Fabricio Paes said that he woke shortly after 5 a.m. to the sounds of “people screaming, glass shattering” and thought at first that his two young sons were making a ruckus before school. But then the smell of smoke hit him.

Paes’ family lives on the third floor of 432 Meridian St. The address was the second home hit in the fire called in shortly before 5 a.m. By the time the fire was knocked out, the upper half of the building was a blackened shell.

Paes said that the smoke and then the sounds of his downstairs neighbor pounding on his door and screaming that everyone needed to “get out” woke him out of his funk and into action. By the time he closed his door with his family rushing down the stairs in front of him, he said, his “entire floor was filled with thick, black smoke.”

The roughly 130 firefighters defeated the brunt of the blaze at around 8:30 a.m. In all, the blaze had displaced about 30 residents, as well as some pet birds. One firefighter and six residents, including at least one child, were rushed to the nearest hospital. One resident had been pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

Homicide detectives were dispatched to the scene, which a Boston Police Department spokesman said could indicate the death was deemed suspicious.

“The first firefighters that got here had heavy fire showing from two buildings and did rescue of five people over aerial ladders,” Boston Fire Department Commissioner Paul Burke said from the scene. He said the “stubborn fire” had spread to two other homes.

In all, the Fire Department estimated the total damage at $5 million. The two homes most affected by the fire, 432 and 430 Meridian Street — right at the intersection with West Eagle Street — had a combined assessed value of about $1.86 million, with about $1.34 of that as building value, according to city tax records.

At approximately 5:00 heavy fire in a large multi family building on Meridian st East Boston that traveled to the adjacent building . Heavy fire throughout the building , this is now a 6 alarm. pic.twitter.com/MyGNTVDTZu

— Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) April 2, 2024

There was visible damage to other valuable accessories in proximity to the homes. The hood of a white Toyota Corolla parked behind 430 Meridian St. was blackened and twisted from the heat of the raging fire. All of its windows had been blown out.

The fire, according to authorities and those like Paes displaced by it, first engulfed 430 Meridian St. The multi-family dwelling housed, by at least one neighbor’s estimate, about seven families — three of whom the neighbor knew.

Luckily, Juanita Brown said that everyone she was close with in the building was fine, but one of the women told her that “She’s devastated. She lost everything.”

“I just want to get down on my hands and knees and pray for them,” Brown said, adding that it is the first time she has experienced a big fire in the 16 years she has lived in the immediate area.

She said she’s already reached out to Mayor Michelle Wu and East Boston’s city councilor, Gabriela “Gigi” Coletta, to ask about how she can help, and she encouraged others to do the same.

Companies are attacking the exposure building with and interior and exterior attack and from the roof deck from the building in the rear to keep it from spreading down block pic.twitter.com/zCEYGiMRNa

— Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) April 2, 2024

At the scene of the blaze, Mayor Wu described the fire as “incredibly heartbreaking,” adding that she shares “her deepest condolences” with the family of the unidentified person who died.

“We will do whatever we can to help all of those who have been displaced,” Wu said, adding the quick response of the firefighters from all around the city saved the day.

Coletta tweeted a link to a fundraiser page run by the East Boston Social Centers that specifies that it’s “focused on raising money to provide families with help and dignity as they navigate this tragedy.”

Coletta tweeted that she’s “Grateful to the @BostonFire, @BOSTON_EMS @bostonpolice and all first responders who acted quickly to maintain this 6-alarm fire in East Boston.”

The fire remains under investigation.

Over 130 Firefighters battled the 6 alarm fire. Companies starting to make up 30 residents , a couple of birds displaced 1 Firefighter and 6 residents were transported ⁦@BOSTON_EMS⁩ . Damages estimated at 5 million dollars. pic.twitter.com/pBnnYWsnDs

— Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) April 2, 2024

Commissioner Burke and ⁦@MayorWu⁩ brief the media on the 6 alarm fire in East Boston. 5 residents were rescued over ladders but sadly there was 1 fatality. pic.twitter.com/qO2GJGLqHv

— Boston Fire Dept. (@BostonFire) April 2, 2024

Hanson resident John D. Murphy, 50, was arrested Thursday and pleaded not guilty in federal court in Boston the next morning to nine counts of possessing animals for use in an animal fighting venture. Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy released Murphy on $5,000 unsecured bond ahead of a formal detention hearing scheduled to take place at the federal court in Worcester on April 3 at noon.

The U.S. Marshals Service on June 7, 2023, seized eight “pit bull-type” dogs from Murphy’s Hanson home, according to a civil forfeiture document filed in the case. One of the dogs, which the feds described as a “red, underweight male” and possibly suffering from cancer, died during the seizure. Of the remaining dogs, five of them were males and two were female.

Ahead of the seizure, law enforcement conducted aerial surveillance of Murphy’s residence in late March and early April of 2023 where they allegedly observed a “stockaded enclosure as well as what agents believed to be outdoor housing structures for fighting dogs” and during both days of surveillance “observed one or more dogs within or immediately outside of the enclosure.”

“In the United States, dogfighting ventures usually involve pit bull-type dogs, which dogfighters prefer for their compact muscular build, short coat, and the aggression that some display toward other dogs,” the feds wrote in the document, adding that owners tend to “isolate dogs” both to prevent fighting outside the pit and to “discourage normal socialization.”

Valuable and winning dogs, the feds say, are kept “for long periods of time so that (owners) can continue to profit off those dogs in future dogfights or from selling offspring or breeding rights. The more fights a dog wins, the higher the dog’s value.”

The feds also seized five dogs the same day from a residence in Townsend. The owner of that residence is identified in court documents as Steven Morrissey, but a query of federal court dockets does not show him to be charged yet with any crime, though the allegations in the document are similar to those against Murphy.

All of the dogs are being cared for by a Marshals Service contractor, according to the forfeiture doc.

The feds say that owners keep so many dogs because fights are arranged based on animal sex and weight within a pound of each other, so keeping different dogs increases the chances the owner will have a dog that meets the needs of a proposed fight. Dogs will often die or become terribly injured during fights, and owners are known to kill less aggressive dogs to make room on their roster.

These fights, the feds say, were arranged in private Facebook groups, where Murphy allegedly participated under the aliases “John Mac Murchaidha” and “Séamus Sugar.” Such groups, like “Scratch Dog Journal,” are also allegedly used to share results of fights, buy and sell fighting dogs and share tips on training and conditioning of the dogs.

The feds say Murphy’s home was chockablock with dogfighting instruments and materials, according to the indictment delivered by the grand jury on March 28.

Those materials allegedly include intravenous infusion equipment and other veterinary materials like syringes, antibiotics, injectable steroids and corticosteroids, forceps, and a “skin stapler”; as well as training materials including a treadmill, slat mill, carpet mill and a flirt pole, which is a pole with a lure at the end that dogs can chase and is used in this subculture to “increase jaw strength and increase aggression.”

He is also alleged to have kept books and DVDs on dog training and fighting; a digital scale; “break sticks,” which the feds say are used to separate fighting dogs; and “a breeding stand used to immobilize female dogs during breeding.”

“Because the Court concludes that no egregious misconduct occurred that is reasonably or substantially likely to materially prejudice or interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial, the Court will deny the motion,” Judge Beverly J. Cannone wrote in her ruling.

Read’s defense attorneys declined to comment to the Herald on the ruling.

Cannone’s decision follows swiftly after she denied on Tuesday the defense’s request that the case be dismissed. The trial is set to start on April 16.

Prosecutors say that Read struck Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, with her Lexus SUV outside a Canton home in the very early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022, and left him there to die in the cold. She was indicted on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter while operating under the influence of alcohol, and leaving the scene of a personal injury or death, to which she has pleaded not guilty.

The defense counters with a third-party culprit theory that, as Cannone summarizes, “one or more persons attending a social gathering at (that) home killed O’Keefe and that they, along with others, including the Canton and State Police, engaged in a coverup of the crime.” After O’Keefe was allegedly beaten and murdered inside the home, they say, his body was planted outside.

Central in the defense theory is Brian Albert, a Boston Police Department sergeant and then-homeowner of 34 Fairview Road in Canton where O’Kee’s body was found on the front lawn. The defense has implicated him and others, including his sister-in-law Jennifer McCabe, of participating in a conspiracy surrounding O’Keefe’s death. Both Albert and McCabe, as well as other outside parties, have obtained lawyers to represent them in court.

They have also fingered Norfolk DA Morrissey as a participant in that conspiracy through at least two ways: first, making an unprecedented public statement on Aug. 25, 2023, decrying the defense’s theory and vouching for the people implicated in it and, second, that he had failed to disclose details of a federal inquiry into his office’s handling of the murder investigation.

“Jennifer McCabe, Matthew McCabe, Brian Albert. These people were not part of a conspiracy and certainly did not commit murder or any crime that night. They have been forthcoming with authorities, provided statements, and have not engaged in any cover up. They are not suspects in any crime — they are merely witnesses in the case,” Morrissey said in his public statement which was released as both a press release transcript as well as a video.

He also defended the principal Massachusetts State Police investigator in the case, Trooper Michael Proctor, who the defense has said had an improper relationship with the Alberts and have accused of investigatory misconduct.

“Trooper Proctor was not there and did not plant evidence at 34 Fairview Road,” Morrissey said. “In addition to having no opportunity to plant evidence as has been suggested, Trooper Proctor would have no motive to do so: Trooper Proctor had no close personal relationship with any of the parties involved in the investigation, had no conflict, and had no reason to step out of the investigation.”

