Wednesday, November 8, 2017

The Judge's Daughter

"A state trooper was ordered to alter the arrest report of a judge’s daughter. Now he’s suing" by Andrea Estes Globe Staff  November 07, 2017

Alli Bibaud had just crashed her car on Route I-190 in Worcester on the evening of Oct. 16. She reeked of alcohol and had what state Trooper Ryan Sceviour described as a “heroin kit,” including a dozen needles and a spoon. She admitted performing sex acts on men to support her heroin addiction, according to Sceviour’s official report, and offered him sex as well in return for leniency.

And she started ranting that her father was a judge.

“He’s going to kill me,” screamed Bibaud, the trooper reported.

Two days later, Sceviour was awakened by a state trooper at the door of his home, who ordered Sceviour to drive 90 miles to the State Police barracks in Holden. There, he said he was disciplined and told to remove Bibaud’s references to sex and her father, Judge Timothy Bibaud, who is first justice of Dudley District Court and presides over its drug court.

Now, Sceviour is suing top commanders of the State Police, including Colonel Richard D. McKeon, charging that they punished him and forced him to falsify records to avoid embarrassing the judge and his daughter, who faces several charges, including driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

“We expect the State Police administration to enforce the law, not break it,” said Sceviour’s lawyer, Lenny Kesten. “What they did to Trooper Sceviour is shameful.”

A State Police spokesman admitted that the order to change the report came directly from McKeon, commander of the 2,200-member State Police. However, the spokesman, David Procopio, said it’s perfectly acceptable for a supervisor to edit a police report. He also said that Sceviour was wrong to include comments in his report that were not relevant to Bibaud’s arrest.

“The revision consisted of removal of what the Colonel and senior commanders felt was a sensationalistic and inflammatory directly-quoted statement that made no contribution to proving the elements of the crimes with which she was charged,” Procopio explained in a statement.

Procopio declined to say how McKeon learned about the contents of Bibaud’s police report. He also said Sceviour’s punishment was not technically discipline, but “an observation report for corrective action.”

Judge Bibaud declined to comment for this story, but the controversy has been brewing since a blog called Turtle Boy Sports alleged that Bibaud’s arrest report had been altered. In a statement to Worcester Magazine, which reported on the blog post, he denied any involvement in changing his daughter’s arrest report.

“I absolutely, vehemently deny making any contact with anybody” about the report, according to the magazine. He admitted that his daughter is sick and needs treatment. The lawsuit does not say the judge requested special treatment for his daughter.

Bibaud’s arrest report has become a flash point between State Police leadership and the union that represents troopers. Sergeant Jason Conant, who approved Sceviour’s initial report, also was reprimanded for not editing the report sufficiently himself, according to the lawsuit. In addition, troopers shredded notes about Bibaud made by a third trooper, Ali Rei, who administered drug tests to Bibaud and wrote that Bibaud admitted to performing oral sex to pay for drugs, according to the lawsuit.

“I am deeply troubled by the serious breach of ethics perpetrated by the colonel and his leadership team,” Dana Pullman, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, said in a written statement. “For State Police leadership to demand falsification of official police reports and deletion of the daily administrative record is criminal.”

I'm sorry, say again.

Yeah, we “all have bosses.” 

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She's lucky she is still alive, hubba-hubba

If only she had called Waymo:

"Waymo’s autonomous cars cut out human drivers in road tests" by Daisuke Wakabayashi New York Times  November 07, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO — While the prospect of cars without emergency drivers may raise concerns among some passengers, Waymo said it had confidence in the safety of its self-driving technology. It has included backup systems like a secondary computer to take over if the main computer fails. And though the cars are driverless, they are not entirely without humans, at least for now. Waymo employees sit in the back seat of the cars, monitoring them, a company spokesman, Johnny Luu, said.

Taking the human out of the equation will fundamentally change transportation and change how people buy cars, said John Krafcik, Waymo’s chief, who was an executive at Hyundai Motors before joining Google.

“Because you’re accessing vehicles rather than owning, in the future, you could choose from an entire fleet of vehicle options that are tailored to each trip you want to make,” he said. “They can be designed for specific purposes or tasks.”

