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In Massachusetts, two Cape Cod teenagers and an adult were arrested for the murder of 16-year-old Jordan Mendes. Kevin Ribiero and Mykel Mendes, who are both 13, were charged with armed robbery and murder in juvenile court. Robert Vacher, 20, was charged with armed robbery and first-degree murder as an adult.

Jordan’s burnt body was found in a pit in the Hyannis woods. The suspects reportedly stole $10,000 from him. Jordan was a drug dealer.

Mykel and Kevin were arraigned on Friday and remanded to a juvenile detention center. Robert, who pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, is being held without bail.

Mykel and Jordan’s father is Manuel Mendes, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for trafficking cocaine at the Plymouth County House of Correction while he was serving a sentence for another drug conviction. Mykel’s Massachusetts criminal defense lawyer says his client was not involved in his half-brother’s murder and is grieving over his death.

Prosecutors claim that Robert ambushed Jordan in Mykel’s bedroom, stabbing him 27 times and shooting him. The two 13-year-old’s are accused of being there at the time of the assault and providing Robert with the murder weapons. They then allegedly took Jordan’s body and dumped it into a hole before returning the next day to set it on fire. They then allegedly used the money they stole from Jordan to buy a used BMW.

The two teenagers will have to be tried in juvenile court. If the 13-year-olds are convicted of the juvenile crimes, they would have to be placed in the custody of the Department of Youth Services until their 18th birthdays. After that, the DYS would have to get the court’s permission to keep the boys in custody until their 21st birthdays. Robert could face a life prison sentence without parole if he is convicted of 1st degree murder.

Two 13-year-olds, adult charged in Cape Cod Slaying, Boston Herald, December 20, 2008
13-year-old boy accused in killing of brother, Boston.com, December 20, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Massachusetts Department of Youth Services

Juvenile Crimes in Massachusetts (PDF)
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In the north of Boston, there is a little city called Salem, Massachusetts. Salem is a fun place with its own claims to excitement. A number of years ago, for example, we used to hang people for being witches. Next to Salem, is Lynn. Perhaps for more mundane reasons, Lynn tends to be a rather exciting place to live too as we have discussed in the this daily blog many times.

Last July, a Lynn man, apparently unsatisfied with the adventures that Salem had to offer, engaged in alittle excitement of his own. Well, his and his lady friends…

Michael B., 37, (hereinafter, “Boy Defendant”), and his girlfriend, Caroline T., 27 of Woburn (hereinafter, “Girl Defendant”), came to Salem two days ago to put an end to their pending criminal matter. They were coming to plead guilty .

It had been an assault case. Actually, a domestic violence assault case. A domestic violence assault case that was allegedly committed right outside the courthouse.

The alleged victim? Boy Defendant’s estranged wife (hereinafter, “Mrs. Boy Defendant”).
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In Massachusetts, the stepfather of 14-year-old Haleigh Poutre was sentenced to 12 – 15 years in state prison for his role in a near fatal 2005 beating that left the girl in a coma and with a permanent brain injury. Jason Strickland, 34, was convicted of two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury, and one count of assault and battery. He was acquitted of one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Strickland and his late wife Holli had adopted Haleigh from Allison Avrett, who is Holli’s sister. Avrett signed over her parental rights to the couple because she was suffering from mental health issues and drug abuse.

Massachusetts prosecutors charged the couple with beating the then 11-year-old. Only Strickland’s case was tried in court, however, as Holli later died, along with her grandmother, in a suicide-murder.

During the trial, Strickland said he noticed that Haleigh had a number of wounds on her body, but he believed Holli when she told him that Haleigh’s wounds were self-inflicted. Over a period of five years, the girl’s doctors, state social workers, and therapists also believed Holli’s explanation and dismissed concerns expressed by teachers and neighbors that Haleigh was the victim of abuse.

While the jury believed that Strickland wasn’t there during the last beating, they believe he allowed the abuse to happen when he left Haleigh alone with Holli. Strickland’s criminal defense attorney is appealing the jury’s criminal verdict. Strickland’s mother, Bobbi says her son is being used as a scapegoat-especially as social workers and doctors also missed signs that Haleigh was an abuse victim.

Haleigh now lives in a Boston rehabilitation home. Her beating injuries placed her at the center of a Massachusetts right-to-die case when state child welfare officials sought to remove her feeding tube when it did not seem like she would recover from her coma. Not long after, Haleigh began to show signs of improvement.