The MSP has since revealed that Proctor is the subject of an internal review, but said that he will continue on the job as that investigation is conducted. The MSP would not provide details on the scope or focus of the investigation.

Judge Cannone in her ruling admits that some parts of Morrissey’s statement runs afoul of the rules of professional conduct, as the defense had argued, “particularly his comments about witnesses that relate to their credibility are the type of extrajudicial statements.” She does not find, however, that the statements rise to the level to which the indictments against Read should be dismissed.

“Though certain comments by DA Morrissey crossed the line of permissible extrajudicial statements by a prosecutor, they are not egregious misconduct that is reasonably or substantially likely to materially prejudice or interfere with a fair trial,” she wrote.

The defense further accused Morrissey of violating the rules of professional conduct by not disclosing that the U.S. Attorney’s office for Massachusetts was conducting an investigation of its own into the Karen Read investigation until six months after Morrissey himself had learned of it. It’s a charge to which Cannone wrote she “does not agree.”

She found that while the Norfolk DA’s office was in communication with the U.S. Attorney’s office over the subpoenas of their witnesses for that time period, the DA’s office “had little to no information about the investigation and was unaware of what, if any, evidence” the U.S. Attorney’s office had.

Police tracked down Dejan Belnavis, 27, in San Diego on March 11 after a nearly weeklong manhunt for the suspected gunman. He was brought back to Massachusetts where on Friday morning he appeared in Worcester District Court to be charged with two counts of murder.

At that hearing, a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf. The judge ordered Belnavis held without bail.

Another man, Karel Mangual, 28, of Sterling Street in Worcester, was arraigned earlier this month on initial charges of armed assault with intent to murder and carrying a firearm without a license, to which he pleaded not guilty. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that he was ordered held without bail and is scheduled to appear back in court for a probable cause hearing on April 12.

Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early announced following that arraignment that the charges would be increased to murder, as would Belnavis’ charges.

The two men are accused of murdering mother Chastity Nunez, 27, and her daughter Zella Nunez, 11, while they were parked in a car in the area of Lisbon Street and Englewood Avenue, according to previous Herald coverage.

Police say they connected Belnavis and Mangual to the shooting through security camera footage, emergency pings of Belnavis’ cell phone, and records from the internal system of the white Acura that authorities say Belnavis was driving at the time of the murders.

Prosecutors say that after Worcester Police received the shots fired call, investigators obtained security camera footage from the scene that shows “the victims’ vehicle parked on the side of the road and two men walk up to the vehicle and start shooting at the vehicle.”

The men then flee the scene toward the white Acura, for which police say an on-scene witness provided the Massachusetts license plate number. The registered owner of that vehicle told police that he had loaned the car to Belnavis starting around a year ago.

Police further linked Belnavis to the scene, according to the “Statement of Facts” document that support the murder charges, because cell phone tower records put him near there at the time of the shooting.

Records provided by AT&T of the Acura’s internal system put the car in Hartford, Conn., after the shooting, police say. Authorities say that security camera footage from there shows two men exiting the suspect vehicle and that Mangual’s face is clearly visible and both men’s shoes match those from the crime scene footage.

This is a developing story.

State Police say they located Liam David Pagan at a hotel in Windsor, Conn. “He is safe,” the MSP tweeted at 10:42 a.m. Friday.

At 10:48 a.m., the agency confirmed that they had found the suspected car thief and abductor, a 52-year-old Springfield man, at Anytime Fitness in Windsor, Conn.

The suspect has been identified as Vadim Vorobyov, 52, of Springfield. He will be charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, and fugitive from justice in Connecticut. He’s also expected to be charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, and motor vehicle larceny in Massachusetts.

“Investigation indicates he dropped the child off at the Rodeway Inn and then drove to the shopping plaza where he left the car. Hotel employees contacted police,” the MSP wrote.

The child was found safe and apparently unharmed. The boy was transported to a Massachusetts hospital for a precautionary examination.

The MSP had issued the AMBER Alert reporting the abduction just before 10:30 a.m.

“Preliminary investigation suggests that at approximately 8:40 AM VOROBYOV came across the Toyota Camry as it was parked outside a residence on Exchange Street in Chicopee with the motor running and the child in the backseat,” Mass State Police wrote. “He entered the vehicle and drove away.”

The Kids and Car Safety national nonprofit quickly put out a public service announcement stating 27 children were left alone in a vehicle that was then stolen this year. “We see an increase in these cases every year as the temperatures get cooler,” they added.

“It is incredibly traumatizing for everyone involved and a significant misuse of law enforcement
resources. Incidents like this are very easily avoidable by never leaving a child alone in a
vehicle,” the nonprofit added.

Tips for parents:

1. Never leave a child of any age or pet alone in a vehicle, not even for a minute.
2. Use drive-thrus or curbside pickup so you don’t have to leave your vehicle.
3. If a business doesn’t offer curbside delivery, call upon arrival and ask them to bring your order to your car. Most people are more than happy to accommodate you when you tell them you have small children. It takes a village!
4. Keep car doors locked and keys on your person when pumping gas with children inside the vehicle.

Scott Jameson, 47, of Sutton and also Ireland, was arrested in October 2022 on a single count of child pornography after customs agents uncovered some 100 images of child pornography on his laptop, as well as a roughly 12-second video was allegedly discovered on an external hard drive that captured the genitals of a young boy.

His charges were increased the following month when he was indicted on charges of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place and transportation of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to both charges in federal court in Boston last November.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns sentenced Jameson to 78 months — or six ½ years — in federal prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. Jameson will also have to pay $20,000 in special assessments.

“Scott Jameson thought that by traveling overseas to Cambodia in order to sexually exploit children, he could get away with it. He was wrong,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy. “Sexual exploitation of children is unconscionable, regardless of where the victims live. Our office works with international authorities regularly to make sure that individuals like Mr. Jameson are held accountable for their criminal conduct.”

Authorities were first made aware of Jameson’s overseas wrongdoing when members of the Cambodian organization Action Pour Les Enfants, or APLE, contacted FBI agents stationed in their country in February 2022 and told them that Jameson “was engaged in inappropriate behavior and potential sexual exploitation of minors in Kratie, Cambodia,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

That behavior included giving gifts and money to the families of small children and then sleeping with the children. And it wasn’t just once, as APLE reported to the FBI that Jameson had traveled from Boston to Cambodia again in August 2022. It was upon his return the next month that customs agents encountered him at Logan International Airport in Boston and found the illicit materials.

Jameson performed across New England for 20 years a high-tech brand of magic for children as young as kindergarten and as old as eighth grade. He wrote on his website that his act made use of his disparate “training in gymnastics, dance, acting, and even microchip programming.”

He employed similar skills in teaching Cambodian children English during his travels to the southeast Asian country, he wrote.

Members of the public who have questions, concerns or information regarding this case should call 617-748-3274, federal prosecutors say.

James Feeley, 56, of Winthrop, appeared Thursday morning in the Superior Court in the same outfit he wore three months ago when his case was first arraigned in municipal court in East Boston, but this time he was wearing glasses.

Feeley pleaded not guilty to seven counts of aggravated rape and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child. Defense attorney Stephen Neyman said he had no comment on the matter following the proceeding.

Clerk Magistrate Edward Curley ordered Feeley held on the same bail and conditions as were imposed at the earlier, East Boston arraignment on Dec. 27: $200,000 cash bail, no contact with the alleged victim or her family, no contact with anyone under 16 years old, that he surrender his passport and any firearms and that he stay in the Massachusetts other than any exclusion zones.

Curley scheduled the case as one “most complex” and set a tentative trial date of March 3, 2025. The case’s next scheduled hearing is set for June 5 at 2 p.m.

Prosecutor Audrey Mark, the chief of the Suffolk District Attorney’s office’s child protection unit, argued that the high bail is necessary because of the “seriousness of the alleged crimes” and because of the stiff maximum penalty of 10 years in state prison.

Further, she said, Feeley himself had admitted to his wife, to the Winthrop Police chief and to investigators following his arrest that he had raped the child some “five to six times” while the child was between 10 and 11 years old.

The rapes are alleged to have occurred, she said, at Feeley’s own home on Winthrop’s Pleasant Street between August 2022 and December 2023. The child first reported the incidents to an adult on Christmas Day of last year.

Feeley is alleged to have orally raped and fondled the child, Mark said. She added that when the defendant’s wife found out about it and confronted him, “he did not deny the abuse.”

Feeley was arrested after Winthrop Police Chief Terance Delehanty told a Massachusetts State Police detective that the officer  had called him from his parents’ graves at Winthrop’s Belle Isle Cemetery and told him that he was “in a bad way.”

Delehanty said he believed that Feeley was suicidal and that Feeley told him “wait until I tell you what I’ve done,” before disclosing that he had had sexual contact with the child.

Boston Police say they arrested Francis Gomez, 36, in Brighton Wednesday night for two incidents of “peeping in windows” at residences on Donnybrook Road and Beechcroft Street, both in Brighton.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment at municipal court in Brighton Thursday and is being held in lieu of posting $5,000 bail. The judge ordered that if Gomez were to post bail, he must stay away from the target areas

A woman living on Donnybrook Road called police last Thursday to report that several nights before, on March 17, she saw a man “walking back and forth, outside her residence, staring at her window” for a period of time around 2:30 a.m.

