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Authorities in Massachusetts are still looking for the person that murdered Danielle Grady, the Roxbury woman that was shot to death outside an apartment building on Saturday on Dunkeld Street in Dorchester. Earlier news reports had speculated that she was gunned down because she had witnessed an earlier murder, but Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley says that Grady was not an official witness in any upcoming homicide trial.

A man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt allegedly fired at least 11 rounds of bullets at Grady, who was seated inside a parked Mazda, at around 3:15 on Saturday morning.
The Roxbury resident was struck by bullets at least nine times during the attack.

Investigators did their best to preserve the crime scene by taking the Mazda, which was filled with bullets, back to the crime lab at the Boston police headquarters with Grady’s body still in the back seat where she died. Police are looking for possible motives for her killing.

Her boyfriend, Jeffrey Jones, was gunned down in a similar manner while in a car on Shandon Road in Dorchester in July. Jones’ friend, Jarrid Campbell, was also killed in the shooting crime. Friends say that Grady was not at the scene when the murders took place.

On the afternoon after Grady’s murder, a blue minivan drove by the murder scene where Grady was killed and fired gunshots into the area. The Youth Violence Strike Force apprehended the van in Dorchester. Four suspects were apprehended following a chase on foot and two guns were recovered.

Massachusetts is one of the states with the toughest laws regarding gun and weapons possession. Illegal possession of a firearm can lead to a mandatory jail time of eighteen months if you are convicted. This minimum sentence requirement can also be extended if this is not your first conviction.

A person can also be convicted with unlawful firearm possession if you are apprehended with a gun and you do not have a FID (firearms identification) card.

A person can also be charged with unlawful possession of an illegal weapon if they are apprehended carrying certain kinds of knives, metallic knuckles, a blowgun, a nunchaku, kung fu sticks, a manrikigusari, or other kinds of weapons.

Victim was not a witness, DA says, Boston.com, August 7, 2007
Assassins’ bullets hit home, Boston Herald.com, August 7, 2007
Gunman slays Roxbury woman: Police say victim witnessed an earlier murder, Boston Herald, August 5, 2007

Related Web Resources:

Massachusetts Law About Guns and Other Weapons, Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries

Homicide, Norfolk District Attorney’s Office Continue reading

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A South Boston man who was arrested last month for buying OxyContin apparently worked for the city driving tow trucks for close to three years even though he didn’t have a driver’s license.

William E. Morin Jr’s driver’s license had been suspended from March 2000 until November 2003. He was hired by Boston’s Transportation Department to drive tow trucks in April 2000 even though his driving record showed that his license was suspended for not paying fines for a seatbelt violation in Dedham and a speeding ticket in Westborough. His license was reinstated in November 2003.

There are unpaid fines for the suspension but Morin says he did not know that his license was suspended.

Last March, the city of Boston promised to review the driving records of all its heavy equipment operators after the Boston Glob reported that the city regularly let workers drive heavy motor vehicles even if they had violations on their driving records. Violations ranged from reckless endangerment to drunk driving violations to running red lights to causing accidents to disobeying police to license suspensions. The Boston Globe say the 178 heavy equipment operators they investigated collectively had some 834 citations on their personal driving records.

Morin’s license has been suspended three other times. The first time was in 1989 when he failed to show up in court after getting a speeding ticket in Quincy. The second suspension was in 1990 when he did not appear in court after getting a traffic ticket in Weymouth. His license was suspended from March 1991 to October 1993 for not showing up in court after getting a speeding ticket in Middleborough. He almost got his license suspended again in December 2003 and December 2005. He paid the fines, however, and showed up when required, so license was not suspended both times.