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Maybe then she wouldn't have sang like a jailbird.

Can't they just put her in seclusion?

"Boston’s elite are feuding over a $3,000-a-year private club in a $30 million building" by Katheleen Conti Globe Staff  November 07, 2017

A proposal to open a private for-profit social club in the Back Bay is turning into a rich story. As in well-off people lining up for or against a developer’s plan to convert an office building into a posh hangout where the city’s old-money elite can mingle with aspiring leaders from various fields.

Supporters of the idea include Peter Lynch, the legendary former Fidelity Magellan Fund manager; Ron Sargent, who was chief executive of Staples Inc.; nightlife mogul Patrick Lyons; and Cathy Minehan, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Opponents include several residents of the tony neighborhood, among them retired district court judge Brian R. Merrick, former Scientific-Atlanta chief executive Sidney Topol, and former state representative Paul Demakis.

The public dispute over the private club is rare among the ranks of Boston’s typically discreet upper echelon.

Any sexual harassment problems in there?

To some, the for-profit operation would be an incursion into an upscale residential neighborhood where just about everything can be described as “stately.”

Hexagon Properties, a luxury residential development company that the Boston Foundation’s board chair, Sandy Edgerley, runs, paid $30 million in January to buy the building. She wants to undertake major renovations to accommodate dining space to seat as many as 356 people, a rooftop terrace, 17 guest rooms, a fitness center, and a cafe.

Edgerley lives in Brookline but maintains an office in Haddon Hall. She and her husband, Paul, a well-known investor and former longtime Bain Capital executive, have helped to raise millions of dollars for local charities.

She hopes to attract about 800 members and charge them about $3,000 or less annually to mingle in a space meant to mentor and cultivate the next generation of leaders.

“The thing that’s bringing people together who are supporting the project is that it’s a bigger idea than just the building,” Edgerley said. “The goal here is to create an inclusive space that brings people together, across the generations and across sectors.”

Supporters, some of whom don’t live near Haddon Hall, hail her plan as forward-thinking. Opponents worry about traffic congestion, noise, and other disruptions.

The club proposal has generated hundreds of letters to zoning officials, whose approval is needed for the project. So many letters, in fact, that a day before an Oct. 31 zoning board hearing on Haddon Hall, officials still had not sifted through an unopened box of correspondence. The hearing has been postponed until Jan. 9.

The list of letter-writers reads like a who’s who from the worlds of Boston finance, real estate, medicine, law, politics, sports, and philanthropy. Most of the more recognizable names wrote in support of Edgerley — heavy-hitters like EMC Corp. heir Chris Egan, founder of Carruth Capital, and a former US ambassador under President George W. Bush.

Others in the Edgerley camp include Jonathan G. Davis, chief executive of the Davis Cos., a development company; Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation; Karen Kaplan, chief executive of Hill Holliday; and Robert Epstein, managing partner of the Boston Celtics and chief executive of Abbey Group, a real estate investment firm.

And both sides have employed lawyers and public relations specialists to spin the story line in their favor.

Edgerley has enlisted the services of attorney Mike Ross, a former city councilor and mayoral candidate (and occasional contributor to the Globe’s Opinion pages), and consultant Dot Joyce, former press secretary to the late Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Preserve the Back Bay, a neighborhood group formed by some abutters against the proposal, has hired real estate attorney Lawrence DiCara — also a former city councilor — and well-connected communications strategist Doug Bailey. The executive committee of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay also recently voted against the project.

Mary Lou LeSaffre, who formed Preserve the Back Bay and lives in a building that shares a wall with Haddon Hall, said she is not intimidated by the big names supporting Edgerley’s plan.

“This is a very well-connected, powerful woman; of course she’s going to have friends in high places,” LeSaffre said. “There’s powerful people and there’s a lot of money on both sides. There’s a lot of money in the Back Bay. . . . Sandra is a wonderful person and does great things for this city, but this project isn’t right for this area.”

DiCara said the neighbors he represents worry that a commercial development is being disguised as a social club.....

It's “about real estate. . . .  and regular citizens.”

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