His behavior, she told a detective, scared her so much that she “immediately got onto the floor because she was terrified of being seen by this suspect” when he made his way up to her porch, according to the police report.

The woman and her housemate told police that the man, who they said was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood wrapped tightly around his head, walked up to the porch and they could hear “the outside doorknob jiggling,” police said.

Police canvassed the area and came up with a video recorded from a Blink security camera installed on a nearby home. They showed a still of a man roughly matching the alleged victim’s description to her and she agreed that was the man she had seen.

Police say the still was of a man they knew to be Gomez, who they wrote in their report has “exhibited this type of behavior in the past on numerous occasions” and has a history of breaking and entering, or attempting to do so.

Another similar alleged incident occurred the same night, this time on Beechcroft, where a woman reported a man walking around her house with a flashlight and looking into her windows.

She told police he started with her downstairs kitchen window before making his way around to her bedroom window, after which she called police. When police arrived, they found no suspect “but did find a plastic chair in the driveway directly in front of the victim’s window” which the victim said did not belong to her.

Police were also able to recover video from the Beechcroft Street neighborhood.

In June of 2022, Gomez was arrested and charged with breaking and entering in the nighttime and possession of burglarious instruments related to an incident on Gardena Street in Brighton, according to the incident’s police report.

In that event, the caller said she walked out of her bedroom toward the bathroom of her home a little after 5 a.m. and was surprised to find a man, who the police say is Gomez, running away through her kitchen.

“I try to do peepee over in the corner and the lady she see me and I go, man,” Gomez allegedly told officers after the woman identified him.

Police say they found plyers and a screwdriver in his pants pocket at his arrest.

The Rwandan genocide took the lives of about 800,000 Tutsis, the ethnic minority of the country, over 100 days in 1994. Boston-based prosecutors say that Eric Tabaro Nshimiye, 52, was one of the many perpetrators of that horror while a politically involved medical student there.

U.S. Homeland Security Investigations special agents arrested Nshimiye from his Uniontown, Ohio, home on March 21. He made an initial appearance in federal court in northern Ohio, where he is detained until he appears in federal court in Boston at an as-yet-unscheduled date.

The feds say that Nshimiye, who also goes by the last name Nshimiyimana, was a medical student in the small, central African country at the University of Rwanda campus in Butare starting in 1991.

Butare is a city in the south of the country known to be more cosmopolitan, intellectual and diverse than the rest of the country as a whole. Despite the vibrant setting, the feds say that while at the university, Nshimiye was an active member of the ruling MRND political party, which was led by Rwandan’s ethnic majority the Hutus. At the time, according to charging documents, the Hutus made up 85% of the country’s population.

Observers say that Hutus dominated the Republic of Rwanda ever since it gained independence from Belgium in 1962 and instituted policies that discriminated against and in some cases enacted violence against the Tutsis, leaving many of the ethnic minority to flee and some to form a rebel guerilla army known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

The RPF invaded Rwanda from neighboring Uganda and forced the Hutu leader to agree to political power-sharing agreements bridging the two ethnicities. But on April 6, 1994, a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down, which an affidavit supporting the charges in this case described as an assassination that “precipitated a period of political and ethnic violence in Rwanda.”

In particular, Hutu extremists with positions of power in an interim government formed after Habyarimana’s assassination, called for the killing of prominent opposition figures, including Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians,” HSI Special Agent Matthew Langille summarized in his affidavit. “Included among those killed were government ministers opposed to the extremists.”

The killing spread all over, as Hutu soldiers, civilians and militias, including the youth militia of the MRND party — to which prosecutors say Nshimiye belonged and trained with in a field near the university — “engaged in genocidal mania using machetes and clubs to beat and hack to death thousands of Tutsis wherever they were found.”

The feds say that Nshimiye played an active role in identifying Tutsis at the university and the hospital and also stationed himself at roadblocks to help identify Tutsis. Prosecutors say his involvement became more physical and that fellow killers as well as survivors have identified him “as among the most vicious University students” during the genocide.

Witnesses specifically told investigators of the time Nshimiye allegedly killed a mother and then took a machete and spiked club to the woman’s 14-year-old son. He would then participate in burning their bodies. Another witness said that Nshimiye also regularly raped and killed Tutsi women.

The feds say that Nshimiye fled Rwanda to Kenya after RPF rebels defeated the Hutu extremists in power and the genocide came to an end. He was then granted asylum to the U.S. as a refugee in 1995 and soon sought to become a permanent resident, a status he was granted in 1998. He became a naturalized citizen in 2003. He has lived and worked in Ohio since 1995.

James Feeley, 56, of Winthrop, faces seven counts of aggravated rape and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 years old. A Suffolk County grand jury indicted him on March 4.

He is set to be arraigned on the new charges Thursday at an unknown time.

Feeley himself had admitted to police that he had sexually assaulted the child, according to the redacted criminal complaint released following his first arraignment in the case at municipal court in East Boston on Dec. 27.

A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf there on the then-charges of aggravated rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child.

Feeley was a lieutenant with two decades of experience at the Winthrop Police Department, according to previous reporting. Feeley was placed on administrative leave following his arrest and the department has since fully severed ties.

In an interview summarized in the criminal complaint, Winthrop Police Chief Terance Delehanty told a Massachusetts State Police detective that Feeley had called him from his parents’ graves at Winthrop’s Belle Isle Cemetery and told him that he was “in a bad way.”

Delehanty said he believed that Feeley was suicidal and that Feeley told him “wait until I tell you what I’ve done,” before disclosing that he had had sexual contact with the child. The assaults, according to the complaint, “occurred on unknown dates and times presumably in Winthrop.”

“This defendant made the reprehensible — and ultimately deadly — decision to indulge his rage by firing into a group of people who were gathered to enjoy fireworks in honor of Independence Day,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “That decision cost Felicity Coleman her life and handed her family and friends unending sorrow and grief.”

A jury convicted Kristian Maraj, 26, of Dorchester, on Feb. 9 of both manslaughter and illegal firearm possession. This week, Judge Anthony Campo sentenced Maraj to 17 to 20 years in state prison on the manslaughter charge and a concurrent four-year sentence on the firearms charge.

Prosecutors say that Maraj was in a crowd of people who were celebrating Fourth of July 2020 in the early hours of the next morning by lighting fireworks from the intersection of Stonehurst Street and Norton Street in Dorchester.

At some point, prosecutors wrote in their statement of the case, Maraj and another, unknown man got into some kind of argument. Maraj then brought out a pistol, which the other man knocked out of his hands and to the ground. An unidentified friend of Maraj’s picked up the gun and ran toward Maraj’s Hamilton Street house as the fight continued on the street.

When Maraj’s father stepped between the two men, someone stabbed him and father and son ran off, with Maraj purportedly yelling, “They stabbed my father!”

Maraj came back, in a rage, with his gun and fired directly into the crowd, striking and killing 34-year-old Felicity Coleman.

Coleman’s cousin read a lengthy statement before sentencing and promised to come to “every parole hearing to remind all how this man took an innocent life with no remorse and how he is a danger to society and has already proven so.”

“No amount of justice can bring her back or ease the pain of her loss, but it is my fervent hope that the severity of this crime is met with appropriate consequence,” the cousin said, later adding “Although my cousin was not her killer’s direct target, he did have a target in mind. Please remember that this man made his decision to kill prior to doing so.”

“May Felicity’s memory be a beacon of light in the darkness, guiding us through our grief and inspiring us to cherish each moment we are given. Though she may no longer walk among us, her spirit will forever live on in our hearts,” her cousin continued.

Patrick Harland, 30, of South Boston, is charged with first-degree murder, seven counts of armed assault to murder, witness intimidation, accessory after the fact and carrying a firearm without a license. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in Suffolk Superior Court on Tuesday, where he was held without bail. His case is scheduled to return for a hearing on April 4 at 2 p.m.

Two other men, Dasahn Crowder, 21, of Quincy, and Tyrese Robinson,19, of Randolph, were arrested the day after the Dec. 30 shooting and killing of Curtis Effee, 41, of Boston. They were charged with first-degree murder on Jan. 2 at municipal court in Dorchester.

Prosecutors say that Harland and his girlfriend went to an apartment in the 400-block of Geneva Ave. in Dorchester the night of Dec. 29 and hung out there for several hours. Sometime after midnight, some sort of verbal altercation took place that pitted Harland and his girlfriend against Effee.

The fight escalated enough that Harland called for some murderous reinforcements, according to the prosecution’s statement of the case document. He allegedly sent Crowder — his girlfriend’s nephew — a Facebook message asking for his help at around 12:44 a.m. on Dec. 30, to which Crowder allegedly said “I’m coming now.”

Harland then told everyone that Crowder was coming over with a gun, prosecutors say.

Three minutes later, Crowder and Robinson arrived and the verbal altercation became a physical fight on the street. Prosecutors say that the street wasn’t empty, but that there was a “crowd” of people there, including a 10-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl.

Prosecutors say that Harland pointed a knife at Effee and that Crowder and Robinson took out guns and started shooting. Effee was fatally struck, and police say he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The three alleged murderers fled the area, with Crowder and Robinson in their car and Harland running on foot.

The Boston Police Department asks that anyone with any information about this incident to contact homicide detectives by calling 617-343-4470.

“The incident provided a stark example of the benefits of mobile platforms capable of opening doors and ascending stairs in tactical missions involving armed suspects,” Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said in a statement.

Inserting the robot, he added, “may have prevented a police officer from being involved in an exchange of gunfire.”