Even if you are a second- or third-time offender of traffic violations, it is essential to protect your driving record. An experienced traffic violations attorney can defend you against charges for:

• Unpaid tickets
• Driving without insurance • Speeding tickets • Driving without a license • Driving with a suspended license • Driving with a license that is expired • Reckless driving • Hit and run • Leaving the accident scene • Arrest warrants for traffic violations
Morin was arrested on July 20 while leaving the house of a suspected drug dealer in South Boston. Police say he was carrying 14 OxyContin pills in his pocket. Police let him participate in what they say was another drug transaction before apprehending him. Morin was wearing his uniform and driving a city motor vehicle when he was charged with drug possession with intent to distribute OxyContin within 1000 feet of a school zone.

Possession and distribution of drugs is illegal and the punishments for a drug conviction in Massachusetts are severe. Drug charges in Massachusetts can be prosecuted at the federal or state levels. The amount of drugs involved, whether there was the intention to distribute or sell the drug, and whether any weapons were involved are just some of the factors that must be taken into consideration when determining drug charges.

A good criminal defense lawyer can defend you against drug charges.

City hired driver without license, Boston.com, July 31, 2007
Related Web Resources:

Mass. Law About Traffic Violations

Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts
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A federal district judge has ordered the federal government to pay $101.8 million for the framing of four men for a 1965 gangland murder that they did not commit.

Two of the men who were wrongfully convicted, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo, died while in prison. The other two men, Joseph Salvati and Peter Limone, were exonerated six years ago. Salvati had been on parole since 1997 while Limone was set free after serving 33 years in prison.

Judge Nancy Gertner said that FBI officials let employees “break laws, violated rules, and ruin lives” by wrongfully convicted them four men.

The men were exonerated after FBI memorandums were found that had not been submitted during trial. The memos indicated that the U.S. government’s main witness, mob hit man Joseph Barboza, had lied when he accused the four men of killing mobster Edward Deegan and that officials knew he was lying.

Barboza was allegedly protecting the actual murderer and FBI officials supposedly played along with him because, per the memo’s suggestion, Barboza had helped them solve other crimes and the real killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an informant.

Flemmi passed away in prison. He had been serving time for an unrelated case.

Limone was awarded $26 million. Mr. Salvati received $29 million. Mr. Tameleo’s estate received $13 million, and Mr. Greco’s estate received $28 million. The spouses and other family members of the four men also received money.

Limone accused the federal government of stealing 33 years of his life. He was 33 and the father of four young kids when he was arrested. He served several years on death row until Massachusetts got rid of the death penalty. Limone’s attorney said there was evidence proving that Barboza fingered his client because he refused to fire a waitress that Barboza had been romantically involved with.

Tameleo’s wife died while he was in prison. Greco’s wife became very depressed following his arrest and one of his sons killed himself after his father died.

Salvati’s attorney said that his client owed a $400 loan shark debt, which is why Barboza accused Salvati of committing murder.

In Massachusetts, the death penalty no longer exists. Life in prison without parole is the only penalty for first-degree murder.

Here is a list of other wrongful murder convictions that have taken place in Massachusetts.

U.S. Must Pay $101.8 Million for Role in False Convictions, NY Times, July 27, 2007
Resources for Keeping the Death Penalty out of Massachusetts

Related Web Resource:

Massachusetts Wrongfully Convicted, Northwestern.edu Continue reading

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A Roxbury man was acquitted on Monday in the 1991 murders of his girlfriend and her friend. Reggie Knight was acquitted by a Suffolk Superior Court jury for the stabbing deaths of Michelle Paul, 24, and Henry Cowart, 50. The murders took place outside a housing development in Mission Hill where he is said to have bumped into them as they were getting back from purchasing cigarettes.

Knight had been indicted in 2003 for the stabbing crimes. Evidence against Knight was brought forward by his uncle and brother, who say that the defendant entered his brother’s house holding a knife while he had blood on his hands and declared “I did it” after the murders.

Knight supposedly became very angry when Paul refused to engage in prostitution to fund a crack cocaine habit. Paul and Cowart were found dead by stab wounds on the evening of December 15, 1991.

Knight’s defense attorney had maintained that Robert’s statements were not consistent with the statements made by Knight’s uncle, Jessie.