Stepdad Jason Strickland gets 12-15 years in Haleigh Poutre case, Boston Herald, December 18, 2008
Jason Strickland Convicted of Beating Stepdaughter, CBS3, November 26, 2008

Related Web Resource:

Haleigh Poutre, USA Today
The General Laws of Massachusetts
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Let the games begin! As local as Boston and as distant as the globe will reach! The adventure of pointing fingers and looking for bodies to blame, as expected, has begun. Defense Attorneys for everybody! Everybody pays!

Bernard Madoff (hereinafter, the “Defendant”), talking in 2001 about what fed the Internet bubble said “You had a lot of novice investors who got into the market looking for easy money, without any regard to the fundamentals. These stocks were running on fumes.”

You would almost think that the Defendant did not have a lot of faith in investors, regulatory agencies such as the Security Exchange Commission and the market in general, wouldn’t you?

Well, I guess now we know why. He, himself, was apparently engaged in a huge fraud and getting away with it.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you have heard that the Defendant is accused of devestated the international economic world, when it was already reeling, through what is alleged to be a fifty billion dollar scam, the largest such fraud in history. For more background information, you may want to check out Tuesday’s blog, entitled, Boston Is Hit, Along With The Rest Of The Country, By Financial Guru And His Use Of A Boston-Originated Method Of Fraud (The Madoff Nightmare Part One.

The question of what to do next appears to be a nasty little thing for which there is no clear answer. Therefore, filling that vacuum, we move to other, and perhaps more lucrative, questions. The questions include such topics as how any scam of this size could remain a secret for so long, who was involved, who else is out there doing similar things and, of course, who got off easy.

In short, the questions are “Who else can we blame?” and perhaps more importantly, “Who else can help finance the cleanup?”

Hey, it’s what we do.
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In Massachusetts, Plainville investigators are seeking to charge a 19-year-old man with purchasing alcohol as a minor and procuring alcohol for a minor. According to Plainville Police Lt. Jim Alfred, Brian Zuzick is alleged to have asked a 21-year-old North Attleboro friend to buy alcohol for Zuzick’s sister Paige and 17-year-old Taylor Meyer. Zuzick is accused of giving each of the girls a bottle of rum on October 17.

Meyer’s body was found in a swampy area in the woods in Norfolk on October 20, three days after her disappearance following a post-Homecoming game party at the abandoned Norfolk airport. Investigators say she drowned.

If Zuzick is convicted, he could be ordered to pay a $2,000 fine, have his license suspended for 180 days, and spend a year in prison. In October, Christopher Moran, 18, pleaded not guilty to charges that he brought alcohol to the party where Meyer was last seen. Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances that lead to Meyer’s death.

Last month, at least 13 of Meyer’s schoolmates, all underage teens, were arraigned in Wrentham District Court for their attendance at a drinking party at a local home. Police say they found alcoholic beverages and marijuana at the event.

If you have been arrested for an alcohol-related criminal offense in Massachusetts, you should speak to a Boston criminal defense lawyer about your case. Massachusetts has strict laws about buying alcohol or serving it to minors. It is also illegal for Massachusetts minors to buy or drink alcohol.

Criminal charges sought in teen’s death, Boston.com, December 17, 2008
Teen Arrested In Taylor Meyer Probe, WBZ, October 30, 2008
Laws Related to Alcohol, MIT Continue reading

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This holiday season, so many religions and traditions call for gift-giving. Sometimes, those gifts are a big surprise. One gentleman from out of state has been given a surprise gift from the government because of the gifts he has given throughout the country, including the Boston area, big time. The gift he received is the need of a criminal defense attorney. The wide-spread gift he gave? Well, that would be the gift of financial ruin.

You already know his name. It is Bernard Madoff (hereinafter, the “Defendant”). He is a 70-year-old former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, who has now been awarded the country’s bracelets of shame. Last Thursday, he taken out of his house by United States marshals and charged with securities fraud by federal authorities.

Ironically, the Defendant’s gift of restraints and forced government housing was connected to charity and gift work throughout the nation. His actions have apparently brought about the destruction and near-destruction of various charities and philanthropies throughout the country. That’s right….that means fewer gifts for the under-privileged. It also means the same thing for victims of every financial level because they all have one thing in common now. They have been victims of white collar crime in a big way to the tune of approximately fifty billion dollars.