On March 6, police released a robot designed and manufactured by Boston Dynamics into a Francis Circle residence in Barnstable to assist a Cape Cod SWAT team during a barricade situation in which a man was armed with a rifle. They also deployed two PackBot 510 from Virginia-based Teledyne FLIR Defense.

The Spot unit, so named by its manufacturer because of its dog-like size and four-legged design, that police named “Roscoe” was released to the basement. It cleared a closet there before it was surprised by the man with the gun who came out of a bedroom, according to Massachusetts State Police.

The man knocked Roscoe over and then walked up the stairs. The officer remotely controlling Roscoe was able to right the robot and then follow the target up the stairs.

“When the suspect realized, with apparent surprise, that Roscoe was behind him on the stairs, he again knocked the robot over and then raised his rifle in Roscoe’s direction,” the MSP wrote in a statement. “The robot suddenly lost communications.”

Police would later learn that Roscoe had taken three bullets, disabling it.

The man then turned his attention to the two PackBot 510 robots. The robots are rubber-tracked with a central arm that the company describes as specializing in “bomb disposal, surveillance and reconnaissance” as well as detecting chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats and handling hazardous materials.

As the man was distracted by those two robots, according to the MSP, police were able to release tear gas into the home. The man would soon surrender.

Teledyne FLIR said that its Unmanned Ground Systems division, maker of the PackBots, is based in Chelmsford, and that the company has “been supporting the Mass State Police for many years, going back to when they used PackBots during the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.”

“Nothing makes us prouder than when one of our robots assists law enforcement in the line of duty and possibly saves lives. All credit goes to the officers who responded to this incident,” spokesman Joe Ailinger, Jr. told the Herald of the PackBots, which have been around since 2001 and are in use by military and law enforcement in more than 40 countries.

Likewise, a Boston Dynamics spokesperson said that the company is “proud” that its robot was able to help, adding that it was the first time a Spot unit had been shot in its long career assisting law enforcement.

“Spot keeps people out of harm’s way and aids first responders in assessing dangerous situations,” Kerri Neelon, a company spokesperson, said. “We are relieved that the only casualty that day was our robot. It’s a great example of how mobile robots like Spot can be used to save lives.”

Trooper John Ragosa, the MSP bomb squad member who was controlling Roscoe, took him to Boston Dynamics to have the damage assessed. The company, the MSP says, has expressed interest in keeping the shot-up unit for study. Procopio said the MSP will be replacing their Spot unit.

Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward McDonough accepted former superintendent Bennett Walsh’s plea admitting to sufficient facts to five counts of neglect of an elder related to Walsh’s decision to combine multiple dementia care units into one in March 2020, which in turn led to the deaths of numerous residents who had not been exposed to the virus before the change.

McDonough ordered the case be continued for three months without a finding and ordered Walsh to comply with probationary conditions including that Walsh not contact the victims’ families or work in a medical field. McDonough did not impose probation itself. This finding was identical to the defense’s recommendation.

The prosecution recommended that Walsh serve three years of probation with the first year under home confinement. The prosecutor said the recommendation for only probation and not any prison was made because Walsh had a clean criminal record. The maximum penalty for each count was three years in state prison.

At the same hearing, Dr. David Clinton, the the home’s former medical director, also admitted to sufficient facts in his case and received the same continued finding.

This conclusion left state Attorney General Andrea Campbell “disappointed.”

“Today the justice system failed the families who lost their loved ones at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home,” she said in a statement. “I am disappointed and disheartened with the Court’s decision, and want these families and our veterans to know my office did everything it could to seek accountability. We will continue to be vigilant in prosecuting cases of elder abuse and neglect.”

Over the course of the roughly hour-long hearing in Hampshire Superior Court in Northampton, the prosecution and the defense painted different pictures of the crisis at the Soldiers Home.

The prosecutor said that the conditions of the consolidated dementia care unit “were quite bad” and had been described variously by those who witnessed it as “a war zone,” “a battlefield,” and “the worst I have ever seen.”

The prosecutor described the consolidated unit as overly ad hoc, and that dementia care patients were seen wandering around naked, or nearly so, and crammed so tightly that there were double the allowed number of people per room.

When the unit was first created, the prosecutor argued, five of nine residents who were assigned to live in the dining room were asymptomatic for COVID19, but the cramped conditions and lack of medical care caused them to come down with the fatal virus.

Walsh said during his change of plea that he accepted there were sufficient facts to convict him of neglect, but that he does “not admit that such a decision was wanton and reckless in light of the situation.”

Walsh and his attorney said that Walsh, a career military man, had assessed the dire staffing shortage in light of the current guidance coming from state and federal leaders in those confused, early days of COVID.

Walsh’s attorney said that in the weeks leading up to the crisis at the Soldiers Home, the flu had been bad in Massachusetts but the state had only seen one confirmed case of COVID-19. He said that leaders sent out an email basically saying that, “Yes, it is very contagious but it is also not a danger to the majority of people who catch it.”

Associated Press materials were used in this report.

“I’m just throwing at a dartboard, but based on what I know, if the Commonwealth’s case takes three to four weeks, I think our case would probably take two weeks,” Read defense attorney Alan Jackson said at a hearing Tuesday morning.

Following the hearing, Judge Beverly Cannone denied a defense motion to dismiss the case. Read’s case is scheduled to go to trial on April 16.

That dismissal motion argued that the indictment of Read should be tossed because prosecutors presented deceptive evidence to the grand jury and withheld exculpatory evidence. Specifically, the defense has alleged that law enforcement sources have engaged in a conspiracy to frame their client, largely due to interpersonal relationships with the Albert family, who owned the home where O’Keefe’s body was found on the front lawn.

In her 24-page ruling, Cannone summarized the defense’s arguments, weighed them and concluded that, “Given the extensive evidence supporting the indictments, to the extent that the Commonwealth improperly put before or withheld any evidence from the grand jury, it is unlikely that it affected the outcome of the proceedings.”

Read’s defense declined to comment.

Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said that, “We look forward to presenting the case to a jury as soon as possible.”

Prosecutors accuse Read, 44, of Mansfield, of backing her Lexus SUV into O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, and leaving him to die in the cold at the end of January 2022. Prosecutors say that taillight pieces were located in the area where O’Keefe’s body was found on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton where Read and O’Keefe were supposed to meet up with others for an afterparty following a night of drinking at two bars downtown.

The defense has countered with a third-party culprit theory that alleges that then-owner of the 34 Fairview Road home Brian Albert, a fellow BPD officer, or others inside that home actually killed O’Keefe and that the investigators in the case have conducted a massive coverup to frame their client.

The California-based Jackson was speaking from Zoom. Fellow defense attorney David Yannetti was also absent from court for undisclosed reasons. The absence of both lead defense attorneys at Tuesday’s hearing did not please Cannone, who reminded Jackson that counsel arguing motions were “to be present here in court today.”

This was the second hearing in less than a week in the Read case. While lasting merely 20 minutes or so, the parties still had time to quibble over the last remaining background pieces before the case goes to trial.

When asked how much reciprocal discovery the defense had provided the prosecution, Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally said “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Likewise, Tanis Yannetti — attorney David Yannetti’s sister who works at the same firm — said that the defense would be happy to comply with discovery obligations when Lally and his team comply with their obligations first.

At the last hearing, David Yannetti said he had expected to file a separate motion to dismiss the indictments by the end of the day, which was the last day such motions could be filed.

That motion was not filed due to an unspecified “strategic decision,” according to Tanis Yannetti. Because it was not filed, Judge Cannone waived it.

The department reports it has received many complaints about phone calls wherein the caller tells a parent or relative — often a grandparent, based on previous Herald reporting — in the Boston area that their child is being held hostage and will only be released if the parent or relative pays a ransom.

“During the ransom call, children are heard crying in the background, a frequent tactic used in prior calls of this nature that have targeted the elderly,” the BPD wrote in a statement on the trend.

The BPD offered some tips on how to avoid being hoaxed. First, the target should ask the caller for specific information about the person, including having them describe the child or relative. If the caller can’t, then it’s a confirmed hoax. The target can also ask for a description of where the family member is located. The target should be sure to write down the phone number of the call or text to give to the police.

The target should then try to contact the person reported as abducted to see if they’re actually safe and then contact the police immediately. In addition to contacting local police, a scam victim should report the fraud to the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, at 1(877) FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357) or TTY 1-866-653-4261 or visit their website at: Consumer.ftc.gov/scam-alerts.

“This beauty is the Boston Police Department’s new comfort dog,” the department wrote of the new fox red labrador retriever they said “joined the world in December.”

The only trouble is, the pup that the department’s media team posted pictures of in heart frames doesn’t have a name, and they want the Boston public to help them with that.

The puppy will serve as the department’s “comfort dog” and her training for that role will be posted to the department’s social media platforms. That’s also where the BPD asks you to vote on a name.

On the departments account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @bostonpolice suggests four name options: Copper, Faith, Hope and Trusty. But social media users offered up scores of their own suggestions, like Miranda and Chloe on X and Callie, Cheer and Roxy on the department’s Facebook page.

An Oxford man out on bail for allegedly dealing drugs goes back to jail on new charge

On March 18, MBTA Police officers say they saw a familiar sight: one man would bring other men, one at a time, into a South Station bathroom for a few minutes at a time. Since they say they’ve had to call EMS for drug overdoses from that same bathroom in the past, they believed narcotic trafficking was happening there again.