According to the defense, both men were trying to get leniency for the crimes that they had committed.

So far, the district attorney’s office in Suffolk has had eight homicide cases result in acquittals. 25 cases resulted in convictions.

In Massachusetts, the punishments for committing murder are very serious. Massachusetts defines homicide as the “willful killing of one human being by another.”

Penalties in Massachusetts for murder:

• First Degree Murder: Life imprisonment and without parole • Second Degree Murder: Life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years served • Involuntary Manslaughter, Voluntary Manslaughter, and Vehicular Homicide: Fines and up to 20 years in prison
Roxbury man acquitted in 2 killings, Boston.com, July 24, 2007
1991 murder case goes to trial, Boston Now, July 17, 2007
Homicide, Mass.gov

Related Web Resource:

Massachusetts Crime Rates
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Drug informant Stephen G. Kalil, the Dorchester man whose help led to the arrests of a retired Massachusetts trooper, a state trooper, and two others for collecting drug debts and selling OxyContin, has been arrested.

He was brought into federal court last week on charges that he sold drugs-even while helping authorities put the other four people jail.

In July, Kalil informed investigators that he was going to Florida because he felt safer there after all the exposure he’d received as an informant during the arrests. When he returned to Massachusetts via Logan International Airport in Boston a week ago, however, he went straight to a Federal Express facility where he allegedly dropped off a package filled with drugs. The package was to be delivered to a location on Martha’s Vineyard.

The 49-year-old Dorchester man was also charged with illegal possession of firearms stemming from the seizure of three guns from his home in Dorchester in January.

Kalil has a criminal record for drug dealing, assaults, and larceny and is not allowed to own a gun because he is a convicted felon.

An attorney for Kalil says the fact that he was allowed to be an informant despite the discovery of the firearms earlier in the year shows how the government misuses its informants.

Kalil had been apprehended last November while trying to board a plane to Florida with a large amount of OxyContin pills and more than $20,000 in cash. He told Customs Enforcement agents, US immigration, and Massachusetts State Police that he was an informant against Mark V. Lemieux, the Massachusetts state trooper that he helped get arrested.

The investigation that followed led to Lemieux’s arrest.

Informer is held on drug charges, Boston.com, July 21, 2007
Heroin influx spurs N.E. drug epidemic, Boston.com, October 9, 2003

Related Web Resource:

Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts
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A new probe shows that the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory failed to analyze evidence samples from more than 16,000 crimes that occurred in the state. Unexamined evidence included evidence from about 1,000 homicides and other deaths, as well as from over 6,500 sexual assault cases.

The lab has yet to open some 4,000 rape evidence kits. Evidence from about 2,900 criminal cases must still undergo DNA testing, and 10,000 evidence kits are being held in cold storage. The investigation into the lab’s lack of performance was requested by Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick’s administration.

The Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists blames the backlog on insufficient staffing at the lab. It also called on the need for more forensic scientists to handle the new crime lab equipment that had been purchased by the state. Massachusetts will now have to pay millions of dollars to private labs so they can eliminate the testing backlog.

The lab’s inability to process what could be important DNA evidence could lead to many convicted persons being set free after serving time in prison for rapes and murders they did not commit. Criminal cases from as far back as the 1980’s could be affected by the evidence backlog. The untouched evidence also could mean that many rapists and murderers may still be free.

The Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York says that forensic testing errors were found in 63% of criminal cases where persons were exonerated. DNA testing backlogs, false confessions, eyewitness errors, and police informants were also reasons cited for exonerations.

The state says it will examine evidence in cases that can still be prosecuted. Cases where the statutes of limitations have already expired, however, will never be properly served.

