Man convicted in shootings loses appeal

April 14, 2007

BOSTON
A stray reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks did not unfairly taint the trial of a software engineer who shot seven co-workers to death, the state's highest court ruled yesterday. Michael McDermott was sentenced to life in prison without parole after his 2002 conviction for murdering his co-workers at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield on Dec. 26, 2000. He argued in his appeal that a reference by a prosecution witness to the 9/11 attacks was so prejudicial, particularly in a case involving multiple murders, that the judge should have declared a mistrial. The Supreme Judicial Court disagreed, ruling the single reference by psychiatrist Malcolm Rogers was an attempt to explain the term paranoia to the jury. (AP)

A former Internal Revenue Service employee pleaded guilty yesterday to returning stolen merchandise to Home Depot Stores in exchange for store credit cards, the US attorney's office in Boston said. Robert P. Dooley, 47, of Salem pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud. Prosecutors say the employee of the IRS Andover Service Center defrauded Home Depot stores in nine states of more than $330,000. Over three years, Dooley returned stolen goods for the credit cards and sold the cards at a discount, court documents said. He would flash his IRS identification badge to reluctant Home Depot clerks to persuade them to accept the stolen merchandise, even though he had no receipts, prosecutors said. Dooley has been serving a state sentence for the Home Depot thefts since October 2005. (AP)

Boston University and local leaders honored its president emeritus, John Silber, last night with a gala that included a videotaped greeting from former president George H.W. Bush and more than 900 guests, including author Tom Wolfe. The university also announced that it is renaming its administration complex for Silber, 80, and his late wife, Kathryn, and creating a philosophy chair to honor Silber, president from 1971 to 1996 and chancellor from 1996 to 2003. Bush, in an excerpt of his remarks released by the university, praised Silber's leadership of a 1990s BU project to upgrade the public schools in Chelsea. "John's vision of the Chelsea Project, and his leadership in bringing it to reality, stand as a model for how the resources of a great university can be brought to bear on the problems of our inner-city schools," said Bush. (AP)

HARTFORD

A national review committee of the Episcopal Church has dismissed all the religious charges brought against Bishop Andrew Smith of the Diocese of Connecticut by leaders of six conservative parishes, the bishop said Friday. The parishes had alleged, among other things, inappropriate application of church law in Smith's decision to support the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the church's first openly gay bishop. The six Connecticut priests had asked to be supervised by a different bishop because they disagreed with Smith's support for Robinson. The committee issued an 89-page decision that was mailed on April 11 to attorneys for the diocese and for the churches. (AP)

AUBURN, Maine

A Sabattus man changed his plea yesterday from not guilty to not criminally responsible in the fatal shooting of his father at the older man's 65th birthday party. The plea paves the way for Scott Poirier, 34, to use an insanity defense in his trial, which is expected to get under way in September. Police say that Poirier stood in his father's yard and fired a rifle through a sliding glass door last Nov. 8. Roland Poirier was hit in the neck as he sat at a table celebrating his birthday with a roomful of family and friends. Poirier told police he had been sexually abused by his father when he was younger and wanted to make sure it didn't happen to his own young children, according to court documents. (AP)

PROVIDENCE

Governor Don Carcieri's office turned over records yesterday relating to a 2003 raid on a tribal smoke shop that led to the arrest of seven Narragansett Indians. The tribe members, including Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas, are charged with disorderly conduct, assault, and other offenses in the fight with State Police sent by Carcieri to close a tribal smoke shop that wasn't collecting state sales taxes. The Narragansetts filed a federal lawsuit after the arrests, contending that the state overstepped its authority by sending State Police onto land given to the tribe in a 1978 agreement. An appeals court rejected that argument. (AP)