Their instincts might have been right, because not too long after, police arrested Sean Lavin, 29, of Oxford, outside the station and charged him with carrying a dangerous weapon (knife), two counts of assault and battery on a police officer, possession of a class A substance (subsequent offense), possession with intent to distribute a class A substance, trafficking heroin, trespassing, loitering in a railroad or railway station, and resisting arrest.

“This is a good example of an offense that can grind neighborhoods down and affect how people go about their daily shopping routines and their daily commutes,” Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “We have no intent of clogging up jails with low-level, nonviolent one-time offenders, but we are not going to tolerate repeat offenders who impact the quality of life our residents and visitors expect and deserve.”

Boston Municipal Court Judge Joseph Griffin ordered Lavin held on $25,000 bail and revoked his bail in a pending Roxbury case where Lavin was already charged with dealing drugs.

While Transit Police didn’t see Lavin actually dealing drugs in South Station, they issued him a trespass order since he wasn’t taking any trains and told him to move along. Police say they saw him sitting outside the station’s Atlantic Avenue entrance and again told him he was trespassing and to move along.

“I didn’t do anything, I’m leaving,” Lavin said, according to police, just before he stood up, pushed both of the officers and then stumbled and dropped what police described as a black double-edged survival-type, foot-long knife.

After a brief foot pursuit, officers detained him and said they found nearly 40 grams of suspected heroin across 25 individually wrapped baggies that Lavin had stored in a fanny pack.

NYC man indicted for Christmas Somerset triple-fatality

Prosecutors say New York City’s Adam Gauthier, 41, was drunk when he mowed down a pair of grandparents and their 15-year-old grandson in the Somerset last Christmas evening.

Somerset Police arrested the former Somerset resident a little after 11 p.m. last Christmas following a crash that killed Seekonk residents Floriano Arruda,73; Donna Arruda, 68; Jacoby Arruda, 15. Police say that he was driving in the wrong lane during the crash on the Somerset side of the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge.

Career Boston thief charged with shoplifting, again

Boston’s Paul Nicholson will have a busy April 17, as the Suffolk DA’s office said he’s due in the central municipal court that day for both a brand new shoplifting charge to add to his 12-page rap sheet and a pending assault case.

“We are keenly aware that a relatively small number of offenders commit a disproportionate number of crimes, including store-based crimes,” Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden said in a statement drawing attention to the broader issue of retail theft in Boston.

“Although the merchandise was recovered here, the incident is indicative of activity that hurts retailers, shoppers and the community itself,” Hayden added. “This man has been convicted of similar offenses before and will be held accountable for his continued threat to our retail establishments.”

Prosecutors say that Nicholson’s record dates back to 1981 and is chockablock with thievery-related counts. Those include two convictions for larceny in June 2022, for which he was sentenced to 120 days in jail.

In the immediate case, police arrested Nicholson at around 5:40 p.m. on Jan. 24 when security staff at the Prudential Center’s Saks Fifth Avenue had stopped him after spotting him allegedly stuffing expensive Alice and Olivia dresses into his jacket and trying to walk out. At $295 a pop, the four dresses they say he was trying to steal were worth $1,180.

Cory Alvarez, 26, a Haitian national, is charged with aggravated rape of a child with a 10-year or more age difference. He also faces a new charge of rape of a child by force over the same incident. Alvarez has pleaded not guilty to both charges.

He is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl who police describe in a report as “disabled,” but did not specify any specific disability.

Hingham District Court Presiding Judge Heather Bradley found Alvarez dangerous and ordered him held without bail ahead of the probable cause hearing scheduled for April 22 at 9 a.m.

During the course of the hearing, Bradley admitted nine of 10 pieces of evidence and motions prosecutor Shana Buckingham submitted in the case.

Bradley found that the remaining piece, the detainer that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged against Alvarez for his deportation the day of his arrest, was not admissible for a dangerousness hearing. She also admitted the first bit of defense evidence, which is the CAD sheet, or summary of the 911 call, submitted by defense attorney Brian Kelley.

Bradley impounded all of the evidence, including the previously released police report.

The hearing scheduled for 11 a.m. began in earnest at 12:22 p.m. after the arrival of a French Creole interpreter.

A handcuffed Alvarez was brought into court wearing gray sweatpants and a red hooded sweatshirt, which police say is the article of clothing his alleged victim used to identify him to police. She would also identify him in a photo array.

Buckingham said she intends to begin grand jury proceedings in the case soon. Should the grand jury find enough evidence, Alvarez would face indictment in Plymouth Superior Court.

Rockland Police Det. Sgt. Gregory Pigeon took the stand to describe the allegations in the police report, as well as answered questions from the defense.

Allegations

Alvarez and the alleged victim both lived at the Comfort Inn at 850 Hingham St. in Rockland, which has been converted to a migrant housing facility operating under both state and federal programs, according to prosecutors.

Rockland Police responded to the hotel a little after 7 p.m. on March 13 after a desk clerk there called to report a rape, according to the police report.

“He raped me,” the girl would tell investigators from an examination room at South Shore Hospital, according to the police report. “I asked him to leave me alone but he didn’t stop.”

Neither the girl nor her father were English speakers, and spoke with police through the aid of a French Creole interpreter who connected by telephone.

Prosecutors say that Alvarez went with the girl to his room, room 216, to purportedly help her in some way with her government-provided tablet computer.

While the two were in the room together, prosecutors allege, Alvarez asked her if she had a boyfriend before he pushed her to the bed, pulled down her pants and underwear and preceded to rape her.

A woman who identified herself as Alvarez’s girlfriend said during a recess in the hearing that the two of them lived in room 216 together along with her own young child. Alvarez is not that child’s father. She spoke with reporters during the recess through the interpretation of a friend named Bernardo, who said he lives in Brockton.

Defense attorney Kelley said that surveillance footage from the hotel shows that the alleged victim is “fully clothed when she goes in the room, she’s fully clothed when she comes out.”

While arguing against detention, Kelley, who took on the case Friday, said that there was no corroborative evidence against his client, and just the word of the alleged victim.

“I think the presumption of innocence took a hit today,” Kelley told reporters following the hearing.

He said that surveillance footage from the hotel’s hallway shows that the alleged victim entered the room with Alvarez, stayed eight minutes and left again and did not look distressed or askew. She did not express any concern to anyone in the hallway or to National Guard members stationed at the facility.

He added that evidence from the SANE, or Sexual Assault Nurse Evaluation, had not yet been completed and so there is no physical evidence.

Kelley said that his client said that not only did he not rape the girl, but that “nothing happened” between them whatsoever.”

When asked by reporters why the girl would say she was raped, he said he didn’t know.

“You’re asking me to get into the mind of a 15-year-old girl,” he said.

Broader issues

The case has drawn national attention to Massachusetts and federal immigration programs.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee, announced earlier this week that he was launching an inquiry into the incident and the broader programs that drew the alleged rapist and victim together.

Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz told reporters after the hearing that he has broad concerns over what he says is a lack of transparency about the immigrant programs.

“My job is to prosecute crimes and promote public safety here in Plymouth County,” Cruz said, adding that he’d at least like to know if there are other shelters and who is going in and out of them and if they’re vetted. “We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again and to do that I need information.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said following the incident that Alvarez had entered the country legally through a federal program and had twice been vetted. She said the state has “security and systems in place” but “it is unfortunate that from time to time, things will happen anywhere, not just in shelter, but anywhere,” according to a previous Herald story.

The case also made its way into the race for New Hampshire governor. Republican candidate Kelly Ayotte called on her Democratic opponent to reject an endorsement by Healey following Healey’s comments on the issue which Ayotte believed didn’t take the problem seriously enough.

Joshua McCullough, 60, of Warwick, R.I., was until 2018 known as Terrell Muhammad, the man who shot and killed BPD Officer Thomas F. Rose on Feb. 19, 1993, while attempting an escape from the downtown police station.

McCullough petitioned to change his name on May 8, 2018, and the change was made on June 21, 2018, according to Suffolk County Probate Court records.

North Providence Police Chief Colonel Alfredo Ruggiero, Jr., confirmed that McCullough is the same two-time killer and career criminal.

Officers of the North Providence, Warwick and Rhode Island State and East Providence police departments arrested McCullough at 6 a.m. today at his home and charged him with first-degree robbery and felony assault.

Police say that McCullough approached a woman in the parking lot of the Citizens Bank in the 1000-block of Charles Street in North Providence Tuesday morning and punched her in the chest. He then grabbed her deposit bag filled with $12,665 and fled the scene in a silver JEEP Cherokee, police say.

The Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association said that its members “will never forget how Terrell Muhammad took the life of Boston Police Officer Thomas Rose.”

“In light of his past and most recent criminal activity in Rhode Island,” union President Larry Calderone said, “it seems abundantly clear the decision to release him was an incredibly poor one.”

MucCollough was once described by then-Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis as “a career criminal’s career criminal” and “the reason they invented the so-called ‘three strike’ law.” Gelzinis concluded that he’s a killer and lifelong criminal who has “gotten far too many chances.”

On Feb. 19, 1993, McCullough was locked up in a holding cell at the BPD’s A-1 station downtown, often called the Government Center station. McCullough had been allowed to exit his cell to make a phone call, but would show other intentions when, police say, he lunged for Rose’s service pistol and the two wrestled for control.

McCullough squeezed off a few rounds, at least two of which struck Rose and would take his life. Rose, a BPD officer for 13 years and a U.S. Air Force veteran, was 42 at the time of his killing. He was a father to three, including Thomas Rose, Jr., who would himself join the BPD in 1998 and is currently a sergeant.