Crime lab didn’t test 16,000 cases, Worcester Telegram & Gazette News, July 17, 2007
Crime lab crisis threatens us all, Boston Herald, July 17, 2007
Probe finds evidence from crime scenes never analyzed, Boston.com, July 15, 2007
Forensic Errors Often Contribute to Wrongful Convictions, Criminal Law Lawyer Source

Related Web Resources:

The Innocence Project

Wrongful Conviction, American Bar Association Continue reading

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Yesterday, US marshals, Boston police, and Quincy police recaptured Thomas A. Shay, the fugitive bomber who served 10 years in prison for the 1991 Roslindale bombing that killed one Boston cop and injured another. Shay was discovered yesterday at his mother’s home in Quincy where he was taking a nap. He had been on the run for the past year.

Shay, 35, had been convicted of plotting to make a homemade bomb that was planted under his father’s car. On October 28, 1991, the bomb went off while Boston Police Bomb Squad members were examining the vehicle in a Roslindale driveway. Officer Jeremiah J. Hurley Jr. was killed in the explosion. Hurley’s partner, Officer Francis X. Foley, became permanently disabled and unable to work after losing an eye in the bomb blast.

In April, Alfred W. Trenkler, a friend of Shay’s that had also been convicted in the bomb-making plot, got his sentenced reduced from life in prison to 37 years. Trenkler has always maintained his innocence.

Shay had been released from prison in 2002 after serving 10 years of a 12-year sentence. Since then, however, he has been accused of regularly violating the terms of his federally supervised release. He was returned to prison in 2005 after leaving a halfway house and assaulting a Northeastern University officer.

In 2006, he was arrested in Spencer on state charges of selling narcotics to a teenager and stealing from another teenager. A fugitive warrant was issued in his name after he fled. Authorities say that Shay occasionally disguised himself as a female to avoid being recognized.

The US Marshal Service has looked for him in Maine, Chicago, New Hampshire, and in different areas throughout Massachusetts.

US Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler has ordered that Shay be held without bail. A hearing regarding whether he should be ordered back to prison has been set for July 24.

Fugitive bomber is caught napping, Boston.com, July 17, 2007
Fugitive in Boston cop killing case captured in Quincy, Boston.com, July 16, 2007
Cross-Dressing Cop Killer Caught, Boston Herald, July 16, 2007
Related Web Resource:

Alfred Trenkler Innocent Committee
Continue reading

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Prosecutors in Massachusetts have dropped the rape charge against Derrick Patrick, a former youth counselor. Patrick, 36, was accused of sexually assaulting a teenager at the Ella J. Baker House, a troubled youth center where he worked in Boston’s Dorchester area.

The rape charge was dropped after prosecutors carefully reviewed the facts and completed an “extensive consultation” with the alleged victim.

Patrick, as part of his plea deal, instead pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of having sex for a fee. His sentence is 60 days in prison and two years probation. He served the 60 days while waiting for his trial.

The Suffolk District Attorney’s Office says that Patrick paid a 17-year-old girl four times for sexual intercourse. The teenager accused him of raping her at a Baker House bathroom after she wouldn’t have sex with him in January 2006. He denied the rape charge. A DNA test did not connect Patrick to the girl.

In Massachusetts, the law defines rape as “sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse,” and includes several classifications of rape:

• Statutory Rape of a Child (a person under 16 years of age)
• Forcible Rape of a Child
• Aggravated Rape of an Adult (a person over 16 years of age)
• Aggravated Rape of an Adult

Punishment for raping a child can lead to life imprison. Depending on the kind of rape act performed on an adult, a person convicted of rape could spend anywhere from 20 years to life in prison.

Rape Charge Dropped Against Former Counselor, Boston.com, June 30, 2007
False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought, Foxnews.com, May 2, 2006
Sexual Assault & Rape, Norfolk District Attorney’s Office

Related Web Resource:

Massachusetts Law About Sex
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The man that Boston police have dubbed the Bonbon Bandit allegedly robbed another store on Thursday. In this attempt, the suspect, who is blamed for at least 18 robberies at upscale clothing, food, and decorating stores at the South End and in downtown Boston, robbed a five-and-dime store on Albany Street.

A witness says the man entered the shop at 5:30 in the afternoon, took a bottle of water from the cooler, and went to the counter where he then took cash from the register.

