information from the Defendants or their co-defendants actually reached Moscow. It is clear, however, that the Defendants and their alleged cohorts were in places where valuable information was available.
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As a Boston criminal defense attorney, I don’t seem to be able to read a news story and simply let it be. Particularly when it involves our criminal justice system and its participants.

After days of being unable to post the blog (again), I went looking for a story about which to write. At first, I thought I was thrown back to a few years ago when the clergy were in Justice’s sites, with now-adult-previous-child-complainants remembering sexual assaults of days gone by. This story, however, was a bit different.

The item involved the Reverend Emile B. (hereinafter, “Father Defendant”). He is a Walpole priest who was arrested by the State Police earlier this week on charges of indecent assault and battery.
The complainant, a 21-year-old-man, alleges that the assault occurred while he was an adult…in fact, this very week.

The accusation is that Father Defendant , co-pastor at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Walpole, followed the complainant into a wooded area behind the Route 138 Park and Ride lot in Canton at about 8:30 a.m. and touched him inappropriately, State Police said in a statement. The complainant claims that he then ran out of the woods and back into the lot to call the police. It was then that he allegedly observed Father Defendant get into his car. The complainant wrote down the license plate number and State Police tracked Father Defendant down at his home in Walpole, according to the statement.
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A judge has ordered 29-year-old man facing numerous charges for his involvement in a 20-mile police pursuit on the Massachusetts Pike to Bridgewater State Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Alejandro Serra has pleaded not guilty to over a dozen charges, including five counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and operating with a suspended license.

Serra is accused of threatening and almost running down a man and his young grandson in Boston on Monday. The adult pedestrian had asked Serra to turn down the music that was blaring from his vehicle.

After Serra fled the scene, he was pursued by state police in a chase that continued onto the Massachusetts Pike until his vehicle crashed into three police cruisers in Framingham. Serra then tried to flee from the authorities on foot. At least 10 troopers were involved in efforts to apprehend him. Video footage shows one state trooper punching him.

A forensic psychologist for the court who evaluated Serra to see if he was competent to face charges says that the suspect is delusional, out of touch with reality, and may be a danger to society. At the end of his arraignment, Serra announced to the court that he was Pope Alexander.

Prosecutors say that he has had history of mental health problems and has been committed to psychiatric hospitals in the past. The state committed him to one in 2008.

Serra is being held on $5,000 cash bail for the altercation on Monday and another $5,000 for failing to obey a warrant that required that he show up at the Mental Health Division on June 23. Serra’s Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer says that his client clearly needs help.

Man charged after leading staties on wild Pike chase, Boston Herald, June 29, 2010
Driver In Mass Pike Chase: ‘I Am Pope Alexander!’, WBZTV, June 29, 2010

Related Web Resources:
Mass Law About Traffic Violations
MassDot Highway Division
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At his arraignment this month, Thomas J. Mortimer IV pleaded not guilty to four counts of Massachusetts first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife Laura Stone Mortimer, 2-year-old daughter Charlotte, 4-year-old son Thomas Mortimer V, and mother-in-law Ragna Ellen Stone. The 43-year-old Winchester software salesman was apprehended on June 17 close to the Vermont line after a driver that stopped to help him with his car on Route 10 recognized him and contacted the authorities.

An arrest warrant had been issued for Mortimer after the bodies were discovered in their home on June 16. Relatives reportedly had not been able to contact the family since June 14. Mortimer is accused of using “sharp objects” and “blunt force trauma” to kill the victims.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. says that Mortimer had left behind a note confessing to the murders while citing marital problems and financial issues. Mortimer is currently unemployed.

Mortimer’s Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer has said that the defendant’s mental health will be a factor in the case. She is seeking a psychiatric evaluation from Dr. Marc Whaley, a forensic psychiatrist, which indicates that she may make an insanity plea on Mortimer’s behalf. Mounting an insanity defense is an extensive process that can take over a year.

The charge of Massachusetts first-degree murder can refer to the premeditated and deliberate killing of another person, murdering someone while committing a capital felony, or the killing someone in an extremely cruel manner. A conviction for this crime can land a defendant in jail for life. This is not the type of case that you want to tackle without an experienced Boston homicide defense lawyer on your side.