Then-Muhammad was sentenced to 26-to-30 years in prison for Rose’s killing, which the jury deemed manslaughter. He only served 15 years and was released in 2009.

The murder of Officer Rose wasn’t the first time McCullough killed somebody.

He was previously convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of Angela Skeete in 1986.

The Herald reported then that Skeete, originally from Barbados, and her husband, St. Clair Skeete, had opened Tracy’s Record Store in Dorchester’s Codman Square in February 1986. Just four months later, on May 27, 1986, McCullough or another man shot her in the face at point-blank range when she tried to stop them from stealing a stereo.

Police said then that Skeete had already handed over some money to the gunmen, but when she resisted their theft of the stereo, they responded with gunshots.

She held on for at three days, but would die from her injuries on May 30 in Boston City Hospital. She was 31, according to the death noticed published in the Herald. By November 1986, St. Clair Skeete was no longer able to make mortgage payments on the family’s home at 63 Homes St. in Dorchester and the bank foreclosed, according to a review of contemporary legal notices.

McCullough received a short sentence. Convicted for gunning down Skeete in cold blood, Muhammad received just a 6- to 10-year sentence in state prison, according to prior Herald reporting.

The time he served appears to be little deterrent from crime.

He was arrested again at the end of August 2010 for fleeing a traffic stop in Cranston, R.I. During the incident, the Herald wrote at the time, he then pointed his vehicle directly at police cruisers and for that got a charge of assault on a police officer.

“He keeps on re-offending,’’ Thomas Rose Jr., the son of murdered Officer Rose, said, according to Herald reports at the time. “Everybody who had something to do with the fact that he’s out now should be accountable for what he’s doing right now.’’

Muhammad had pleaded no contest just hours before that incident for stealing a large TV from the Veterans Canteen Service at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Providence in October 2009 and was given three years of probation.

Lengthy rap sheet

The criminal formerly known as Terrell Muhammad has a rather significant criminal history. Here are some highlights:

May 27, 1986. McCullough, then known as Terrell Muhammad, walked into Tracy’s Record Shop in Dorchester’s Codman Square. There, he stole money and a stereo and shot store owner Angela Skeete in the face when she resisted the theft.

May 30, 1986. Angela Skeete dies at Boston City Hospital.

February 1993. After being let out of prison for a manslaughter conviction in Skeete’s shooting death, Muhammad was arrested for trying to steal a radio in downtown Boston.

Feb. 19, 1993. McCullough is let out of his holding cell at the BPD’s Government Center station to make a phone call but instead lunges for Officer Thomas Rose’s pistol. McCullough would end up shooting and killing Rose.

Oct. 28, 2009. McCullough steals an LG 42-inch TV from the VA hospital in Providence, R.I.

July 30, 2010. McCullough pleaded no contest to the theft and got only probation.

July 31, 2010. Police pull McCullough over in Cranston, R.I., and he speeds off when they asked him for his license and registration. Prosecutors say that he purposely tried to strike the officers pursuing him with his car.

June 21, 2018. Legally changes his name from Terrell Muhammad to Joshua McCullough, as recorded in Suffolk County Probate Court in Boston.

March 19, 2024. Police say McCullough walked up to a woman who was about to make a deposit from her place of work at a North Providence, R.I., bank and punches her in the chest. Police say he took her deposit bag containing $12,665 and fled the scene.

March 21, 2024. Various Rhode Island police departments converge at McCullough’s Warwick address at 6 a.m. and arrest him for the Tuesday robbery.

Nominee Brian E. Murphy has been a partner at Worcester’s Murphy & Rudolf LLP since 2011. Before that, he was an associate at the Boston firm Todd and Weld LLP from 2009 to 2011 and a public defender at the Committee for Public Counsel Services from 2006 to 2009, according to the brief biographical entry included in Biden’s announcement.

Murphy earned his JD from Columbia Law School in 2006 and his bachelor’s degree from The College of Holy Cross in 2002.

The Bay State’s two U.S. senators wrote in a joint statement that they “applauded” Murphy’s nomination, noting that he was “highly recommended” to them by the Advisory Committee on Massachusetts Judicial Nominations.

“Brian Murphy has fought throughout his career to protect and uphold fundamental constitutional rights of all Americans. It’s a testament to Murphy’s respect for our system of justice that he got his start as a public defender in Worcester, giving him a critical perspective in the courtroom,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey wrote in their statement.

“His extensive experience as a public defender, as an attorney leading a small firm, and as an active member of bar associations across the Commonwealth make him an extraordinarily well-qualified nominee,” the statement continued. “We are confident that his years of experience and commitment to working towards justice for all will make him a valuable addition to the Massachusetts District Court, and we strongly support his nomination.”

The firm Murphy and Rudolph LLC was known as Murphy & Vander Salm LLP from 2012 to 2016.

Also named in Biden’s 47th round of district court nominees were Judge Rebecca L. Pennell for the Eastern District of Washington, Detra Shaw-Wilder for the Southern District of Florida, and Jeannette Vargas for the Southern District of New York.

Other judicial nominees in the round include Kevin G. Ritz for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Judge Rahkel Bouchet for the District of Columbia Superior Court and John Cuong Truong for the District of Columbia Superior Court.

Biden also announced Bobby Jack Woods as his nominee for United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

This is a developing story.

Read, of Mansfield, is charged with second-degree murder, motor vehicle manslaughter and leaving the scene of a collision in the Jan. 29, 2022, death of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, 46, her boyfriend of two years.

Defense attorney David Yannetti said Wednesday that the U.S. Attorney’s office for Massachusetts — which is conducting a grand jury investigation into the Read case — found that phone calls were going on immediately following O’Keefe’s murder between principal members of the defense team’s theory of a conspiracy against Read.

Chief among them are Boston Police Sgt. Det. Brian Albert, who owned the home at 34 Fairview Road in Canton where O’Keefe’s body was found. Also alleged to be in the call pool were ATF Agent Brian Higgins; Canton Police Officer Kevin Albert, who is Brian Albert’s brother; and then-Canton Police Chief Kenneth Berkowitz.

Yannetti said at a court hearing on the case that his team has filed motions for the call logs of each of them.

Wednesday was the last day for such motions to be filed in the case ahead of trial, so Yannetti also disclosed that his team had just filed another motion and would be filing yet another motion to dismiss by the end of the business day. The case is set to return for another hearing Tuesday.

Yannetti also expressed concern over whether the Canton Police were even capable of ethically investigating this case when their force includes the brother of a principal state witness and a man the defense says is culpable for O’Keefe’s death.

“My goodness … with all the allegations of witness intimidation thrown around by this DA’s office,” Yannetti said, “why is Kevin Albert not being investigated?”

He said that the Norfolk District Attorney’s office could have subpoenaed these records at any point and chose not to, whereas the feds did subpoena them so at least everyone now knows they exist.

“Thank God another law enforcement agency stepped in to do the job that the DA’s office would not,” he said.

Yannetti drew chuckles, as well, when he said the men had explained such a flurry of calls as merely “butt dials.” In an example, he said Higgins had described himself as being alone the night of one call of concern and was in bed with his phone on the table.

“I’ve never seen a case that has had so many butt dials,” Yannetti said. “His butt was in the bed, his phone was on the table. The two could not have met; there could not have been a butt dial.”

Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally described much of Yannetti’s motion as “largely inaccurate, full of hyperbole” as well as “unsubstantiated conjecture” and, finally, “the very epitome of a fishing expedition.”

The motions being argued are sealed, and so the further points of the motions and responses are unknown.

The extraordinarily complex case is made all the more so because the federal materials are also sealed, with access limited to the defense team and the prosecutors. Those groups are allowed, however, to make reference to the materials in court as needed.

It’s not just the public that’s left in the dark, however. Attorneys for outside interested parties, including the men whose phone records Yannetti is asking for, have also been barred from them.

Attorney Gregory Henning, who represents Brian Albert, said his client “does not have anything to hide,” but said that without review of the motions he had inadequate preparation to fully argue them. Henning added that he had confirmed with the U.S. Attorney’s office that neither his client, nor his client’s wife or daughter are part of the federal investigation.

Attorneys for Higgins and Berkowitz said largely the same thing, but that they oppose the motions on privacy grounds since they find the arguments not compelling enough to fish into their clients’ personal lives. Attorney William Connolly said that his client, Higgins, is also not a subject of the federal probe.

That these attorneys did not have the full motions was news to Judge Beverly Cannone. She told Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally, the prosecutor, that she had ordered the motions be given to the outside parties for this very reason.

Lally said he had sent only the cover sheets “out of an abundance of caution” based on his reading of the law. Cannone said she understood but overruled him and ordered the full motions be made available to the counsel for each of the parties.

It was a sequel of sorts to the last hearing, in which Read’s other defense attorney Alan Jackson said that information in that federal probe also indicates a clear relationship between primary Massachusetts State Police investigator Trooper Michael Proctor members of a family the defense has held up as actually culpable for the murder of Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe. Jackson is based in California and was not present Wednesday.

Jackson said then that Proctor had an extensive history with the Albert family, which includes Boston Police Sgt. Brian Albert, one of the primary people in the defense’s third-party culpability defense.

