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Yesterday, as you may know, was the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. It is known as a day of atonement and many Jews, including this one, fast during the holiday. Perhaps it was because of the day’s lack of food that brought my attention to this particular news story.

Antonio J., 35, of Worcester (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), was apparently quite hungry on August 12, 2009. It was, after all, about 6:45pm, which is around dinner time.

The Defendant happened upon a man who was sitting under a tree eating hot dogs in the park. According to the police, the Defendant mumbled something incoherent to the man. He then made his desire known. “Eat that other dog?” the Defendant asked.

“Yes,” the man replied.

“I’m going to eat it,” the Defendant corrected him as he lifted up his shirt and revealed what appeared to be a handgun.
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Renowned film director Roman Polanski says he intends to fight efforts to extradite him to the United States on charges that he had sex with a minor in 1977. The 76-year-old filmmaker was apprehended in Switzerland last Saturday where he had arrived to accept a lifetime achievement award that the Zurich Film Festival was going to bestow upon him.

Polanski has been living in exile from the US since he left the country rather than be sentenced for pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor. Samantha Geimer, then 13, had accused the director of giving her champagne and a portion of a Quaalude pill before raping her. Although initially indicted on six felony counts, the other charges (which could have resulted in a lifetime prison sentence) were dropped after he entered his guilty plea.

Polanski served 42 days in prison and underwent an evaluation. Despite agreeing on a sentence, allegations have been made that the judge tried to go back on the plea agreement. Polanski then fled the country.

Geimer, now 45, has publicly forgiven Polanski. Earlier this year, Geimer submitted a a formal request to prosecutors that they drop the charges against the filmmaker. She and her family don’t want to keep reliving the assault every time the media reports on the incident.

While France does not extradite its citizens, Switzerland does not provide such protections from international warrants. This was not, however, Polanski’s first visit to Switzerland. He owns a ski residence in Gstaad. California authorities reportedly have been engineering the filmmaker’s arrest ever since discovering he was going to the festival.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is asking that Polanski be granted bail. Swiss authorities say that as long as Polanski agrees to stay in the country, he could be released on bail. France and Poland are in an uproar over Polanski’s arrest.

Roman Polanski’s victim Samantha Geimer, now 45, ‘got over it long ago,’ New York Daily News, September 28, 2009
Polanski’s Attorney Says He Will Fight Extradition to U.S., Washington Post, September 28, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Roman Polanski, IMDB
Polanski’s arrest could be his path to freedom, AP, September 27, 2009 Continue reading

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There are still many people out there in Boston and environs who think that it is possible to be “arrest proof”. “After all”, they reason, if I do not commit a crime, I have nothing to worry about, right?” Let an experienced attorney tell you…wrong.

Let’s look at the possibility of drug charges for example.

You are going out for a crime-free evening of seeing a movie with a friend. Sounds safe enough, right?

Your friend comes by and picks you up and, as you drive to the movie, you see blue lights flashing behind you and there is the disturbing sound of a screaming siren.

Surely they cannot mean you.

They do.
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The first signs of the investigation came several weeks ago. The FBI showed up at a local social club in Stoughton and surprised members by pulling two flat-screened televisions from the wall, checking the serial numbers on the back, and then taking them away. Now, it turns out that the Boston federal investigators may be granting certain local law enforcement officials the chance to get to know some criminal defense attorneys in a professional setting.

According to today’s Boston Globe, the afore-mentioned televisions, allegedly stolen, were seized as part of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation into allegations of theft and corruption involving Stoughton police officers.

“The feds aren’t just looking at receiving stolen goods,” said an anonymous source allegedly familiar with the investigation.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the FBI’s Boston office will only say, “We can neither confirm nor deny whether there is or is not an active investigation into anything in Stoughton.” A spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office also declined to comment.
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In Waltham District Court, Police have filed a complaint against a 13-year-old who is accused of shooting four students with a BB gun. The shooting incident happened in Newton, Massachusetts on Friday afternoon at the F.A. Day Middle School. The teenager faces four juvenile counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

According to Newton police, the suspect started shooting the BB gun at a group of students who were waiting for a bus by the Gath Pool. The shooter’s shirt was covering the gun. The four teenagers who claim they were hit had visible welts. However, none of the boys opted to receive medical attention for their injuries.

Police went to the suspect’s home. They confiscated a KWC BB gun and a bag that was holding several hundred plastic BB’s. Meantime, the principal of his school, Gina Healy says that the 13-year-old will be seriously punished for his actions.

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John K.,27, of Malden (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is going to have to come up with a lot of money if he wants to go home…unless his lawyer puts in for a bail appeal. Last week, the Taunton District Court judge ordered that be held on $500,000 bail on charges stemming from a Rehoboth home invasion last week.

The Defendant is charged with a collection of charges, including home invasion, assault with a dangerous weapon, armed kidnapping, unlicensed possession of a firearm and masked robbery with a firearm a bit over a week ago in Taunton.