The Bonbon Bandit is known for striking at businesses where there are primarily women employees and no security cameras. Seven of the places robbed by the alleged suspect were ice cream shops. He is also a suspect in several other robberies, including thefts that took place at stationary shops, a candle store, gift shops, and a dry cleaner’s.

The suspect has allegedly used a handgun, a sawed-off shotgun, and a knife during some of the robberies.

Robbery is considered a violent crime in Massachusetts. It is what occurs when someone uses intimidation or violence to take someone else’s property. When the suspect uses a gun, knife, or another weapon to commit the robbery, then the crime becomes armed robbery.

Under Massachusetts General Laws-Crimes Against the Person-Chapter 265, Section 17:

“Whoever, being armed with a dangerous weapon, assaults another and robs, steals or takes from his person money or other property which may be the subject of larceny shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or for any term of years; provided, however, that any person who commits any offence described herein while masked or disguised or while having his features artificially distorted shall, for the first offence be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than five years and for any subsequent offence for not less than ten years.

Whoever commits any offense described herein while armed with a firearm, shotgun, rifle, machine gun or assault weapon shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than five years.

Any person who commits a subsequent offense while armed with a firearm, shotgun, rifle, machine gun or assault weapon shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than 15 years.”

Cops: Bonbon Bandit Quenched Thirst in Latest Theft, Boston Herald.com, July 7, 2007
Boston Police Hunt for Sweet Shop Bandit, Forbes.com, July 6, 2007
Massachusetts General Laws – Crimes Against the Person – Chapter 265, Section 17
Continue reading

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In New Bedford, Massachusetts, Brian James, 34, is being held without bail for allegedly biting off the ear and lip of a 3-year-old girl. The child is the daughter of his girlfriend, Jessica Silveria, 26, who is also being held without bail. Arrest warrants had been issued for the couple.

James is charged with assault and battery upon a child causing substantial bodily injuries. Under the General Laws of Massachusetts, Chapter 265, Crimes Against the Person. Section 13J “Assault and battery upon a child; penalties” offers the following definitions:

Bodily injury: “substantial impairment of the physical condition including any burn, fracture of any bone, subdural hematoma, injury to any internal organ, any injury which occurs as the result of repeated harm to any bodily function or organ including human skin or any physical condition which substantially imperils a child’s health or welfare.”

Child: any person younger than 14 years of age
Substantial bodily injury: “bodily injury which creates a permanent disfigurement, protracted loss or impairment of a function of a body member, limb or organ, or substantial risk of death.”

Punishment for conviction of this crime is up to five years in state prison or no more than 2.5 years in the house of correction.

James has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Silveria is charged with intimidation of a witness and permitting substantial injuries to a child under 14 years of age.

According to police, the face of Silveria’s little girl was so mutilated that doctors will not be able to completely repair the damage. Part of her upper lip is now gone, and her ear cannot be made whole again. She also had bite wounds on her face and on other areas of her body.

James and Silveria are scheduled to appear in court next week for a dangerousness hearing. A dangerousness hearing can be called by the Assistant District Attorney. This allows the Assistant D.A. to hold the defendant in pre-trial detention with no bail. In order to prove dangerousness, there has to be “clear and convincing” evidence that letting the defendant go could be dangerous for the victim or other members of the community.

Officials at Children’s Hospital in Boston think that the bite attacks started in January and went on until at least April. However, Lori James, James’ aunt, claims that her nephew did not bite the girl’s lip and that the 3-year-old had told her that her tooth went through her lip when she fell in the tub. Lori James says that James has never abused any children.

Mass. Man Charged With Savagely Biting Little Girl, Keyetv.com, July 5, 2007
Police Arrest Man Accused Of Biting 3-Year-Old, Yahoo.com, July 4, 2007
Domestic Violence Brochure, Mass.gov
Crimes, Punishments, and Proceedings in Criminal Cases, The General Laws of Massachusetts Continue reading

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