The relationship was most clear with Brian Albert’s wife, Elizabeth Albert. Jackson said that Julie Albert had texted Proctor to offer a “thank you gift” for his handling of the investigation, an offer that Proctor not only didn’t decline and report to the DA but asked for another gift for his wife, Elizabeth. This was in addition to Proctor allegedly asking Julie Albert to babysit his kid.

These things, as well as others, Jackson said at the March 12 hearing, “would be enough to dismiss the indictments, but the cumulative effect is too much for the court to ignore.” He argued the indictments should be dismissed.

The MSP confirmed following that hearing that Proctor was under an internal investigation, but would not provide any details.

Cheung, 44, appeared in a suit and sat with his attorney, Peter Parker, in a gallery pew as the pair waited for the prosecutors to show up for the 10 a.m. hearing in which still-sealed defense motions to dismiss the case were to be argued.

Prosecutors Ian Polumbaum and Erin Murphy were 15 minutes late because they had just won their sentencing recommendations in the case of ex-MBTA Transit Police Officer Shawn McCarthy for the rape of two women while on duty in 2012. That sentencing took place on the floor above.

When they did arrive, the expected argument did not take place. Instead, Judge Michael Doolin continued the motions arguments to April 24.

Cheung was in 2022 charged with the serial rape of women and girls twenty years ago. Prosecutors couldn’t overcome the statute of limitations placed on the rape of adults and so as the case continued, the charges of alleged rapes against women were tossed and the case honed down to the child rapes that took place in 2005 and 2006.

Cheung has purportedly requested the remaining charges be tossed, largely on the grounds that the prosecution should not have used the adult rapes as evidence of a pattern during the grand jury presentation since they were unprosecutable crimes.

“Purported” because the defense motions were filed under seal and their details are only picked up from the prosecution’s response motion. They argued in their response that whether the alleged rapes were prosecutable or not was beside the point, as they still worked to establish a pattern that could be identified in the rapes of the children.

A Middlesex Superior Court jury found Abel Hernandez, 41, guilty of threatening to commit a crime and mayhem after a four day trial. Judge Catherine Ham sentenced him to four to five years in state prison for the mayhem charge. He’ll also have to do three years of probation.

Hernandez had hosted a soccer game viewing party at his Broad Street house in Marlboro. At some point, he and at least one other man got into a heated argument over some aspect of the game, according to prosecutors, and so Hernandez grabbed a machete.

“I’m going to kill you,” Hernandez told the man as he swung the machete, striking the victim’s forearm, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office.

The unidentified victim suffered significant injury, with prosecutors saying that his arm was almost “completely severed.”

Hernandez fled his own home after the chaotic moment but police nabbed him at the intersection of Church and Hildredth streets in Marlboro later that night, according to a DA statement.

In his defense, Hernandez claimed that he wasn’t there that night but was drinking elsewhere and then went to a woman’s house, according to the DA statement. Prosecutors showed during trial that the restaurant he claimed to be drinking at did not serve alcohol and was not open on Sunday, the day Hernandez maimed the man.

A jury sitting in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday convicted Shawn McCarthy, 50, of Maine but formerly of Wilmington, of three counts of rape. On Wednesday morning, Judge Joshua Wall sentenced him to six years in state prison on two of the counts and two years of probation on another. McCarthy must serve a minimum of four years on the concurrent sentences and must also register as a sex offender.

At the hearing, the two women provided victim impact statements. One of them said that “It was 11 years ago, when as a young, physically and emotionally immature girl, I was assaulted by Shawn McCarthy. At that age, I should have been taken care of, not taken advantage of.”

“I have spent my life since then reclaiming who I am. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and months turned into years,” she continued. “I’m leaving it all here in this courtroom today because I have a beautiful life to get back to.”

The sentence was largely in line with the prosecution’s wishes, according to their sentencing memo. The defense had asked for a sentence of three to five years in their own memo.

McCarthy immediately filed notice that he would be appealing the sentence, according to court records.

The rapes happened the night of July 6, 2012, while McCarthy was on duty and wearing his uniform when two women in their early 20s, intoxicated from their night out to celebrate one of their 21st birthdays, approached him near Aquarium station, according to prosecutors.

The 12-year veteran of the MBTA Police, against the recommendation of a fellow officer at the scene, offered to take the two women for a joyride in his police cruiser, prosecutors said. They set off through downtown with the cruiser’s lights flashing and eventually pulled over for a bathroom break in an empty lot.

It was here, prosecutors said, that McCarthy told the women that he wasn’t risking his job on this little outing for nothing and that the two women would have to pay up with sex.

“The women stated that they feared getting in trouble and had no choice but to submit as McCarthy subjected them to sexual acts,” according to the prosecution’s statement of the case. The document adds that he raped one of them against his cruiser and raped the other digitally in the backseat.

The other victim in her statement said, “I’ve realized that the first step to move forward with my life is forgiveness, not for him but for me.

“Coming here, being honest and facing what happened freed me from the chains that have held me back for too many years,” she continued. “The burden is gone. This isn’t my victim impact statement, this is my survivor statement.”

U.S. Connecticut District Judge Omar A. Williams sentenced Calvin “Cutty” Roberson, 41, of Waterbury, Conn., to 29 years in prison for his role in abducting at gunpoint Francisco Roman, Jr., from his home in Chicopee, shooting him to death and then burning his remains in Connecticut.

Roberson pleaded guilty in federal court in Hartford to conspiracy to commit kidnaping, and causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm.

A co-defendant, Brandon “B” Batiste, 36, of Chicopee, pleaded guilty to the same charges and was sentenced to 42 years in prison in December. Batiste was the planner of the kill, according to documents, and had enlisted Roberson, who he had befriended when they were in jail together, according to court documents.

“The brutality of the murder is striking,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

“After having accomplished the robbery, Roberson chose to continue with Batiste’s plan to murder Roman instead of letting him go,” the memo continues. “Roberson had many opportunities to put a stop to the murder, particularly when the first two attempts failed, and again after the robbery was accomplished. But Roberson willingly chose to go along with the plan to end Francisco’s life.”

According to court documents, Batiste and Roberson on Dec. 24, 2020, had a co-conspirator lure Roman to her apartment where the pair laid in wait for him. The plan didn’t work the first few times, but on Christmas Eve, Roman came and they were ready.

The pair ambushed him, handcuffed him and threw him into the trunk of his own 2010 Acura ZDX crossover. They then went to Roman’s Chicopee apartment and stole several items, including a Gucci backpack and a PS5. Prosecutors say Roberson drove the Acura as Batiste followed in a rented car.

Then, as the clock turned into Christmas morning, the murderous pair drove the Acura south into Connecticut on Christmas. On a residential Hartford street, Roberson pulled the Acura over and Batiste opened the trunk and shot Roman. When they heard gurgles they did it all again.

Roman was shot at least three times: in his shoulder, his torso and his head.

They then stripped the car of its plates and parked it on a public street in Hartford. Crossing state lines made this a federal kidnapping resulting in death case and not a state-specific murder case.

The next day, according to the indictment filed July 28, 2021, Batiste alone burned the car with Roman’s remains still inside.

Another co-conspirator, Shamari Smith, who Roberson lived with in Waterbury, Conn., pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about what she knew in the deadly case.  Prosecutors say she helped store and conceal Roman’s stolen property. She was sentenced on Oct. 13, 2023, to two years and a month in prison.

Prosecutors say that the plan to take Roman’s life began months before, in August 2020. It was then that Batiste, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, began planning Roman’s kidnap and murder “in retaliation for a prior altercation they had resulting in Batiste suffering significant injuries.”

In preparation, the memo states, Batiste went to one of his girlfriends to meet Roman and buy marijuana from him. But it was really a surveillance operation: Batiste wanted to know what car Roman drove, where they met and what his license plate number was. With that information, Batiste and Roberson drove up and surveilled their target.

Avery Lewis, 31, of Dorchester, appeared Tuesday morning in Dorchester District Court to be arraigned on a slew of charges related to an incident in the 9 o’clock hour last night that sent one BPD officer to the hospital.

Lewis had a plea of not guilty entered on his behalf to 10 charges, including armed assault to murder, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest and trafficking cocaine — as well as several related firearms charges, which were listed as second offenses in the reading.

Judge Jonathan Tynes ordered Lewis held pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for March 29.

The president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association said the officer’s union is “incredibly grateful and thankful that our officer is expected to make a full recovery.”

“However, in addition to the gratitude, our members are frustrated at what has continued to happen,” BPPA President Larry Calderone said in a statement. “Assaulting a police officer is egregious and never okay and any individual who assaults a police officer deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

Boston Police responded to the first block of Esmond Street in Dorchester a little after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday after receiving a call from a woman who said her child’s father was outside the home of her boyfriend and had a gun, at which point the call disconnected, according to the police report.

Police say they spotted Lewis at the scene. He was clad in a sweatshirt and sweatpants with a balaclava-style facemask and walking from the area of concern on Esmond Street toward Blue Hill Avenue. Police wrote that he displayed a nervous energy, “hypervigilance” in their presence and looked to be moving in a way to hide a firearm.

When officers got out of their cruiser to question him, he ran, prosecutor Kaitlin Tolbert said, and they pursued. An officer got a hold of him a few houses down and across the street, based on the addresses provided in the report, and then “one loud pop sounded, which the Officers immediately knew was a gunshot.”

Police wrestled Lewis to the ground. Lewis, they say in the report, while Lewis “continued to violently resist arrest and struggle.” Once he was subdued, officers wrote, police located a Smith and Wesson 9mm semi-automatic pistol “on his person” and removed it.