Not-guilty plea in 4 Winchester deaths, Boston Globe, June 19, 2010
Four family members found dead in Winchester home, My Fox Buston, June 16, 2010

Related Web Resources:

Murder, Cornell Law School

The Insanity Defense, Washington Post Continue reading

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Bryan Harris, a South End resident, was arrested by police on Friday. The 26-year-old Boston man was charged with Massachusetts unarmed robbery, parental kidnapping, larceny over $250, assault and battery, and a dangerous weapon unlawfully carried. His arraignment is scheduled for Monday.

According to Boston police, a woman contacted police on Friday afternoon to report that Harris, her live-in boyfriend, had kidnapped their 1-year-old girl. She claims that she and Harris had gotten into a verbal dispute and when she asked him to leave he allegedly punched her face and shoved her into a closet.

The woman says that Harris then packed his clothes, stole her cell phone and debit card, and told her he was leaving the state with their daughter.

The authorities sent out an alert. Police later apprehended Harris on a Fung Wah bus on the Massachusetts Turnpike. The bus was going to New York. His daughter, Estrada, was with him. Harris surrendered to the cops.

Massachusetts Parental Kidnapping
Under state law, the kidnapping of a minor or incompetent by a relative is considered a crime that is punishable by a one-year maximum prison sentence and/or a $1,000 fine. If the child is endangered in the process or taken outside the commonwealth, a maximum 5-year prison sentence and/or a $5,000 fine is possible.

Man is arrested after allegedly fleeing with baby girl, The Boston Globe, June 25, 2010
Related Web Resource:
Parental Kidnapping Statutes, NDAA (PDF)

The General Laws of Massachusetts
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Sometimes, you find a case that seems to reveal a new low in criminal acts. As a Boston criminal defense attorney for many years, I have seen more than my fill.

Allegedly, that is.

A Brighton man was arrested Monday night for allegedly robbing a 67-year-old woman who uses a wheelchair for mobility purposes, according to police officials.

Jerdon B, 48, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is said gentleman. At about 11:40p.m., officers responded to the Mission Hill neighborhood to investigate the event.
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The Defendant was charged with unarmed robbery for allegedly robbing the complainant while she was waiting for the Green Line trolley, police said. The suspect then allegedly pushed her onto the tracks on Huntington Avenue.

His reward? Ten bucks.
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Yesterday, we began discussing the topic of bullying again. As if the topic were not enough, I was inspired by the Sunday Boston Globe front page article on the subject this past week. As a criminal defense attorney of some years, it is a subject that deeply troubles me. If you are a regular reader to this blog, you know that I am troubled by not only the bullies…but the response to and perpetuation of the bullying itself.

The Boston Globe article focused on a young lady from a suburb west of Boston. She shared the back-story of the bullying. It is not an unusual story. The rather brave high schooler, willing to give all details as well as have her name printed (which, due to her age, both the Globe and I have decided not to reveal), revealed the rather typical story.

Lexi had a friend before she began her new school. They had been friends since grade school. Like most friends, they had shared sleepovers, secrets, and favorite movies. Then, last summer, the friendship ended. Lexi decided that her friend was a negative influence. What happened at the start of the new school year, her former friend confirmed that belief. The first shot over Lexi’s bow was the posting of silly pictures she had taken with said former friend. They were posted on Face Book and viewed by everyone.

It would appear that the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” goes for platonic friendships as well. As described more yesterday, this began the deluge of bullying that Lexi was to endure throughout the school year.
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Yesterday, the Boston Globe’s front page reflected the start of a new series of articles on students, families and schools. It described the plight of Lexi, a 14-year-old girl who began classes at a new school in an “affluent suburb” west of Boston.

According to the story, Lexi’s torment began within the first few days, when a “friend” texted her the message, “Go online.”

“Online” being shorthand for “facebook”, Lexi went to the page to find pictures a girlfriend had taken a few months before of Lexi making faces at the camera. After the posting were a string of brilliant comments like, “You look like a rat that has been put on crack . . . in other words ugly as balls,” and ” hahaha”.

This was a terrific blow. After all, Lexi had realized that how she looked mattered a great deal in how she was or was not accepted. Now, there was a picture of her looking like a kid, neither polished nor particularly attractive..

“I knew from the beginning,” Lexi says now. “I knew it was basically everyone against me.”

Sure enough, in the months that followed, she was taunted at school. Boys called her foul names and girls snickered. Finally, the problem worsened as groups of students picked on her, surrounding her on the stairs or pushing her in the cafeteria. She even received threatening calls on her cell phone.
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