Such a loss is kind of hard to swallow, especially in such difficult economic times. Actually, it was the market’s recent crash that finally brought the Defendant’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme to light. The Defendant himself is said to have “come clean”. He has admitted that his money management operations were “all just one big lie” and “a giant Ponzi scheme.” .

You may be unfamilier with the term “Ponzi scheme”. For those so uninitiated, it is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high profits to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi who apparently introduced the scheme to the United States in the early 1900’s from…of all places…Boston. Because the invested capital is not earning a sufficient return on its own, Ponzi schemes usually eventually collapse under their own weight.

So much for a “I never thought it could happen…” , or, perhaps more formally, “Whodathunkit” defense.
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Good Monday morning to you, Boston and environs. I hope you are free, recovered from last week’s ice storms and ready to begin a new week. Hopefully you are greeting another week without the need for a criminal defense attorney.

Yet.

Unfortunately, there will be no “regular” blog today. This is primarily because of the story I am basing a rather longer-than-usual blog on that is simply not finished by the time I need to be in court today.

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Taghi T., 28, of Boston, (hereinafter, “Defendant 1”) was awaiting his mail on Wednesday. He did not realize that a criminal defense attorney would need to be involved.

Apparently, he should have.

Law Enforcement had intercepted the parcel and when Defendant 1 went to UPS in downtown Boston to claim it, he received the Commonwealth Bracelets of Shame instead. You see, the postal workers were really police officers. The package had a bit of marihuana in it…a “bit” being defined here as 10 pounds worth. And you know how the police are…always suspicious. For some reason they suspected there might be more goodies to be found, so they decided to search his Boston home.

They turned out to be right. They found a large amount of materials typically found in any healthy drug operation, according to Suffolk County prosecutors. Well, that is, if you consider 800 grams of cocaine, another 15 pounds of marijuana, more than 200 prescription pills, $25,235 in cash and various drug paraphernalia such as scales, cutting agents, and bags a “large amount”.

The Commonwealth does, incidently.

And so it was that Defendant 1 found himself before a Boston court facing various drug charges such as cocaine trafficking and drug possession.

But, hey, that’s the “big city”, right? If you are talking about Massachusetts, Beantown is the “big leagues”! The urban Mecca! What do you expect?
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The Boston Herald reports about what are generally considered a couple of those “dirty little secrets” about the Justice System. They involve rather inconvenient truths that are particularly disconcerting, and so tend to be ignored, in the criminal justice arena.

And by the way….they are probably truths you have even suspected at times.

The first one is that, sometimes, police officers overdo it when it comes to force.

The other one is a bit more complicated, but I have faith in you that you can follow it.

Ready?

Step 1- Sometimes, people lie while under oath.

Step 2-Police officers are people
Step 3- Sometimes police officers lie while under oath.

No, this does not mean all police officers and it does not mean this happens in every case. I can tell you from experience, however, that I have experienced cases wherein police officers did not feel overly burdened by the boundaries of the truth.

Usually, these instances go without any penalty to the officer, although it is the crime of perjury just as when one of us “regular people” do it.

Not this time, though.
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Reports say that robberies are on the rise. I suppose that is not a big surprise, given the economic downturn we are dealing with.

Some of the attempts do have some entertainment value, though.
For example, let’s begin with such an attempt from earlier this very week. We turn to Lowell, Massachusetts. There, we find a peaceful scene. A grandmother and her 8-year-old grandson inside their home. Enjoying the day, perhaps happy that the snow from Sunday had stopped. Norman Rockwell type of scene.

Suddenly, there is a knock at the door.

End of peaceful scene.

Grandmother and Grandson were suddenly terrorized. A man and woman burst into the home, demanding money. Actually, they were more specific than that. With masks on, Grandmother tells us, “They kept wanting $1,000. They kept saying, ‘You got $1,000!”

Grandmother explained to them that she didn’t have that much money in the house.

The duo did not belie her. They demanded her purse, which she told them was in another room.

“So when he went for my pocketbook, I told my grandson run and get the police,” she said.

The 8-year-old did as Grandmother told him. He bolted from the house and ran about 100 yards to a gas station, screaming for help.

“I ran in there. I told them to call 911, because people in my house wanted money,” said the grandson.

Right after the child ran out, the couple fled without getting any money. They apparently sought to get away, but, naturally, ran in the same direction as the boy.
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