The unidentified officer who Lewis is alleged to have shot was hit on the left side of his chest. He was transported to Boston Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries. The officer’s life was saved, BPD Commissioner Michael Cox said, thanks to his department-issued bullet-resistant vest.

Criminal history

Lewis has a history of violence, illegal firearm possession and drug dealing, according to a review of criminal cases in the municipal courts of Dorchester and Roxbury.

In November 2017, Lewis was charged with distributing crack, with the charge elevated because it was sold near a school.

Another case the district court handled was in 2009, in which he was charged with stealing a man’s phone at gunpoint on an MBTA bus. According to the police report, the victim was on the phone with his mother when Avery and another young person walked onto the bus, sat down next to him and took immediate interest in his T-Mobile Sidekick LX 2009 cell phone.

The pair then asked him if he was from “Seaver Street,” to which the man replied that he didn’t “roll with gangs,” according to a later interview with Transit Police detectives. They then demanded that the man hand over his phone, but he refused.

“You can either give me the phone now and nothing will happen to you, or we can get off the bus, you can get shot and I will take your phone from you,” Lewis is alleged to have told the victim, according to the later interview with detectives. Lewis then allegedly placed a pistol against the man’s hip

The victim handed over the phone and then the assailants forced him off the bus at Blue Hill Ave and American Legion Highway.

Lewis has had five criminal cases out of the municipal court in Roxbury. Three of them are minor, including possession of alcohol before legal age, trespassing, and a municipal violation.

The remaining three were more serious, including charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and carrying a dangerous weapon — but those were dismissed, according to records. But in the remaining case he was found guilty of carrying a firearm without a license as well as the same charge but modified because it was loaded, for which he received 18 months, according to court records.

In that case, Lewis was arrested in 2013 at a McDonald’s on Warren Street after there were reports of multiple gunfire events in the area. Police say he was one of three H-Block gang associates the recognized in the restaurant. Police say he was carrying a bag with a gun in it.

Police arrested Steve Stephen, 33, of Dorchester, late Wednesday night after they say they found a gun in a sock in a void behind an inside panel of a Dodge Durango he was driving. He was charged with a third offense of unlawful possession of a firearm, driving an uninsured motor vehicle and window obstruction.

Police wrote in their report that Stephen’s criminal record, which includes charges of murder, aggravated assaults and “numerous firearms charges,” including multiple firearms convictions in 2009 and 2014, prevented him from having a gun license in the state.

“Officers were aware that Stephen was an active member of the Thetford Street Gang,” the report added, “which has a significant history of gun violence within the Boston and Metro-Boston area.”

The arrest after 10:15 p.m. Wednesday was an interesting one, with the police report noting the defendant projectile vomiting after arrest and an unknown woman claiming to be his lawyer walking up and causing an “on scene disruption.”

A police unit made up of three members of the Boston Police Department Youth Violence Task Force and a member of their Massachusetts State Police counterpart, the MSP Gang Unit, were on patrol in the area of Talbot Avenue and Washington Street when they noticed the dark gray Dodge Durango “operating with excessively dark tint” and a registration that was revoked as of last September.

Later in the report, they noted that an analysis of the tinting showed it was at 3%, well below the state limit of 35%. But their initial perception of the tint as well as the revoked registration, the officers wrote, was reason enough to follow the vehicle onto Talbot Avenue and then onto Millet Street. They wrote that Stephen failed to stop at the stop sign, a charge the report notes he protested, so they pulled him over.

Police say they noticed that “several panels” in the vehicle “appeared to be off track and previously manipulated,” and they ordered Stephen out of the vehicle.

“Based on his significant violent firearm history, and nervous behaviors,” officer pat-frisked Stephen but found nothing. When they asked Stephen if he had any weapons or contraband in the vehicle, they wrote, he clammed up.

They searched the previously noted panels, which removed “effortlessly,” and allegedly found a black Bryco Arms Jennings 9mm pistol loaded with a 10-round magazine and a cartridge in the chamber.

A jury sitting in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday convicted Shawn McCarthy, 50, of Maine but formerly of Wilmington, of three counts of rape. He was ordered held in jail pending a sentencing hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

“This officer abused his position, violated his department protocols, and, worst of all by far, subjected two young women to sexual assaults that went unacted upon for many years,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement following the verdict. “But thanks to the victims ultimately coming forward, and the diligent work of investigators, justice in this case was sought and, with today’s verdict, delivered.”

Transit Police Chief Kenneth Green said in his own statement that it thanked Assistant DA Ian Polumbaum, the prosecutor of the case, for holding McCarthy “accountable for his abhorrent, predatory and vile conduct.”

“First and foremost, we must acknowledge the survivors in this horrific incident. We are in total admiration at the courage and bravery they displayed throughout this ordeal,” Green’s statement added. “The jurors rendered a thoughtful and just verdict. We are committed to restoring the faith and trust of those we are sworn to serve and protect.”

According to the prosecution, two women in their early 20s were drinking in downtown Boston when they found Officer McCarthy outside the aquarium station. Even though another officer advised McCarthy against it, according to court documents, McCarthy offered the two drunk, young women a joyride in his marked cruiser. McCarthy was uniformed and equipped with his service weapon at the time.

The woman took a ride in the cruiser as its lights flashed until one of them had to pee. McCarthy pulled over into an empty lot as a bathroom break and, according to prosecutors, told them that he wasn’t risking his job by giving this joyride for nothing. The women would have to pay up with sex.

“The women stated that they feared getting in trouble and had no choice but to submit as McCarthy subjected them to sexual acts,” according to the prosecution’s statement of the case. The document adds that he raped one of them against his cruiser and raped the other digitally in the backseat.

“He then drove them back to the area where they had met and warned them not to tell anyone about the episode,” the document adds.

One of the women soon after told a male relative what had happened to her and, in 2019, she divulged the encounter while filling out a form to get her own job in law enforcement outside of Boston.

The Transit Police put McCarthy on administrative leave as the investigation played out in December 2019 and he resigned from the agency soon after, according to the DA’s office.

A Suffolk grand jury returned the rape indictments against McCarthy on May 19, 2020, and he was arraigned on the charges two days later, according to court records.

Cory Alvarez, 26, pleaded not guilty in Hingham District Court on one count of aggravated rape of a child. He is being held in jail ahead of a dangerousness hearing scheduled for Friday.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security source confirmed to the Herald that they had placed an immigration detainer on Alvarez.

State Representative David DeCoste, who represents Rockland, said in a statement, “I am absolutely appalled by the incident that took place in Rockland today. Above all, my heartfelt sympathies extend to the young girl who has reportedly been subjected to abuse. The Commonwealth has failed this young girl.”

Rockland Police responded to the Comfort Inn at 850 Hingham St., where Alvarez lives, for a report of a sexual assault Tuesday a little after 7 p.m., according to the Plymouth District Attorney’s office. That hotel is part of the federal and state program to house migrant families, according to prosecutors.

The police say the 15-year-old girl who Alvarez alleged raped was taken to South Shore Hospital for treatment.

“This is an absolute nightmare scenario for this young girl and her family,” said MassGOP Chairwoman, Amy Carnevale.

“I earnestly pray for her strength and resilience in the face of this appalling ordeal,” she added. “I acknowledge the presence of well-intentioned and compassionate residents of Massachusetts who would like for the state to provide refuge for migrants during times of exigency.

“However,” she continued, “it is imperative to discern between appropriate and inappropriate methods of addressing this endeavor. The recent incident exemplifies our state’s struggle to effectively manage the migrant crisis, and the influx of additional migrants may exacerbate the likelihood of such distressing occurrences. There is a pressing need to revisit and amend the legislation pertaining to the right to shelter.”

Proctor remains on the job.

“We have opened an internal investigation into a potential violation of Department policy by Trooper Michael Proctor,” MSP spokesman Dave Procopio wrote in an email. “Trooper Proctor remains on full duty.”

Procopio declined to give details on the reasons for the investigation.

Proctor, an investigator assigned to the Norfolk District Attorney’s office, is all over the Read case files as one of the principal investigators.

Read, of Mansfield, who is accused of murdering Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe, her boyfriend of two years, by hitting him with her Lexus SUV after a night of heavy drinking at two Canton area bars.

O’Keefe’s body was found on the front lawn of 34 Fairview Road in Canton, the then-home of fellow Boston cop Brian Albert, who was hosting an after party for those who had gathered at the bars earlier in the night.

It was Proctor, according to court documents and attorneys for Read, who allegedly found pieces of the SUV’s passenger-side tail light in the area where O’Keefe’s body was found.

Defense attorneys have challenged the prosecution’s theory heavily and have painted a portrait of Proctor and other investigators in the case as being very friendly to Brian Albert and his family.  Read’s defense attorney David Yannetti said at the most recent hearing in the case that Proctor  texted Julie Albert to have her babysit his child.

Yannetti said Julie Albert even offered some kind of “thank you gift” following the initial stages of the investigation, which he said Proctor not only failed to decline but also asked for another gift for his wife.

Proctor has also been a focus of blogger Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney, who has been blasting the case in an attempt to defend Read.

Kearney has since been indicted on many counts of witness intimidation related to the Read case.

Special Prosecutor Kenneth Mello said that not only did Kearney directly harass Proctor, Proctor’s wife and other state witnesses in the Read case, but that he also enjoined his rabid followers — known as “Turtle Riders” — to do the same, sharing personal contact details to help them do it.