While the details of the incident have been sealed by Judge Richard Savignano, an unusual move in itself, the police have disclosed some information. They claim that the Defendant broke into a home . on Friday at about, bound and robbed a female resident at gunpoint and then drove off in her car.

Rehoboth Police Chief Stephen Enos said the incident appeared to be a random crime. Apparently, however, the spree did not end there.
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A recent Boston courtroom battle that hosted various law-enforcement characters, both past and present, has come to an end. When the jury returned, the verdict was “Not Guilty”.

Wayne A., (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) was a firefighter on trial for assaulting police officers in 2008. The setting was Roxbury Municipal Court. The complainants, of course were the officers whom he had allegedly assaulted and resisted arrest from. The defense attorney, Neil S. Tassel, was a former prosecutor himself.

The police had said in their police report that the Defendant had been shaking his girlfriend and shouting in her face when they arrived to investigate. They went to arrest him and, according to them, he violently resisted.

At trial, both the Defendant and said girlfriend testified that they had simply had a verbal argument, but that the Defendant was not even near her when police arrived. Apparently, the Defendant further testified that he did not even know that the police were there and they simply knocked him out during the incident.
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Paul Shanley, 78, (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is a defrocked priest who was sentenced in 2005 to 12 to 15 years for raping a 6-year-old boy in a Boston suburb parish in the 1980s. Now, his attorneys are challenging the conviction.

Most of the testimony by the complainant against the Defendant was said to be based on previously repressed memories. The Defendant is now challenging the notion of repressed-recovered memories, or dissociative amnesia.

During the Defendant’s trial, the then 27-year-old, victim testified that he did not remember the abuse until 2002 when news reports of other men accusing the Defendant of sexual assault. He claimed that it was these accusations that triggered his own memories. The memories included the Defendant pulling him out of Sunday school over a six-year period to rape and grope him in the bathroom, the confessional and the pews.

Now, the Defendant’s lawyers assert that jurors never should have heard the victim’s tearful account because the psychiatric community itself cannot agree on whether repressed memories truly exist.
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A gentleman from Plymouth began his week on Monday behind bars, looking for a criminal defense attorney. He stands charged with performing the type of deed that has been in the news lately connected to the death of pop icon Michael Jackson.

Sean D. (hereinafter, the “Defendant”) is now being held without bail. He is charged with spiking drinks for his wife and 18-month daughter with a sleep-aid.

The investigation began when the Defendant’s wife called police after she found her daughter ill, according to police. Their investigation found that he had allegedly been putting sleep aids into the mother and daughter’s drinks on more than one occasion, police said.

The Defendant was arrested Sunday night at the family’s home. He has been charged with distributing food with a harmful substance, was held at his arraignment on Monday, and is said to be returning to court today for a dangerousness hearing.
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Police say that the 18-year-old Hofstra University student who says she was gang raped by five men in a campus dorm has admitted that the sex was consensual. The four men who were arrested and each charged with five counts of first-degree rape are to be released from police custody. Last night, the criminal charges against them were dropped.

The alleged victim had said that suspect Jesus Ortiz, 19, asked her to dance and took her cellular phone from her. He then allegedly used the phone to get her to accompany him to the Easterbrook dorm where Rondell Bedward, another Hofstra student, met them. Bedward allegedly had a rope with him.

The woman accused the men of making her go into a stall and forcing her to engage in sexual activity. She said that three other men raped her before she was set free.

Bedward is the only one of the four suspects who studies at Hofstra University. Police say that he was the one who invited the other suspects to the dormitory and, per dorm protocol, all of them were signed in.

The other two men who were arrested and arraigned for the college campus crime are Kevin Taveras, 20, and Stalin Felipe, 19. Police had been looking for the fifth alleged rapist.

Meantime, in another university-related crime, police continue to investigate the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Le. The 24-year-old pharmacology student’s body was discovered on Sunday, which was supposed to be her wedding day, in the basement wall of a medical research building located off-campus.

Video surveillance footage shows her going into a lab located some 10 blocks from campus. The medical examiner’s office announced today that Le was strangled.

Raymond Clark, a Yale employee, was released from custody after providing authorities with DNA samples. The 24-year-old employee was brought in after police got a search warrant for his residence and a body warrant for the samples.

Over 150 people have been interviewed. Some 150 pieces of evidence have been collected. Police don’t believe that Le’s murder was a random act.

Hofstra Student Admits She Lied About Gang Rape, Long Island Press, September 16, 2009
Four Men Arrested, Fifth Sought in Connection With Rape of Hofstra University Student, Fox News, September 15, 2009
Yale student strangled, medical examiner’s office says, CNN.com, September 16, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Yale University

Hofstra University

Colleges, Community Colleges, & Universities in Massachusetts, USA, UnivSource.com Continue reading

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